Mockery Blog

As I‘ve mentioned before, I play guitar left-handed. And I won’t get into the question of whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing (or a little of both). It is, however, fairly unusual. Anywhere from 7-10% of the population is left-handed, but go to a guitar store and see if 7-10% of the guitars are. It’s rare enough that I’ve only ever met a couple of other southpaw players, and that was only when buying or selling a guitar.

There have been a handful of greats, though, who play the “wrong” way. As a fun (and hopelessly subjective) exercise I thought I would put together a top 7 (get it? 7%?) list. Here goes:

1. Jimi Hendrix. This one’s a no-brainer. He would have been #1 on the list of greatest right-handed guitarists, too, if he had played right-handed. He played a variety of guitars, both built left-handed models and righty guitars with the strings flipped. The greatest rock guitarist of all time.

2. Dick Dale. The king of the surf guitar was was and continues to be innovative and inimitable. He plays Fender Stratocasters strung upside down (that is, strung as if for a right-handed player). His machine gun tremolo picking and lightning-fast runs were unlike anything anyone else was doing when he appeared on the scene.

3. Albert King. The Velvet Bulldozer. A tremendous blues frontman, he had a commanding and powerful stage presence and voice that complimented his muscular and agressive playing. He’s another guy who played guitars strung for right-handed players, which no doubt contributed to his unique voicing and phrasing.

4. Tony Iommi. A founding member of Black Sabbath, Iommi has as much claim as anyone else to the title “inventor of heavy metal.” Since 1969, Iommi has been cranking out classic metal riffs, from Iron Man to War Pigs to Sweet Leaf, along with some surprisingly sweet and sophisticated prog-rock-inspired interludes like A Bit of Finger and Planet Caravan.

5. Paul McCartney. Surely the man needs no introduction, but besides being a very musical and underrated bass player, McCartney played guitar on several Beatles songs. Later on in Wings and his solo efforts he played many of the guitar parts.

6. Kurt Cobain. Not a great technical player, but composed some classic riffs and songs, many of which are very deceptively hard to sing and play at the same time. Would be rated much higher if this list was based upon influence, but even as a guitarist he could hang with the greats. Interestingly enough, Cobain wrote with his right hand.

7. Omar Rodríguez-López. Pompous? Yes. Often annoying? Well, that’s my opinion, but yes. Say what you will, (and obviously I’m not a great fan,) the guitarist for At the Drive In and The Mars Volta can shred.

So, what do you think? Anyone I missed? Who should I move up the list?

I play guitar left-handed, which is kind of a pain in the ass when it comes down to it. I can’t play anyone else’s guitar and they can’t play mine. When I go to the guitar store, there are usually only a couple of lefties and they’re usually pretty unspectacular.

Most times when I mention this to people they ask me why I didn’t just learn to play right-handed. After all, it would be my left hand that would be doing the “hard” part. And, in fact, I tried it when I was first starting. Thing was, it just felt wrong. I didn’t enjoy it until I flipped the guitar over and played it the way it felt right. Years later, I’m still happily shredding.

The suggestion to “just play right-handed” is well-meaning but wrong. There is a reason that right-handed people (almost) universally play guitar right-handed. There is a real connection between plucking and strumming and the dominant hand. It just works that way for most people. Fighting to overcome that natural tendency is not fun, and when playing music is not fun people do not learn to play. I think you’d be doing a disservice to an aspiring guitarist if you told him or her to flip the guitar over and play it the other way because that’s just the way it’s done.

Software, I think, is a lot like that. You can force people to try to accommodate your interface. If your app is important enough to them, they may even fight their way through the pain and continue to use it. But if you continually tell people to do things in a way that is uncomfortable and unintuitive for them, people who are just getting started are going to bail out and give up on you because it’s not worth the pain to them. If I ever get tempted to cut a corner UI-wise, I’m going to try to remember how it felt to try to play that right-handed guitar 15-odd years ago when I was getting started.