My guitar attachment from TRS arrived this week, so on Thursday I went and bought a left-handed guitar. Now I can start to learn to play all over again. It took me six years to get to the point where I could play a tune last time, hopefully it won’t take quite so long this time around.
Definitely feels strange to be making chords with my right hand, I have to imagine a mirror image of how I would normally make the chords with my other hand…which really threw me at first. When I was trying out the guitar in the shop I couldn’t understand why it sounded so bad, must be the guitar I thought. Then the guy in the shop asked what cord I was trying to make and pointed out my fingers were doing a back-to-front ‘C’!
Strumming is going to take some practice too, it’s a whole arm motion from the elbow now, rather than a wrist action. It’s tricky getting a smooth strum across all the strings, both down and up. I’m sure with practice I’ll finesse it, but, for the moment it doesn’t sound to good to say the least. Poor Kerry’s going to have to live through me murdering the guitar yet again.
The attachment from TRS is pretty cool, the pick is held in place with a couple of screws and the head of the attachment swivels as does the arm holding the pick, so I can position it however I want.
I restart my lessons again next week with Troy, whose been my guitar teacher for the last 4+ years. I’m looking forward to playing again, it’ll probably take a couple of years to get back to anything like I was, an opportunity to focus more on the theory this time around.
you may want to go electric soon… you could get a lot more out of it.
i am not even there yet with getting my prosthesis and so here is a pure-ty left hand 2-track sample (ok, i do a bit of muffling with the stump):
http://home.datacomm.ch/swisswuff/lefthanded1.mp3
Wolf, I'm impressed if you can play that one handed, I can't yet play that well with my prosthetic. My guitar teacher said I should get an electric, but I've always loved acoustic!
Hi I’m a 1st. timer hear. ingenious gadget, pick holder. I too have had to re-learn, but upside down and backwards though. Lost my right hand and wrist 30yrs. ago. It’s the lack of wrist action with the hook itself that crimps my style. I can strum down but not up. Does this have the ability to implement wrist action? Have you ever thought about playing slide with your left hook as you’d played before. I do, with the help of a string riser on the upper part by the tuning pegs so I’m not always fretting out on my dobro, holding a slide with my left hook turned up. I also use the arm itself that holds the hook for laptop style slide dobro like a pedal steel if you will. I’m a self taught multi-award winning piano player check out my documentary on my website, you’ll dig it!
http://www.michaelthehookdeutsch.com
thanks for your helpful info. I never thought about left handed guitar or dobro, the latter is what I prefer. That would be another challenge in itself. check http://www.johndennerrocks.com
another one handed guitar player. This cat will blow you away. I bid you peace!
I loved my flamenco and acoustic guitars too. It took me a long time to figure out the best electric setup for me just because there are so many options. Only since I set myself up with a really good amplifier (not too small) and a very versatile effect device (Boss GT 8) I started to love the e-guitar better. Distortion is not equal to distortion, and And the Aria Les Paul Copy feels very solid and substantial. At the end of the day you will practice most with the instrument you love most and so that’s the one to look for, go for or hang on to. Happy playing 🙂
One day I will convince you to go electric 😉 All it takes is a couple more groovy demos.
http://www.swisswuff.ch/sounds/lefthanded2.mp3
Turn it up loud :-)))
Michael, the device doesn’t give me a wrist action unfortunately, strumming is a little awkward but I can strum both down and up, although still hard to get it smooth.
Thanks for the link to John Denner, that is pretty amazing…maybe I should try electric. Wolf has certainly made a good case for me too 🙂