Lefty playing right-handed: Tap test speed issues

Technique Critique
#1

Hey all,

I discovered this program during a pursuit to increase my picking speed. I’m a pure lefty but I’ve been playing guitar right-handed for over 20 years now.

I noticed during the tap tests that my motion in my picking hand (right) is severely limited when compared to my left hand, especially with wrist movements.

Right Hand

  1. Flexion-Extension - 190bpm
  2. EVH-style Tap Test - 150bpm
  3. Di Meola-style Tap Test - 170bpm
  4. Elbow Tap Test - 200bpm
  5. Forearm Rotation Tap Test - 160bpm

Left Hand

  1. Flexion-Extension - 210bpm
  2. EVH-style Tap Test - 210bpm
  3. Di Meola-style Tap Test - 200bpm
  4. Elbow Tap Test - 200bpm
  5. Forearm Rotation Tap Test - 190bpm

I feel pretty discouraged by this and am wondering if anybody might have overcome this situation in the past?

#2

I’m a lefty that plays right-handed. I’ve not quantified the tap tests in the way you have, but I think I’ve managed to get good speeds with my right hand.

In a less anecdotal situation… Michael Angelo Batio is left handed and plays right handed. In fact, he claims that he was an almost solely legato based player until he really worked on getting his speed up.

#3

Thanks for the response. That’s encouraging to hear.

#4

90%+ of raw speed is “figuring out how to do it right,” which must be experienced rather than constructed. I’m lefty playing righty and on a good day I can trem 16ths at 225 – but it took me a while to figure out how!

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#5

Gary Moore was left-handed and managed to work up quite a lot of picking speed.

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#6

I’m lefty playing righty and I cleared 240 bpm on both my elbow and forearm rotation tap tests. My wrist was actually the worst, at 190 bpm. Unsurprisingly, I do a wrist/forearm and elbow/shoulder USX motion, and can also do thumb/finger motion for 2 string sweeps and a fairly mid-tempoed DBX, although that isn’t something I work on at all.

Another few lefties who play righty to help you feel more encouraged:

  • Joe Stump (I actually asked him about this when I took lessons from him at Berklee and he said “well I figured when you start out you’re gonna suck either way, I might as well do it the way everyone else does”
  • Shawn Lane (!!)
  • Vinnie Moore
  • Kiko Loureiro
  • Robert Fripp

Anecdotally, I have noticed most of these players do not use a pure wrist form. Stump looks like a more forearm leaning forearm/wrist motion along with finger motion, Kiko uses a lot of finger motion, and Fripp, Vinnie, MAB, and Gary Moore are/were elbow players. Two of my guitar students who are lefties fell into this camp as well, with one being an elbow player and one being a Forearm/wrist/fingers player.

Again, this is purely an anecdotal observation with no scientific basis, and one glaring exception, which is Lane who was a Dart Thrower USX player. However, it does make me wonder if us lefties might tend to have less fine control of wrist motion and wind up resorting to other joints to help out.

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#7

Thanks for the encouragement, all. Just gonna keep on keepin’ on.

#8

Dominant lefty here that has always played right-handed. Understandably, I am slightly stronger (and faster on taps tests) with my left hand. How that actually translates to guitar, however, is negligible. As others have noted, it’s more about getting the ‘feel’ for faster movements, rather than worrying about raw tapping test speeds. i.e on guitar it’s a different animal.

FWIW, I have always made an effort to use my right hand in everyday tasks to minimise the differences between the hands and build a better ‘connection’ with the right side. Opening doors, carrying things, brushing my teeth, cooking etc. I think it has helped but YMMV.

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#9

Thanks @JAB. Would you recommend choosing a motion and just working on it in the ‘old school’ way (repetition with a graduated metronome speed for instance)? I have been spinning my wheels for days trying to find a tremolo form that gives me a satisfactory starting speed and can’t seem to get anything above 120-140bpm without some fairly spastic movement.

Here’s what I would consider my fastest tremolo form.

I’m wondering if I can start with this and hone it in with some repetitive practice. It seems to lack a clear escape motion but I think a slight adjustment might allow me to get away with USX.

#10

I mean, I tap-tempoed on my metronome between 180-200 to the clip you posted. Did you stop there due to fatigue or tension or did you just stop just to end the take?

I feel like sometimes this forum can make it seem like these things should click right away and then off you go, you’re shredding like Yngwie, but at least in my personal experience it took a LOT of trial and error, and fine tuning the basic motion that I’m comfortable with to cross strings, play different combinations of notes per string, synchronizing with my left hand etc, took months for me.

Also I made the most progress with this stuff trying to play songs / riffs / licks / solos than just picking or tremolo exercises. Like, instead of just working on your tremolo all day, learn a song that would require you to do that motion and get it going that way. Don’t be afraid of doing it wrong or getting some background tension. You can learn to silence background tension on a motion that is otherwise doing what its supposed to do, in my experience. Sometimes a little bit of boneheadedness can go a long way.

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#11

This is my alt account but his shit has at least from my perspective improved my rhythm somewhat

#12

Fatigue. To get to that speed I’m basically locking up and forcing a spasm. It just feels completely uncoordinated.

My impression is that one of the cornerstones of CtC is finding your fastest motion from the very beginning and developing that. I’ve been trying my best to espouse that philosophy but I just don’t think that’s how it’s gonna work out for me.

I mentioned in another thread that the course does a great job of laying out many permutations of grip and primary motion to give the reader options. But what happens if none of those are up to snuff? What if I can’t find a >180bpm sustainable tremolo with any of those combinations? I don’t know that I’ve found any decent answers to those questions.

This is a good reminder to not lose sight of the forest for the trees.

#13

You definitely can, but it can take a lot of trial and error, and this doesn’t mean resorting to mindless “reps” to “work it up” or whatever. Please trust me on this. My right hand SUCKED for YEARS, in fact, most of my early adult life as a pro guitarist my right hand was total ass. And then I figured out how to spastically move my elbow fast by taking a boneheaded approach to learning to play death metal. But thanks to a combination of CtC and my lessons with Tom Gilroy, I figured it out and at 42 years old I finally feel like I’ve got it with my current forearm/wrist USX motions. So, I feel like if I was able to figure this stuff out in my late 30s/early 40s, then anyone can.

And just to give you an idea how far I’ve come, on a good day I can hit speeds in the 230-240 16th note range with my FW USX motion for a good bar or two. And if I use my Wylde elbow/shoulder motion, I can sustain that even longer, but it is a more taxing motion for me, so I’m trying to get the FW blend to be my go-to for as fast as I can take it.

I highly highy recommend hitting up @Tom_Gilroy for lessons. He put what I learned through CtC together in a way for me that gave me really concrete and specific things to focus on, and explained a lot of the “why’s” behind developing motion mechanics.

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