playing left handed guitar right handed

[dom...@optonline.net]

Yesterday I had the opportunity to play a left-handed guitar, myself
being right handed and the experience of figuring out scales,
arpeggios and chords with the strings being from high to low, tuned
EBGDAE was a braintwister. Interestingly enough, when I went back to
my regular guitar I started feeling and seeing things in a different
light, since I briefly crossed the wires in my brain figuring out the
neccessary motor functions to make the sounds I wanted on the
instrument.

Does anybody have any thoughts on this? Do you guys have any other
ideas for altering your conceptions of the instrument in similar (or
different ways) I feel as though it opened up a different part of my
brain. I find that its easier and more intuitive to play the guitar
as though it were a drum when I hold it as a left would hold it.

[Joe Finn]

<dom...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:a71e062e-05c2-4343...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

That's a really interesting post. I never tried playing a left handed guitar
but it must be pretty weird. I remember hearing a story about the late Joe
Zawinul from back in his Weather Report days. He had a keyboard wired
backwards so that the low notes were on the right and the high notes were on
the left. He thought this facilitated his compositional/improvisational
process somehow. It would certainly give you a fresh perspective.

When I feel the need to "alter my conceptions" as you say, I just sit down
and play the piano. Since I have no keyboard technique to speak of, things
become strictly intuitive. Having some sort of musical experience away from
your primary instrument is a refreshing thing. It improves your point of
view. .....................joe

--
Visit me on the web www.JoeFinn.net

>

[paulmitc...@gmail.com]

I find it pretty easy to play right-handed and upside down on a right-
handed guitar although I'm a natural lefty who also plays that way.
Maybe it's from a lifetime of picking up guitars that are strung the
wrong way around :)

As a result, if I'm looking to systematically derange the senses,
nothing works better than completely retuning the guitar. Many
guitarists from Carl Kress and Kurt Rosenwinkel to Davey Graham and
Joni Mitchell have entirely reoriented their writing and playing
styles via this method.

[andy...@mailinator.com]

> That's a really interesting post. I never tried playing a left handed guitar
> but it must be pretty weird. I remember hearing a story about the late Joe
> Zawinul from back in his Weather Report days. He had a keyboard wired
> backwards so that the low notes were on the right and the high notes were on
> the left. He thought this facilitated his compositional/improvisational
> process somehow. It would certainly give you a fresh perspective.
>

Thats true I saw Zawinul show this on a documentary , he demonstrated
it on camera, it was a few years old too so he may regulary have used
this. Playing normally is hard enough for me!

[Joe Finn]

<andy...@mailinator.com> wrote in message
news:8fae7faf-c947-46fa...@d45g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...

Andy: Did he happen to say why he did that or how it occurred to him to have
the thing rewired? I was just wondering. That's really thinking outside the
box from Zawinul. ......joe

[andy...@mailinator.com]

> Andy: Did he happen to say why he did that or how it occurred to him to have
> the thing rewired? I was just wondering. That's really thinking outside the
> box from Zawinul.   ......joe
>

From what i remember it was to challenge himself into thinking in a
different way.

It was on bbc4 as a tribute so I will try and track it down online for
you.

[andy...@mailinator.com]

this looks like part 5 of it, i remember the punch bag....good luck
tracking it down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbwAaM8O7r0

[Joe Finn]

<andy...@mailinator.com> wrote

>From what i remember it was to challenge himself into thinking in a
>different way.

That's cool. thanks, Andy. ..........joe

[patpow...@gmail.com]

Sure. I'm learning to play the piano and it opens up new parts of the
brain. I put this off for decades because learning the guitar was so
difficult for me, but it's much easier to learn a new instrument once
you know music. About 90% is knowing music, 10% mechanical.

I once recorded a solo with the instrument in some random tuning. It
came out sounding like the most sophisticated thing I ever played. I
guess I was channeling my inner Miles. But I never did it again, I
decided to quit while I was ahead. It seemed like cheating.

Miles used to do things like take someone into the studio, give him an
instrument he'd never played before, then release the result to the
world. I think he did that to Herbie with the electric piano on Miles
In The Sky and with an organ on Jack Johnson. I heard Bob Dylan would
record with a bunch of session men who had never heard the tune
before. He was trying to get polished session men to have a raw folk
sound so he reduced them to desperately falling back to the simplest
licks.

There are all kinds of ways to get out of the artificial mindset that
comes when you know too much about music and get back into the right
brain. There is a book about drawing that has tricks like talking a
line drawing, turning it upside down so it looks like a bunch of
meaningless lines, copying it like that, then turning it right side
up. I've heard that this has been figured out well enough so that
almost anyone can learn to draw. With music once you have learned it
it is important to be able to turn off your mind and let your hands do
it. I heard a New Age hammer dulcimer player playing Keith Jarrett
style improv recently and was impressed. He gave a lecture afterward
and said he did it by thinking of geometric diagrams called sacred
geometry. I tried that and it worked. I think the main reason was it
gave the left brain something to do to get it out of the way and sent
the improv in a certain cyclic rhythmic direction.

Playing the left-handed guitar got you back into your Zen beginner
mind.