Should I be sinister about learning the bass?

April 9, 2007 9:48 AM

As I'm left-handed, should I seek out a left-handed instrument? I want to learn to play the bass guitar.

This is going to be a bit of a ramble, so I apologise in advance.

A long time ago I tried to learn to play the six-string guitar, with a pick/plectrum. I had a right-handed guitar, but struggled to learn. I think this was mainly a lack of application, but wonder if when pursuing my ambition to learn to play bass, I should take into account that I'm left-handed, in case it would provide advantages or make things easier.

My left-handedness isn't complete. I play racquet sports left handed, but would hold a cricket bat or baseball bat like a right-handed person would. I write left-handed, but for some reason find scissors and some other small tools easier to use right-handed. I bowl underarm with my right hand (e.g. at a bowling alley) but throw things, or bowl overarm (e.g. in cricket or, if I ever pitched a baseball) with my left.

So, I don't find the idea of learning to use things designed for right-handed people to be a big problem, but like many left-handed people I imagine that I don't realise there is extra difficulty for me in mastering some tasks involving implicitly right-handed tools. For all I know, this could be one of them.

The kind of music I would like to play is rock / post-punk style. Generally not the most technical kind of bassline. I have looked at musicians whose sound I like and most of them play with a pick/plectrum. There are of course "finger style" bass players whose sound I like, and I've heard that you can get the "picked" sound perfectly well using fingering, and that in the long term it is a more useful technique.

Oddly enough when I played the six-string guitar right-handed, I didn't find that my left hand was somehow magical at forming chords. That was still the hardest part. My hands are also large and I have thick fingers. I don't think that's stopped people in the past, though. :)

It doesn't look too hard to buy a left-handed bass, but I assume that relying on one will put me at a disadvantage in terms of ever borrowing one if I need to, or will perhaps make learning from others harder.

In short, are there going to be any advantages to me learning to play left-handed?

posted by galaksit to sports, hobbies, & recreation (21 comments total)

I'm left-handed, and while I'm no virtuoso, I play on a "regular" guitar. It all depends on how comfortable your hands are in their roles, since a guitar is such a 2-handed instrument. I personally find it extremely easy to form chords with my left hand, and even to finger-pick with my right, even though I'm hopelessly southpawed in most other applications.

Go to your local guitar store, and see if they have any left-handed guitars. Try one out. See how it feels. It might be right for your style.

Hendrix played a right-handed guitar upside down, you could always try that. :)
posted by jozxyqk at 9:56 AM on April 9, 2007

My ex-boyfriend teaches guitar and bass, and always recommends that lefties learn on a "regular" instrument, mainly for the reasons you cited: I assume that relying on one will put me at a disadvantage in terms of ever borrowing one if I need to, or will perhaps make learning from others harder.
posted by amro at 10:00 AM on April 9, 2007

Previously. Also, here.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:01 AM on April 9, 2007

I'm right handed. When I was a kid I played the trumpet for a while, and then switched to the french horn. Keying each of them, right-handed for the trumpet or left-handed for the horn, was about the same. It didn't really matter.

I'm a touch typer. Using a QWERTY keyboard with english, about 60% of the characters are typed by my left hand, but it doesn't slow me down any.

A guitar is a both-handed instrument, just like a computer keyboard. I see no reason why your laterality should make any difference regarding the instrument you choose.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:05 AM on April 9, 2007

Most of the coordination that goes into playing a typical stringed instrument comes from the player's left hand. Go standard.
posted by plinth at 10:09 AM on April 9, 2007

I am also left-handed and play a right-handed guitar. This is due to learning on a friend's guitar while growing up, and not having access to anything else. It didn't feel natural at first but that feeling quickly went away (When I played air guitar as a kid I always "played" left-handed). Now I'm glad I learned right-handed because I can pick up anyone's guitar and jam away anytime.

It also makes sense to me to use your dominant hand for the most complex action. It seems logical that it should be this way and I can't quite figure out why its normally the reverse. Like I said, I naturally wanted to play a guitar left-handed without knowing anything about it.

So if it really doesn't matter to you, I'd suggest playing right-handed. It will make it much more convenient when your rock star friends invite you onstage to fill in during a gig. You might even end up being a better player...but I'll never be able to prove it.
posted by markulus at 10:15 AM on April 9, 2007

I'm a lefty and I'm hopeless if I try to play guitar by fingering with my right hand. Seriously, it looks like I've never touched the thing before. Try both ways.
posted by danb at 10:15 AM on April 9, 2007

I'm a lefty and I play a right-handed guitar right-handed. I think I'm an ok guitar player (though you may think otherwise after hearing my song on MeFi Music).

I learned how to play left handed once, several years ago, just to see if I could do it. I stopped because I didn't want to take the time to get as good on a lefty guitar as I am on a righty guitar, and having one of my guitars strung in a way that I wasn't as good was frustrating when I wanted to use that guitar for something other than lefty guitar learning.

As others have said, the guitar isn't actually a left or right-handed instrument -- both hands are used in equally challenging ways. I think my extra dexterity in my left hand makes me a better player, actually. I would suggest that if you decide to learn left handed, learn on a guitar/bass that is strung righty, so that you can pick up any old guitar and play. One thing that sucks for lefties on guitar is not being able to play other people's instruments.

Oh, and Hendrix' guitar was strung lefty. So you can always do that if you play lefty, so that you can still get good deals on used instruments and play the guitar you want. Of course, Telecasters look stupid upside-down, so that's a downside.
posted by The World Famous at 10:21 AM on April 9, 2007

As I understand it, the only notable difference is that your primary hand will be better at handling rhythm. For example, not being a drummer, I find it easier to maintain a steady hi-hat beat with my right hand than my left. (I'm right-handed.) But, as a beginner that small preference will be dwarfed by your general ineptitude.

Definitely play a right-handed instrument. If you play a left-handed bass or guitar, you'll be stuck with your own instruments. You wouldn't be able to play other people's instruments. The selection of right-handed models from guitar manufacturers dwarfs the token number of left-handed models.
posted by Khalad at 10:22 AM on April 9, 2007

If you can afford it, I suggest you go left-handed. Joe Strummer was left-handed and played a right-handed guitar, this, according to him, is how he earned the nickname strummer.

Most of your sound and control comes from the picking hand, even on bass, and unless if you're really proficient with your right hand, you'll probably lose something doing it on a "standard instrument." The fretting hand is basically doing brute force work, with little delicacy (with the exception of vibrato or string bending)

On ebay, it actually looks like you can get a left handed bass cheaper than a similar right hand one (after a quick scan.)
posted by drezdn at 10:34 AM on April 9, 2007

Thanks to all for these very useful answers. I'm afraid I didn't find the earlier threads before posting, but they were very helpful too.

drezdn has picked up on the main thing which concerns me: that on a bass, picking or fingering may be the best use of the dominant hand. But I also agree with the overwhelming view that it may just be easier for me in practice to go with a standard instrument.

So, I guess the best thing to do is to actually try out a left-handed bass and see if it somehow just feels, er, right, as jozxyqk suggests, and otherwise go with the mainstream basses. Thanks again.
posted by galaksit at 11:01 AM on April 9, 2007

I'm a lefty, and my right-handed Dad insisted that I learn to play "regular" guitar because he was worried that it would be difficult for me to just pick up any ole guitar and play if I wanted to, and also because he thought it would be easier to teach me right-handed. This is really his only bad parenting decision that has affected me in the long run.

I definitely had an advantage at the beginning, as it was easier (I'd guess) to learn chords and scales with my dominant hand. However, after a couple years, I ran into a brick wall where my picking/strumming hand just couldn't keep up with my fretting hand anymore. I have a lot of trouble picking complex patterns or playing the bass finger-style.

I've tried to start over a couple times with both guitar and bass, playing left-handed, but I just can't swing it. I still love to play both, but I definitely feel somewhat limited.

I would strongly recommend learning to play left-handed. I definitely find myself playing my own instrument and being frustrated more often than I find myself just picking up someone else's instrument and being glad that I play with my non-dominant hand.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 11:27 AM on April 9, 2007

FYI - you can't just string a bass backwards. The nut will need to be changed out, the bridge readjusted for intonation (and maybe have to have the saddles moved), and if you have split pickups like a P-Bass, you'll want a new pickguard and may need the body routed to accomodate. That's probably $100 worth of work from a shop.
posted by plinth at 11:37 AM on April 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

People have thoroughly covered all the big issues here - let me just throw in one more oddity - the Albert King approach of playing right-handed instruments left-handed, WITHOUT restringing them. I don't know of any bassists who do this, and since the style of playing you are describing is not terribly intricate (no value judgements, I love that style of music, it's just not terribly intricate) I should think that it wouldn't be too difficult. And you'd never have to worry about not being able to play someone's instrument 'cuz it's a righty and you play lefty. Who says that the low-pitched strings need to be on the top?

(That said, I'm a lefty who plays righty. I've been playing guitar for 30 years. Before I got my hands on an instrument, I air-guitared righty - it just always felt natural to me. Is there one way the feels more natural to you?)
posted by fingers_of_fire at 12:11 PM on April 9, 2007

Just want to add, its very easy to try this and go "Oh, Im a lefty, thus I'm doomed" when learning how to play a guitar (bass or otherwise). Considering most lefties play a righty-guitar just fine with only a few exceptions, its probably safe to assume a couple things:

1. The horror stories are overblown. If so-and-so isnt as good as he wanted to be, he's most likely just rationalizing excuses. If the horror stories were true then every lefty player would eventually stop playing righty at some point.

2. You're learning a two handed instrument. You will need new skills for both hands.

3. Fender has done a great job with advertising its lefty guitars and using Jimi Hendrix's famous lefty-status as a kind of justification. You're not Jimi, but you are susceptible to advertising.

4. You rarely see this 'debate' outside the world of guitars, yet 90% of instruments out there are two handed and 10% of the populace is lefty.

That said, I wouldnt be surprised if playing lefty means less learning curve on your left hand and more on your right. So for guitarists it may come to an easy conclusion to go lefty because you 'feel' you can strum/fingerpick better, but at the end of the day your general n00biness means you've got a lot of breaking in to do, regardless of the setup of the guitar, and that short-term gain may not be worth locking yourself into a highly niche instrument.
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:29 PM on April 9, 2007

I'm a lefty-writer and righty-everything-else. I have a standard guitar. I really don't see the need for a lefty guitar or any other instrument. It just makes it so you can't play anyone else's instrument and your friends can't play yours.
posted by radioamy at 2:03 PM on April 9, 2007

Well, I'm a lefty who used to play bass, and did it with a lefty guitar. Personally, I don't think I could cut it trying to play a righty bass -- my right hand just doesn't have the rhythm to accurately pluck.

However, I'd definitely recommend you try a righty bass first, for all the reasons mentioned above. If you can hack it (and you might be able to, everyone's different) you'll be able to buy/borrow instruments with impunity, and others will be able to use yours.

You can also try playing a righty bass upside-down (so you're holding it lefty). If it works for you, you get all the advantages and only a couple of disadvantages -- you'll want to install a new button for the shoulder strap, you might want to add a pick guard, and depending on the model bass, the tone and volume knobs might get in the way of your arm.
posted by CrayDrygu at 3:26 PM on April 9, 2007

Oh, and for what it's worth, I cannot play Guitar Hero left-handed, despite having played bass that way. There's something very different about the mechanics of the game that just doesn't work. I do pretty well playing righty, though.
posted by CrayDrygu at 3:27 PM on April 9, 2007

Neurologists know that the dominant hand is usually clumsier with learning new tasks. There's some speculation as to why; it's probably because the dominant hand is called on to learn many more tasks than the nondominant hand and so the cortex that controls it is overtaxed with learning. Writing alone occupies several square centimeters of dominant hemisphere motor cortex; the non-dominant hemisphere has no such analog.

So use your non-dominant hand for the harder task. (I'm not at all sure, in the long run, that the fretting hand's task is harder than the picking hand's task, but that's a different discussion.)
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:32 PM on April 9, 2007

I'm a righty and feel the left hand is the worker and the right is the artist, but we won't get far without washing one with the other. Fripp, IIRC, is a lefty who plays right-handed.

If you can get to being OK playing with righty basses you'll save a shitload of money and gain a world of instrument choices, too. LH instruments is a real ghetto.
posted by Wolof at 12:29 AM on April 10, 2007

Oh, and a PS; you need a pick to get that punker sound. No amount of finger wizardry will replace it for that style.

Yes, I know Jeff Beck plays with nails, but he doesn't whack out straight eighths on heavy strings for hours at a time. And nails don't have the same attack.
posted by Wolof at 12:34 AM on April 10, 2007