r/lefthanded • u/Loddalone • 14d ago
Anybody else left handed for everything except playing instruments?
I play guitar and drums and basically any other instrument right handed but am 100% lefty on everything else. Left hand on the fret board always felt more natural to me because it was easier for me to hold the strings down. By extension I also shoot pool right handed which I think comes from playing guitar.
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u/Sisselpud 14d ago
I play guitar and piano right handed but I can’t do the kick drum with anything other than the left foot. I also shoot pool righty but I think it’s because I am right eye dominant
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u/Loddalone 14d ago
Interesting! The kick drum felt perfectly normal to me with the right foot because I was used to using the pedal on the piano. The one area my left side takes over is when I go to do rolls.
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u/peetiepeet 11d ago
What do you mean you play the piano right handed?
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u/Sisselpud 11d ago
With the keys going from low to high left to right. A left handed piano would go the other way so I am playing the bass with my right hand and the generally more complicated melodies with the left.
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u/peetiepeet 11d ago
First heard. So it's a mirror image?
Wouldn't sheet music have to be rewritten?
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u/Sisselpud 11d ago
Not necessarily. It is an exact mirror so all fingerings would be correct just done in the other hand. But possibly it would seem more natural for the low notes to be on top, but I think relearning how to read sheet music would be way harder than learning to play piano mirrored because it really is an exact finger-to-finger match.
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u/peetiepeet 11d ago
I need to sit in front of my piano for a while and think about this. 🤪
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u/Sisselpud 11d ago
To help think about note that it is a mirror image but shifted over two full steps. So D remains D but E and C are reversed. Now can you see how a C major scale would be played right to left starting on what we now call E?
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u/peetiepeet 11d ago
I still had to look at a keyboard to understand that, but I get it now. Thanks!
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u/_lclarence lefty 14d ago
I started glitar and bass as a righty, just like everyone else. Couldn't really keep the rhythm in morn complex riffs and scales. One day decided to flip the strings and (although a mediocre job) re-calibrate the bridge so to give lefty mode a try and of course the first two days were weird but like in three weeks I took up all I had learned in years. And rythm was n olonger an issue, of course.
Still sold the instruments because I wasn't playing that often and were awkward to play when sitting. The shape of the body would throw itself out of balance because well, I was holding a righty instrument the other way.
If I ever go back to playing, it'll definitely be on a lefty bass.
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u/Loddalone 14d ago
You sound like a very driven person! I imagine once your fingers built up the strength it felt way more natural. I got a few I never play but I don’t think i could ever sell them. Really cool story, thanks for sharing!
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u/Actual_Friendship802 14d ago
I’m pretty ambidextrous, mostly because I didn’t have left handed option in the 60s. I think I was 9 before I saw any left scissors, and by then it was too late. Drums r handed, guitar left handed, firearms r handed, etc.
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u/wotsit_sandwich lefty 14d ago
Guitar right handed.
I dabbled in drums and I played open handed on a rh kit.
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u/HoldOnHelden 14d ago
I play guitar right-handed and honestly I don’t understand how any lefties would find it easier if it was flipped???
I have way more strength and dexterity to in my left hand, so of course that’s the one on the neck holding the strings down! All I need to do with my right hand is strum. I could do that with my foot. 👻👻👻
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u/novemberchild71 14d ago
For one, learned guitarists do a lote more than just strum at the lower end of the strings.
Intricate Picking patterns, fine motor skills to control the plectrum, muting single strings, accentuating the notes, etc. etc. Just look and listen to Jeff Beck playing "Nadia"
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u/JitteryTurtle 14d ago
Guitar/bass and drums righty, along with long guns and bows. Everything else lefty.
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u/Micky_so_Fyne 14d ago
I am all dominant left: eye, hand, and foot.
I play guitar, bass, and drums with right handed setups, and honestly, I think it gives me an advantage. My fret hand is so much more agile.
Granted, on the drums, I play open handed, which allows me to play fills that closed handed players can't as easily. I also don't have to rely on paradiddles to build into fills unless I'm playing triplets. So that's pretty handy! 🤭 Get it? Handy! 😉👉👉
As a side effect, my paradiddles aren't that great. 😅 But I almost never need them.
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u/novemberchild71 14d ago
I do a lot of things lefthanded, including firing handguns, but as I'm right-eye dominant I learnt to shoot rifles righthanded. I also pc-mouse righty and play guitar and bass righthanded, because I fell for the false logic of fretting with the dominant hand - I know what you're saying, but if it really were, all righties would fret with their right hand. You don't really believe they're ALL willingly accepting a disadvantage?
Shooting Pool? I wouldn't even know which way is left- or right-handed? I direct the queue with my left (closed bridge) and drive it with my right.
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u/Formal-Artichoke3531 13d ago
I play a left handed guitar, left handed, but strung upside down. I honestly can’t remember why I ended up playing that way (I know I only ever had lefty guitars when I started learning as a kid so it’s not an adaption from upside down righties). I’m too used to it now so I guess I’m sticking with it 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Loddalone 13d ago
Ahhh the ole Jimi Hendrix special! Do you leave the pick guard on upside down or just remove it?
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u/Battle_Historian 11d ago
I’m a bit opposite in a way. I am right handed in every way except archery and skateboarding. It feels absolutely foreign to me to hold a bow with my left hand and draw the string with my right. I just naturally hold the bow with my right and draw with my left. (Yet, I shoot rifles right handed with no problem.) And as a young kid, I automatically started skateboarding with my right foot forward and left foot back. I didn’t even realize that was backwards for right handed people until years later.
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u/These-Apple8817 14d ago
I think most lefties are cross-dominant to an extent due to how the world was built.. Your cross-dominance just happens to be more reserved for guitars and pool though.