RE: Left handed flamenco guitarists

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El Kiko

Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland

RE: Left handed flamenco guitarists (in reply to ToddK)

quote:

Hate 'em..

tough eh ???

What about ambidextrous?...i can write with either hand .. but thats about all . couldnt play guitar left of tennis or anything

My hand writing is terribly scrawly , with either hand ..scrawly sloping to the left or scrawly sloping to the right .
Funny thing is , when you write with your right you can see what you have written but not where your going ...
And with you left , where your going but not what you have just written ..

Teachers used to go nuts with me cos i would swap in the middle of a page , so it would slope one way then the other .. just to make it look worse ..and it is bad anyway ........

Sorry ... miles off topic now ...

Left handed flamenco guitarists...doesnt bother me so long as they play well ......

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 14 2015 19:43:35

Mark2

Posts: 1868
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco

RE: Left handed flamenco guitarists (in reply to Dudnote)

Dudnote,
I hope you are kidding because if not you have no clue. First of all it's not like you think when you go in a guitar store. There are zero guitars to play, assuming you want a decent one. The "joy" of trying out guitars? OK, but I haven't missed out on the joy of PLAYING good guitars I own, doing gigs, getting paid, etc. Oh , maybe you want to borrow MY guitar? Go ahead......try it out. Good luck. Parents? I was 16 when I started playing and my parents really couldn't tell me anything at that age. But I will take your advice if I should ever decide to take up juggling. ToddK, you are absolutely right. We all suck.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dudnote

quote:

ORIGINAL: ToddK
I'm with Dudnote, Lefty's are completely inferior. Hate 'em..

lol!!!

Take any basic juggling book and on page 1 or 2 it's gonna say something like "you'll find one of your hands will get this trick quicker than the other so it's really important to pay extra attention to the weaker hand to get it to the same level of ability".

Work on any motor skill long enough and in the right way you can get pretty close to completely masterring it. So if you're crazy enough to want to go through the process to learn flamenco guitar what's a few extra weeks at the beginning to get one hand to feel as natural as the other at holding a chord and strumming? I think teachers / parents are just giving in to kids not wanting to do it the "right" way. But they are denying those kids the joy of walking into a guitar store and trying out 15 different guitars.

vs.

which looks more fun?

It's like, imagine a future when designer babies are no longer controversial and your baby designer says to you "would you like a kid with a nut allergy? I can get one of those to you two or three weeks faster". Are you really gonna make your kid go through a life of "Great birthday cake, oh it's got nuts in it"

@Rui nobody "needs" a nut allergy.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 14 2015 20:39:33

Sr. Martins

Posts: 3077
Joined: Apr. 4 2011

RE: Left handed flamenco guitarists (in reply to Dudnote)

quote:

It's like, imagine a future when designer babies are no longer controversial and your baby designer says to you "would you like a kid with a nut allergy? I can get one of those to you two or three weeks faster". Are you really gonna make your kid go through a life of "Great birthday cake, oh it's got nuts in it"

@Rui nobody "needs" a nut allergy.

Well, I see the "right handed" police as being the nut allergy.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 14 2015 20:53:00

BarkellWH

Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC

RE: Left handed flamenco guitarists (in reply to Sr. Martins)

quote:

Well, I see the "right handed" police as being the nut allergy.

...not to mention that they are Guitar Fascists who would force "their way" as the only "correct way" on some poor, hapless beginner.

Aside from bringing up such non-sequiturs as orchestral violinists and jugglers, Dudnote wrote: "My old teacher used to say learning flamenco left-handed was completely stupid because both hands require an enormous effort to develop technique and if at the end of all that work and dedication you can't pick up any old guitar at a jam and join in then what the hell was all that effort for?"

The obvious answer, which clearly eluded his teacher, is you don't pick up any old guitar at a jam, you pick up your own guitar that you brought to the jam.

"Lefties" have it hard enough with the language connotations of "left." In French "gauche" means both "left" and "awkward." In Latin "sinister" means both "left" and "ominous" or "evil." Let's leave flamenco (and other) guitarists who play left-handed alone. I'm sure they can play just as well as the "Righties."

Bill

_____________________________

And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."

--Rudyard Kipling

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 14 2015 22:15:54

Ricardo

Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Left handed flamenco guitarists (in reply to BarkellWH)

The point of teachers (there are many like Dudnote's teacher), is not to put down south paws or challenge ability of estabilshed zurdo maestros...but rather to let beginner players take the easier path generally speaking. Goes for all instruments that might have left vs right issues and for good reason.

People seem to forget that there are plenty of RIGHT HANDED beginners that, without guidence, also might think chording and legato licks will be easier if the strong hand is on the fingerboard.

The issue in the end is more about the instruments themselves being designed a certain way...they were MEANT to be "ambidexterous" since after all, BOTH hands have to do complicated things.

Ricardo

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 15 2015 3:07:58

Dudnote

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 13 2007

RE: Left handed flamenco guitarists (in reply to Mark2)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark2
Go ahead......try it out. Good luck.

What a fun thread this is turning into - that's the first time I've been called a fascist. Seriously, I'd much much rather be called a lefty - come to the Caribbean and have a smoke Bill

I remember Joe Satriani saying something along the lines of "if ever I despair at my playing I just turn the guitar upside down and see how I get on that way." So egged on by Marks prompting to try here it is, most likely this will be the worst guitar video of this thread / week / year. It's not flamenco. It's not even well rehearsed. It's full of mistakes. In fact my cumulative life experience on playing upside before shooting this video must be all of about 35 minutes. The guitar was tuned using 7th fret harmonics and fretted notes amidst a cacophony of whistling tree frogs. The attack is horrible because I resorted to a DIY plectrum cut out of a vegetable box because otherwise my nails would snag on the up-down strokes. Watching this video may result in skin rashes, hyper tension and gastro-inflamatory disorders. It will also leave you 99% sterile. Any sperm that do remain will carry a rare gene that will render your future offspring dangerously hypersensitive to both peanuts, right handed pianos and gentle jibes on internet forums. This is the end of the health warning. To continue please click on the link below.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 15 2015 4:02:05

David Aragon

Posts: 9
Joined: Jan. 3 2015

RE: Left handed flamenco guitarists (in reply to Leñador)

quote:

I get a lot of messages excitedly saying "Otro zurdo guitarrista!! Ole tu!"

haaa!!! I'm a lefty and I thought the same thing. Up until I saw you strumming the banjo is when I figured it out. Good one though, it does blow peoples minds.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 15 2015 8:35:03

BarkellWH

Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC

RE: Left handed flamenco guitarists (in reply to Dudnote)

quote:

What a fun thread this is turning into - that's the first time I've been called a fascist. Seriously, I'd much much rather be called a lefty - come to the Caribbean and have a smoke Bill

I'm sure you're not a fascist, Dudnote. But as you might have noted by now, strong, controversial opinions often elicit strong responses on the Foro. Being a lefty myself, I have some empathy for the obstacles left-handers occasionally face. But my situation is a bit different when it comes to playing the guitar.

For my part, I am a southpaw in everything but the guitar. Have been all my life. Played baseball in high school as a left-handed pitcher and batted left-handed as well. Always wrote left-handed. Everything. But when I first learned to play the guitar at the age of 17, I began learning to play right-handed, and it felt perfectly natural. There was no "forcing" the issue. It just felt natural. And to play left-handed felt awkward. I don't know why, but playing the guitar is the only thing I have ever felt "natural" doing right-handed in my life. Maybe I am "wired" differently, with the synaptic impulses in the brain firing differently only when I pick up a guitar.

Bill

_____________________________

And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."

--Rudyard Kipling

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 15 2015 11:24:56