Guitar Enthusiasts
- Thread starter Bowser
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Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
I took the scratch plate off mine.
She is a little worn but nice guitar.
The bridge needs fixing it has split but I have been working on the little 3 string and the Seagull has been neglected.
I purchased a kids stat copy for only $70 at Kmart mainly to get bits and I will make it a small 3 string. It even had a little amp. Chinese but nice work great little neck. Shame to scrap it. I will take 3 of the machine heads for the one I am making.
Wish they were around when I was a kid.
Alex
I was watching a biography of Dick Dale, who is considered the king of the surf guitar. Early in his career, he became part of the development team for the Fender Strata-caster guitar. He had a unique playing style and was given one of the prototypes to try. Being left handed, he played the right handed prototype guitar upside down and backwards. He redid the cords, giving him a unique sound. He was involved in guitar development with Fender, for years adding many feature to the modern guitar. Dick Dale was also involved in their Fender Amplifier development, burning out hundreds of amps, forcing the state of the art to design new types of amps that could handle his hard driving reverb style.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Jimi Hendrix was also left-handed and did the same thing. However, by then left-handed guitars were routinely available--surely Paul McCartney had something to do with this.
As far as I know, violins are still only made for right-handed playing. I'm sure the reason is that almost all violinists play in orchestras, at least some of the time. They sit next to each other so they have to be pointed in the same direction to avoid poking each other's eyes out.
No, Jimi typically took a right handed guitar and strung it left handed. You can tell this from just about any close up picture of him on stage.
The only left handed violinist I can think of is whoever played with Bob Wills Texas Playboys. Don't know the man's name.
The only left handed violinist I can think of is whoever played with Bob Wills Texas Playboys. Don't know the man's name.
In the fiddle world lefthanded instruments are fairly common.
And they are more or less routinely available in the classical world as well - the major difficulty is not in finding an instrument:
http://www.captainfiddle.com/leftmusicmaking.html
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Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
I recall reading in a guitar magazine that he thought left handed guitars could not be as good as right handed guitars. Certainly he had opportunity to use a lefty but did not.
Alex
Yeah, don't know.
I've noticed that Dick Dale takes a left handed guitar, strings it right handed, and then plays left handed. Go figure.
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
From years ago, ruff and I never got around to doing a better one..first take.
Alex
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
I've met a couple of people who were given guitars by doting parents who had no idea how the things work. With no one around to help, they simply developed their own tunings and learned how to play that way.
One lived in a big city and eventually found mentors who showed him the conventional tuning. But the other lived out in the boondocks. By the time he met someone who explained the "proper" tuning, he had been playing his own way for many years and was quite happy with the results.
Back a while here people were talking about clawhammer guitar - I've run across stuff people called "clawhammer" guitar before, but it was always regular picking, often blues or Travis, nothing like the banjo technique. So I ignored it.
Then this came around:
different player (much different), same tech, a bit easier to see what's happening:
Then this came around:
Jesus, get a banjo already.
On the left-handed/right-handed matter:
Like most left-handers (I think), I'm largely ambidextrous as a consequence of... well, reality. Everything is made for right handers, and items made specifically for left-handers are often either sub-par, more expensive, or just plain harder to come across. What I've found is that when dexterity is fundamental, I'll opt for left-handed technique and/or implement; where strength is more critical, I tend towards the right hand.
That said, I am primarily a keys person, then reeds, and then percussion (tuned and un-tuned), where handedness is less critical (snare drum location aside). With strings, I'm a hack. But, as I've generally got more dexterity with my left and more strength with my right, I find it easier to play a steel stringed acoustic or an electric bass in the right-handed fashion on a right-handed instrument. With violin and viola, I can play either way--and I suck either way.
Like most left-handers (I think), I'm largely ambidextrous as a consequence of... well, reality. Everything is made for right handers, and items made specifically for left-handers are often either sub-par, more expensive, or just plain harder to come across. What I've found is that when dexterity is fundamental, I'll opt for left-handed technique and/or implement; where strength is more critical, I tend towards the right hand.
That said, I am primarily a keys person, then reeds, and then percussion (tuned and un-tuned), where handedness is less critical (snare drum location aside). With strings, I'm a hack. But, as I've generally got more dexterity with my left and more strength with my right, I find it easier to play a steel stringed acoustic or an electric bass in the right-handed fashion on a right-handed instrument. With violin and viola, I can play either way--and I suck either way.
I am also primarily left handed (meaning I write with my left hand). And, like most of the left handed musicians I know, I play a right handed guitar right handed. When I was a kid in the 3rd grade, I first picked up a guitar left handed. But my friend who was showing me how to play told me that I was holding it upside down... So I turned it over. Felt really odd...
50 years later it feels odd to hold it left handed.
50 years later it feels odd to hold it left handed.
Can't get that sound on a banjo.
I knew an old guy who spent a few years in an orphanage when his mother died (single fathers did not raise children, time and place), and was forbidden by the teachers to write or draw with his left hand - he ended up able to write with both hands simultaneously, the connected lower case cursive with his right and the punctuation, separated strokes, verticals and capitals, etc, with his left. He would occasionally use colored pens to write stuff for his children, the effect was striking enough that they saved some examples.
I can't tell lefthanded from righthanded musicians by ear, but it seems like a person should be able to - that it makes a difference, in some fairly deep ways. There are classical musicians who can tell when a player is using a different bow, after all.
With the exception of Ringo Starr, of course--a left-hander who set up his kit in right-handed fashion. Apparently, although who knows the veracity of this claim, this was why Ringo couldn't play proper rolls. Personally, I think he simply had no desire to--and his drumming really doesn't suffer from it.
Conversely, Phil Collins--who was very strongly influenced by Ringo--did set his kit up in a left-handed fashion. If you listen to "A Day in the Life" alongside Genesis's "Cinema Show," the influence is very much apparent--though the latter is far more... involved. And actually, Collins does sound very much like a left-handed drummer to me, though I can't quite place why that is.
With piano, organ, harmonium, etc., the difference, however imperceptible, is still there... I think. Nico, on the suggestion of Ornette Coleman in consideration of her very low voice, tended to play the melodic bits with her left hand and the harmony and rhythmic underpinning with her right. Largely homophonic and very much evocative of both ancient musics (the Greeks), pre-Baroque, and Carl Orff.
And honestly, I think that I sound left-handed. I've never developed sufficient skills to play the pedalboard well, just very basic minimal stuff, so I often tend to use my left hand as though I were playing a pedalboard, and I've installed a switchable 12-18 note bass pedal circuitry into my harmonium to compensate. Kinda weird, yeah, but a lot of combo organs were also set up with such options. And really, whether I "sound" left-handed or am simply asserting the primacy of harmony, rhythm, and tone coloration over melody (I'm a big fan of Messiaen and a lot of the contemporary Polish composers) is very much debatable.
Can't get a banjo sound on the guitar. But on the guitar that style sounds muted and clicky rather than plucky and bright.
Or haunted and close-in.
But I agree - the string gauge and nails raises the noise proportion past my preference. I like the phrasing, though.
Maybelle Carter used to wear a banjo style fingerpick backwards on her middle finger, and claw a bit with the one finger - she could get some of that sound and phrasing at a higher tone volume. But she wanted to keep the picking ability, not go all in. I'm thinking some of these clawhammer players are going to figure that out, and then string heavier and mic a bit differently.