Left handed Playing Right

HI all,
So I am left handed and have always played right handed guitars. Although I work on my speed and accuracy (plan to post videos) it rarely feels comfortable. I thought I would never get faster due to my dominant hand not picking. I then heard that MAB is left handed so that excuse went out the door. My question is do others experience this “weakness” in the picking hand due to being left handed? Think of throwing a ball with your dominant hand and how drastically different the throwing motion and results are by using your dominant hand.
I suspect I just need to train my right hand to do the mechanics but was curious if anyone else has run into this and/or specific exercises or techniques to address.
Thanks

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Im a total lefty but heres some good inspiration for ya

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I think the only weakness MAB has talked about is that lefties that play righty tend to not excel at tapping.

Why don’t you play lefthanded guitars if you are lefthanded?

I am left handed and I play right handed guitars.
@nitro1976, why? Because in the beginning nobody asked me what guitar do I want to play. There was no choice in that matter. Teacher gave me a right handed guitar and started to show me things. I guess any kind of guitar would have felt equally awkward in the beginning.
Actually, I’m not sure if I knew about the existence of left handed guitars at that time :thinking:

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Is it too difficult for you to switch back?

I know a guy in the same situation, a lefty playing as if he were right handed.

He said that having his dominant hand as the fretting hand enables him to play legato stuff much easier.

For me it is mindboggling, I can’t even imagine to switch hands (I tried it). My left hand feels ok as the strumming hand, but my right hand refuses to obey as the fretting hand.

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I haven’t even concidered switching hands. I really don’t see any issue here :upside_down_face: I remember trying to pick up my guitar upside down (just for fun) and it felt totally alien. I guess just as alien, as picking up any instrument for the first time, no matter which hand.

I don’t see any reason for me to switch hands now :innocent:

I’m right handed so I have no experience with that, but I’d say it’s as with so many things.
Try to forge strength of weakness.
Here’s one of my favorites (Eric Gales), he plays a right handed guitar and did not even change strings.
He adds some interesting insights in this interview on that topic.

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Dick Dale does this too. Probably why he tremolo picks on the low E so much.

Well there goes my excuse for being so slow!
I always thought I had a valid reason for being slow- I’m a lefty playing a right handed guitar.
Growing up, that’s what was in the house to play. Both of my older brothers played and I had to sneak in to their rooms to practice their right-handed guitars until I got my own.
My oldest brother is a lefty playing a right handed guitar too. And he is also a slow hand (and not in the Clapton sorta way).

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Steve Morse is left-handed and plays right-handed. He has stated, I believe in one of his videos, that to him it made sense because his dominant left hand is used for the more critical aspect of playing, i.e., fretting strings on the neck.

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I’m also a lefty-ish playing righty. Never really bothered me much, although my picking has always been weak while my legato’s sort of… not gonna lie, it comes easily. I really doubt that this holds anyone back much, particularly since lefties already have to adapt to a right-handed world.

I broke my arm in multiple places when I was young, about 5 or so, which forced me to learn multiple activities with two hands within a few years. As a result, I have no main hand, I guess I would be what is known as “cross-dominant”. To this day I’ve wondered how it affects my guitar playing development. I am able to do some things on the guitar with ambidexterity as a result, which is one consequence.

I am left-handed and I play right handed.
My right hand (picking hand) is actually way more skilled than my left hand which caused me many problems in the past, while crosspicking and tremolo on several strings came naturally to me.

On the other side, my left hand had many finger independance problems which took me infinite time to solve.

I’m fascinated by this topic. I’m righty plays righty. When I first started, I remember thinking it would be so much easier if I could have my strong,angle, right hand on on the fretboard, instead of my weak, uncoordinated left hand. I gutted it out and now I couldn’t switch if I wanted to.

I’ve talked to number of lefties about this, and they typically say they playing righty feels awkward, and they prefer playing lefty. But occasionally, someone will say they have always preferred playing righty.

New member here, 15-year player thinking seriously about picking up the monthly sub. Also a left handed player playing right with some long-term deficiencies in my right-handed technique.

Recently, I found when I flip my guitar over and pick with my left hand it is more natural and my hand is stable. Playing right handed, after really inspecting it, I do notice a little shaking and things have just never generally been clean.

Is practice really going to get me over a hump or is it a physical thing? I ask because when I try to do like 30-60bpm exercises picking just a single string over and over, my hand shakes slightly. I use pickslanting.

Currently I can barely play 100-120bpm 16th notes cleanly. Can’t downward palm mute to save my life and I feel like it’s a physical thing.

Any insight would be helpful, I’m a bit bummed about this realization… but eager to hear if it just in my head and in that case I can feel better pulling the trigger on a sub!

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It takes more work whenever I pick up the guitar again after a break, but after 2-3 months of consistent (not super intense) practice it comes back. Just takes time. I wouldn’t panic and switch to playing left-handed just yet :smiley:

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No real help but I played with a guy in band that was lefty and learned to play on a right handed guitar. Just turned it upside down so the low strings were towards his feet. He wasn’t a technical player but he was great none the less. I played so long with him that for a while after, trying to learn from looking at a normal guitar player threw me for a loop.

So I just finished watching Troy talk about dart throwing. I’ve been a lefty playing a right hand acoustic guitar for years. I’ve been really struggling trying to get my right hand to pick fast on one string. I can’t get past sixteenths at mm112 comfortably. So I thought, well, how do I throw a dart? I use my left hand! I picked up my guitar, turned it over and started picking with my left hand. Suddenly, I had so much more control, and could pick really fast, cleanly and comfortably. Of course the right hand doesn’t know what to do yet. So I came to this thread looking for inspiration. I’m going to borrow a left hand guitar and see what I can do.

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Hi.
I was the same. I was a lefty playing right handed and hit a wall concerning speed. Despite years of trying, thinking that I would get faster over time it never happened. After a 10 year break I bought a left handed guitar and relearnt. The difference was immediate. I could naturally play a much faster tremelo and just had more feeling and dexterity in my left hand. It was a frustrating journey at the beginning to relearn as in my mind i could play (relatively slow) things quite well but my fingers had no muscle memory. After a couple of years things did start to fall into place and five years later I am far more advanced than I ever was playing right handed.
Some people will disagree with this view and say that I was just doing the wrong motion playing right handed as Batio, Gary Moore and a few others manage just fine. It seems to me that they are ambidextrous and both hands, wrists, etc have the same level of dexterity.
I have, out of interest flipped my left handed guitar over to try a tremelo, usx dsx and dbx motion to see if it works knowing what I do now, but it was still hopeless and just didn’t have the same dexterity as left handed.
If you are one of the lucky ones that can play fast using your other hand then stick with it, but if you really feel that it’s holding you back, I would change over.
I know some people will disagree with this as it has been covered regularly on here, but that is just my opinion from my own experience.
Good luck.