New guitarist in my band plays different...

[tomanyjacksons]

My band picked up a new guitarist, finally, and it's a trip to watch him play. He uses a right handed guitar that I or any other right handed player could play and he plays it left handed, upside down and backwards. Trying to figure out where he's going when he's noodling is a bitch, as most of the music I've wrote came from just messing around. The guy's a great player and so far a great guy, we've got 2 lead/rythm players now with 2 different styles. We're gonna have fun writing music. Is it odd to have a person play like that? He says he plays that way because when he was young a left handed guitar was an option that his folks couldn't afford and was just stuck there. I didn't ask him why he just didn't restring it but I didn't want to seem like a jerk.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

I have a buddy named Chuck that plays like that. Yeah, it's a pain to figure out what the hell he is doing.

[Newc]

I've never understood why leftists just didn't learn to play righty? I mean you're developing a two-handed technique from the ground up to begin with, so there really shouldn't be any advantage or disadvantage to it.

Maybe they're browbeat with an outlook that says "if you're a lefty, you have to do it this way" just as rightys are?

[Twitch]

Our other guitarist is a lefty that plays right handed. We ran across a guy two gigs ago though, that was playing a Kelly upside down and backwards as the OP described. I have seen the upside down and backwards thing before, but not with a Kelly. It looked strange as hell.

[VitaminG]

I've never understood why leftists just didn't learn to play righty? I mean you're developing a two-handed technique from the ground up to begin with, so there really shouldn't be any advantage or disadvantage to it.

plenty of them do. Gary Moore is one.

My dad always wanted to play guitar but couldn't find a left-handed one that he could afford as a kid. So he took up drums instead. Now that he's pushing retirement age, I'm trying to bully him into picking a cheap lefty bass and starting a Grumpy Old Fart Blues Band. He'd have a blast, dudes his age that enjoy the same music, bitching about their gout

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

I had a buddy when we were kids, 20 or so, that was a lefty that played righty. He was not a bad guitarist but not really particularly good for a guy that had been playing 9 or so years.

He got a lefty guitar and re-learned how to play left-handed and he was actually a lot better after a few months... I don't think all lefties would have that happen, but it's not a one-size-fits-all kind of deal.

[RacerX]

Dick Dale is well-known for this - and was probably the first player to do so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Dale

http://www.dickdale.com/history.html

[VitaminG]

was he doing it before Albert King?

[Ward]

I've never understood why leftists just didn't learn to play righty? I mean you're developing a two-handed technique from the ground up to begin with, so there really shouldn't be any advantage or disadvantage to it.

That's what I did, and the reasoning behind why I did it. I figured starting from scratch would be the same difficulty either way, and I wanted to be able to use other peoples' guitars and not have to worry about finding lefty guitars.

30 years later I'm still happy with that decision.

[snake_pearson]

I was wondering how rare this was! The lead guitar player for one of the metal bands we play with is a lefty, so he plays a right handed Dean Mustaine V upside down (low E string=closest to the ground). I have no idea why he didn't just pull a Hendrix and restring a right handed guitar left.

[Misanthrope[ALWT]]

I'm a lefty and learned to play right-handed as well. It didn't feel natural but I didn't have a choice and I just wanted to learn so that's what happened. And now it feels incredibly foreign to play a lefty guitar, just because I learned the other way. I don't see what's so impossible about being a right-handed-guitar-playing lefty, so I'm just as perplexed on the whole situation. Only thing I can think of is how Dick Dale said one time that he just liked the sound and feel more than a regularly strung guitar. Oh well, live and let live.

[Sinistas]

Chris from Powerglove plays this way. Good stuff.

[len]

was he doing it before Albert King?

was going through the thread and was thinking the same thing !!
i have a dvd of roger moore live sans pink floyd and he has an icredible guitarist who play a a righty upside down left handed

[javert]

Waters!

[VitaminG]

I've only ever seen Roger Moore perform sans Pink Floyd...