Slightly off-topic but not really..... (guitarists)

[Bryant]

This post is about right hand technique:



I have been playing guitar for 20 years and although I don't like to "toot my own horn" I am pretty good. One of the reasons I am a decent guitarist is simply because I have been playing for 20 years. Another reason I think I am a decent guitarist is because I don't constantly worry about what scale or mode I am playing in.
I have seen too many occasions where guitarist progress far on their weak handed technique (left for the right handed guitarist and vice-versa) and completely suck on their strong handed technique. Guys/girls there is a reason right handed people pick with their RIGHT hands and vice-versa. Learning different scales and modes will infinitely increase your prowess as a soloist, but if you do not learn to "phrase" and learn the right-handed techniques even more ambitiously than your fretting techniques, people like David Gilmour and Billy Gibbons will still kick your lefthanded technical asses as a guitaist. I am not picking at anyone here. I am simply stating that developing a right hand technique is just as, if not more important than a left-hand technique. For some serious listening, try Accept's "Metal Heart" and "Russian Roulette" for a guitarist that can do it all.


Bryant

 

[Nuclear Vampire]

Wolf Hoffmann rules.

 

[MFJ]

I kind of got screwed over in that area, see, I'm left handed, but when my parents first bought me a guitar, they didn't really know you could get a left-handed one, so I got my right-handed Squier Strat, and its been that way for five years. It never really occured to me that maybe my picking would be a bit more precise if I was using my left hand.. damn. Oh well, but indeed you bring up a good point. Nice topic.

 

[bobvex]

^
did it ever occur to you to flip the strings and body so that you could play it the right way?

 

[MFJ]

not at that point, no it did not.

 

[TheDarkProject]

I have seen too many occasions where guitarist progress far on their weak handed technique (left for the right handed guitarist and vice-versa) and completely suck on their strong handed technique.

Heh. You may have noticed from my other post on here that I'm entirely the opposite. My right-hand technique is better than anyone else I know in person, but my left-hand technique lags far behind. My left hand just doesn't feel as much under my control as my right, and practice doesn't seem to be making up for the 14 years from birth of ignoring my left hand.

 

[sixnutfury]

i am also a lefty playing righty. i have no problems here. its not who's the best guitarist ..its who's the best song writer in my opinion. later

 

[Medisterskaft]

Im a lefty who plays with my right hand. I dont think its a problem at all... When you practise scales etc., both hands get exercise. Dont you think that my left hand will rip like hell in the long run? What is phrase anyways?

 

[Bryant]

Wolf Hoffmann rules.

Very happy to see a Wolf fan around. Certainly anyone's "favorite" guitarist is simply a matter of personal taste but Wolf was one of the most well-rounded metal guitarists I have ever heard. He did practically everything well. He was severly underrated.


Bryant

 

[Bryant]

I kind of got screwed over in that area, see, I'm left handed, but when my parents first bought me a guitar, they didn't really know you could get a left-handed one, so I got my right-handed Squier Strat, and its been that way for five years. It never really occured to me that maybe my picking would be a bit more precise if I was using my left hand.. damn. Oh well, but indeed you bring up a good point. Nice topic.

I am both handed. I am left-handed at some things (eating, writing, drums etc.) and right handed at some (guitar, most sports) and ambidextrous in some things (hand tools) so I really didn't know whether a right-handed or lefty guitar was for me, but the left-handed felt very awkward from the start so I went with the right-handed one.


Bryant

 

[Bryant]

Im a lefty who plays with my right hand. I dont think its a problem at all... When you practise scales etc., both hands get exercise. Dont you think that my left hand will rip like hell in the long run? What is phrase anyways?

Phrasing is nothing more than the way you play a given note and/or the timing you use in the note or notes. The way you express that note basically. Don't confuse that with a "phrase" though which is normally a musical idea two to four measures long. The fretting hand of course is important for phrasing, but it is more of a picking hand duty. Once guitarists reach a certain level of technique, their phrasing is one of the big things that sets them apart from other players of equal technical prowess.


Bryant