Tips for a lefty

Playing Technique
#1

Hi everyone,

First time posting, I’m 41 year old acoustic player (I have electrics too but mainly acoustic). Been playing guitar since I was 11/12. I’ve always found speedy lick have not come naturally to me, I have a very hard time breaking 160 BPM with any kind of passage. In any case I’m glad to be here and have started going through the basic motion tests to see where I fall.

I know conventionally you’d just say, if you’re a lefty just reverse the exercises and away you go, however I’m a lefty who plays right handed, and what I’ve noticed is that all these functional exercises (like the scratching wrist ones) are significantly more comfortable and consistent with my left hand/wrist/arm than for my right. So I guess what I’m wondering is if anyone has any suggestions for this unique situation? I’m not willing to switch to lefty at this point.

Right now I’m thinking that maybe I should imagine I broke my left hand and start doing everything with my right. Or maybe this isn’t a big deal and I can work this out with more focused practice on the instrument instead?

#2

Go through Primer with RH as picking hand: conduct tap tests, take fastest/easiest motion to guitar, review picking motion tutorial for your motion, work on chunking by going over to Synchronicity seminar, work on single string sync, id escape, try two strings… profit.

#3

I’m a lefty who learned how to play both ways, then lost the ability to play either way due to focal dystonia and then recovered and went from ~110bpm 16th notes to 190-200bpm right handed (and I guess 250-300bpm as a lefty but I play mostly right-handed now) thanks to this community.

I feel like this is my time to shine and give back to the community, so ask away and I’ll be happy to answer based on my experience.

Would be happy to hang out over a Zoom call of southpaws.

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#4

Also lefty that plays righty. Right hand mechanics were not intuitive to me either, but thanks to CtC as well as Tom Gilroy and Chris Brooks, I’ve made gigantic strides with my right hand technique to where on a good day I can hit 16ths at 230 bpm for a bar or two.

Also, if it is encouraging, here is a list of lefties that play righty:
Shawn Lane (!!)
Joe Stump
Michael Angelo Batio
Kiko Loureiro
Vinnie Moore
Greg Howe
Gary Moore
Robert Fripp

Not to mention Miles Dimitri Baker is a righty that plays lefty, so basically the same issue just reversed. You can see magnet footage of both him and Stump right on this site, so you can see the movements they make having their non-dominant hand picking right up close.

I have made one anecdotal observation in that of all the guitarists I’ve listed, none seem to use a pure RDT motion. It seems they are either elbow (the Moores, Fripp, Batio), Forearm (Stump, Baker), or even thumb motion (Kiko, Stump and Baker again). Lane is a DT player.

Personally, I’ve found my form looking a lot like Stump’s as its gotten better, with mostly a forearm/wrist and thumb movement happening.

I have a theory that maybe RDT is somewhat similar to how our wrists move when we write with a pen or pencil, and so its a fine motor skill that isn’t as developed in someone who is left handed. But that is just a guess.

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#5

Thanks everyone, this is very encouraging. I’ll continue working on figuring out which motion makes sense for me. This far it feels like a play with a RDT but that was also the test that felt the most unnatural in the motion tests.

Really enjoying this site so far, watching the interviews has been really illuminating.

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#6

Consider accentuating the pickstroke that ends trapped against the next string and don’t think too much about the stroke in the opposite direction. Let it become a sort of afterthought.

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