Hacker News Reader

Comment by Miraltar | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it matters too much on a piano but on a guitar it does a lot because your hands do very different things.

I'm left handed and play the piano.

I think if I had a learned on a reversed piano - it would not transfer to a regular piano - I would be able to play better.

What which hand is responsible for (melody, accompaniment/rhythm) have very different dexterity requirements. Learning melody on the dominate hand would be preferable to me, in hindsight.

With an electronic keyboard, reversing the tones should be easy enough to do. However, I have not noticed that feature.

Wouldn't you want the more dextrous hand to be the one choosing which notes to play? My sister plays string instruments, and she has commented many times that I am lucky for being left handed because lefties have a better time with complex fingering.

I suppose that it's easier to start out right handed on guitar, though, when the right hand is more active than the left hand.

I'm a lefty and I played right handed guitar growing up. I never got very good at strumming and picking. Five years ago I switched to left-handed guitars and I think I'm much better than I ever was as a righty. Picking the strings well, to me, is the most difficult part of playing a guitar.

I've never really liked that reasoning. If that's the case, then right-handed people should be playing "left-handed" guitars, with their right hands doing the fretting.

Personally, fretting with my left hand just doesn't feel natural. When I first got interested in playing, I asked a salesman at a Guitar Center about left-handed instruments. He handed me a standard guitar, and showed me the fingering for a G chord. It was uncomfortable, but that's obviously expected for the first time I'd ever held a guitar. However, when I flipped it around and fretted with my right hand, it felt much more natural. So ever since, I've played left-handed.

I play a right handed ukulele left handed (neck in my right hand, strumming with the left hand, but strung normally). Since the body is symmetrical, and I learnt like that from the start, I've not really had an issue. Plus, it means I can pick up and play any old ukulele without having to re-string it first. However this doesn't work for something like an electric guitar which you cant really play "upside down"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com