New to the forum and G&L

[lefty_major]

I’ve been reading posts here for a good couple of months (love the lunch reports) and thought it was time to sign-on. I put in an order for a custom ASAT Classic with Guitar Adoptions so I’m going to join the pack.

I’m 45, live in Wisconsin, and just started playing guitar 5 years ago but put in many an hour practicing, mostly acoustic. I have an electric (Peerless Songbird) but was captured by some ASATs I had the chance to fiddle around with this summer (albeit upside down…. I’m a lefty). I do some songwriting / recording at home (MixCraft5), and just work on getting better and being at one with this whole process of playing and learning.

The ASAT I ordered is a Classic, natural gloss, black pickguard and the #3 neck. Fairly straight-forward order but I have a feeling it will be a excellent guitar. It’s nice to find a guitar maker that recognizes the lefties out there.

[Lefty]

Welcome to the forum!!

How do you like the Peerless Songbird? I was looking at one of those at Jerry's Lefty guitars a while back. He sold it before I got around to convincing myself I needed it! LOL!

The ASAT you ordered sounds like it will be a wonderful guitar

[Craig]

I’ve been reading posts here for a good couple of months (love the lunch reports) and thought it was time to sign-on. I put in an order for a custom ASAT Classic with Guitar Adoptions so I’m going to join the pack.

I’m 45, live in Wisconsin, and just started playing guitar 5 years ago but put in many an hour practicing, mostly acoustic. I have an electric (Peerless Songbird) but was captured by some ASATs I had the chance to fiddle around with this summer (albeit upside down…. I’m a lefty). I do some songwriting / recording at home (MixCraft5), and just work on getting better and being at one with this whole process of playing and learning.

The ASAT I ordered is a Classic, natural gloss, black pickguard and the #3 neck. Fairly straight-forward order but I have a feeling it will be a excellent guitar. It’s nice to find a guitar maker that recognizes the lefties out there.

Welcome!

I see our Lefty membership here just keeps growing [I'm a lefty but play righty].

When you do get your ASAT Classic, please do post a photo or two and add it to our G&L Registry.

[darwinohm]

Lefty Major, I am a Lefty Minor as I am left handed but learned to play right handed. I didn't even know at the time that left handed instruments existed. Welcome and your choice of guitar is excellent!-- Darwin.

[lefty_major]

Lefty -
I picked up the Songbird from Jerry’s. I think he had six of them at one time and I bought the last one. You could always bug him to get more.... I had some trouble with the B string ringing and buzzing in the bridge, but got that straightened out. The neck is perfect for me. The guitar is well built, comfortable and the P90s are great. It’s a pleasure to play and hard to put down.

Will do on the photos when I get the ASAT.

[Lefty]

Lefty -
I picked up the Songbird from Jerry’s. I think he had six of them at one time and I bought the last one. You could always bug him to get more.... I had some trouble with the B string ringing and buzzing in the bridge, but got that straightened out. The neck is perfect for me. The guitar is well built, comfortable and the P90s are great. It’s a pleasure to play and hard to put down.

Will do on the photos when I get the ASAT.

You probably got the one I was looking at!

If you don't mind my asking, what was causing the B string to ring?

I think I'll email Jerry to see if he has more on order. They are extremely hard to find here in the USA.

[lefty_major]

You may shudder, but I put a few drops of Elmer’s glue around the B-string saddle screw.

Songbird Story: Out of the box, I found the Songbird’s action a little too high and a bit too much relief in the neck. It still played great but I knew it needed a set-up, which I don’t know how to do. I also kept noticing this ring on the B string. The ring would occur on and off, whether I was fretting it low on the neck or it was open. Fretting high on the neck, no ring.

And then the ring would go away. And then come back. And go away. And come back.

I took it to a tech to have it set up and see if he could figure out the ring. Of course when I brought it in, no ring. He said that hollow bodies, Gibson in his experience, sometimes get some vibration or a ring from pickups or other hardware not being secure. He did the set-up, put some type of thin washers under the bridge and said he checked the internals regarding the pickups, etc. When I played it, no ring. (btw, He was very impressed with the guitar and thought it was as well made as any 335 he has seen, and far better than the Casino. I think he really liked it.)

I brought it home and after an hour or so of playing, the ring came back. I started examining it again and noticed that the screw that holds the B string saddle was loose and the others were not. I don’t know why the tech didn’t see this… I remembered a Sheraton II that a friend has and he had some type of wax in each saddle that his tech used on that particular set-up. I didn’t know what the wax was and Goggling guitar wax just returns wax for the body, etc. So… I took some Elmer’s glue on a toothpick and put a few drops around the screw and no ring. It’s held for a few months now. No ring.

But I’m still left wondering what type of wax could be used for a saddle? Maybe I should just replace the screw.

[Lefty]

A little glue won't hurt anything as long as you don't spill any on the guitar's finish. I had a similar problem on a Epiphone Casino that rattled when played. I decided it was caused by the type of bridge that Epiphone used - It has a spring that holds the saddles in place. I replaced it with a GOTOH bridge from Stew-Mac - Problem solved for about $20:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_ta ... ridge.html

The screws on the GOTOH bridge go all the way through the bridge thus not needing a spring. The Gotoh bridge is also wider which makes intonation much easier. But hey, if the glue solved your problem it's solved!

[jwebsmall]

I'm a lefty that plays righty also (less of a hassle).

[Lefty]

I'm a lefty that plays righty also (less of a hassle).

I would have done that but I think I knew early on that my right arm was not up to the task.. Believe me, if I was even slightly ambidextrous I would have chosen that route It definitely would make it easier to find guitars. I can't tell you how many guitar stores I've been in that have no lefty guitars..

[jwebsmall]

I think I could probably play guitar better left handed although I've never tried.
I wonder if you take a bigger hit on resale values of left handed guitars. There
is less supply but also a lot less demand.

I still write left handed, eat left handed and brush my teeth left handed. I have
learned to write right handed but not as well as I can left handed obviously.
Ironically I can write on a chalk board better right handed than left handed.
But you hold chalk like pointing your index finger. I can't shoot pool left handed.
This is really strange. Otherwise I do everything right handed that involves some
right handed instrument or tool. I can hammer nails with either hand which came
in handy working construction (summer jobs during college). Snow shoveling is
either handed which helps just like raking leaves.

When I was in the army a long time ago in boot camp and the drill sergeant
was screaming in my face and I confused left and right he was yelling don't
you know your left from your right trainee. I stopped for a moment not
having had access to a pen or pencil in 5 weeks and thinking gee I don't
know which is left and right until I thought about my M16.

In school all we had were right handed desks. When we were taking tests
I would sit away from other students so the teacher wouldn't think I was cheating
looking at the person to my right's paper because of being twisted in
the chair. Although I can write right handed it requires a lot more concentration.
So if I have to be problem solving it helps to not be distracted trying to do
the right handed stunt.

My boss (who likes guns) and I attended a hand gun class. I was last in the
class in marksmanship skills. On the final exam I didn't pass the range fire.
I said wait - can I retake the test left handed. Without any practice I nearly
aced the test. The instructor was saying hey dummy why didn't you shoot
left handed before. And I said I never shot a hand gun left handed before
(the empty shells come out the wrong side but it is worse with semi-automatic
rifles). So that got me thinking maybe I should buy a used left handed guitar
and see if I could play better. If it was close to the same I wouldn't bother
changing.

Come to think about it my picking skills suck. My focus on my left hand.
Maybe I should try left handed. I was at the local guitar center last night
playing guitars for about 2 hours. I didn't see one left handed guitar in
the store.

[Ledergeist]

Welcome Aboard lefty_major. Always nice to see more homestate folks dropping by...

Go Packers
BW

[louis cyfer]

I think I could probably play guitar better left handed although I've never tried.
I wonder if you take a bigger hit on resale values of left handed guitars. There
is less supply but also a lot less demand.

I still write left handed, eat left handed and brush my teeth left handed. I have
learned to write right handed but not as well as I can left handed obviously.
Ironically I can write on a chalk board better right handed than left handed.
But you hold chalk like pointing your index finger. I can't shoot pool left handed.
This is really strange. Otherwise I do everything right handed that involves some
right handed instrument or tool. I can hammer nails with either hand which came
in handy working construction (summer jobs during college). Snow shoveling is
either handed which helps just like raking leaves.

When I was in the army a long time ago in boot camp and the drill sergeant
was screaming in my face and I confused left and right he was yelling don't
you know your left from your right trainee. I stopped for a moment not
having had access to a pen or pencil in 5 weeks and thinking gee I don't
know which is left and right until I thought about my M16.

In school all we had were right handed desks. When we were taking tests
I would sit away from other students so the teacher wouldn't think I was cheating
looking at the person to my right's paper because of being twisted in
the chair. Although I can write right handed it requires a lot more concentration.
So if I have to be problem solving it helps to not be distracted trying to do
the right handed stunt.

My boss (who likes guns) and I attended a hand gun class. I was last in the
class in marksmanship skills. On the final exam I didn't pass the range fire.
I said wait - can I retake the test left handed. Without any practice I nearly
aced the test. The instructor was saying hey dummy why didn't you shoot
left handed before. And I said I never shot a hand gun left handed before
(the empty shells come out the wrong side but it is worse with semi-automatic
rifles). So that got me thinking maybe I should buy a used left handed guitar
and see if I could play better. If it was close to the same I wouldn't bother
changing.

Come to think about it my picking skills suck. My focus on my left hand.
Maybe I should try left handed. I was at the local guitar center last night
playing guitars for about 2 hours. I didn't see one left handed guitar in
the store.

i think you would greatly benefit trying to play left handed. doing both is not good though. really confuses the brain. the better you get as a lefty, the right hand playing skills will go away. i knew a few people who learned to play lefty after years of righty playing, because they were forced into it at a young age. in hungary in the late 60's early 70's it was still the standard to try to "flip" kids, often by tying the left hand behind the body, so they could become right handed.

[jwebsmall]

My father forced me to write right handed and that is where I learned to write right handed.

I'm the only one of 5 sibblings left handed and I know of no relatives that are left handed
so I was really odd man out.

It did mess me up with spelling from verbal spellings - I have to visualize the letters
because the wiring from the sound of the letter to the written letter wasn't formed right.

Ha - I just realized it's because it is wired up to my right hand and not my left. Wow
I never realized that until just now.

[jwebsmall]

i think you would greatly benefit trying to play left handed. doing both is not good though. really confuses the brain. the better you get as a lefty, the right hand playing skills will go away. i knew a few people who learned to play lefty after years of righty playing, because they were forced into it at a young age. in hungary in the late 60's early 70's it was still the standard to try to "flip" kids, often by tying the left hand behind the body, so they could become right handed.

Louis I think you did me a great service. I thought about playing guitar left handed as I was going to sleep last night. And it was only after I made the connection that letter spelling verbally was connected (aural versus visual) through my right hand and writing (visual) through my left that I realized you are probably right. I imagined playing guitar left handed and it felt like my now picking left hand was in the driver seat causing the music to flow serially and my right hand was musically/melodically flowing over the neck. And then I imagined playing right handed like I do now and all that soaring vanished. For those who are right handed who think this is rubbish just try thinking/playing left handed. Even with practice you would never be able to do it as well left handed. I've been doing everything right handed for so long where right handed tools are required I just thought mediocre was the way things were. I never made the visual/aural and driving/soaring connections with sidedness before.

If I replace the nut on a right handed guitar can I play it left handed or is that a mistake because of the horns and controls? I think I'm going out today to buy a cheap used import left handed guitar at Guitar Center or where ever and see what happens. That one guitar center I went to this past week - I don't remember seeing one left handed guitar in the entire store! I would have never fired the hand gun for the final exam left handed if my boss hadn't said why don't you give it a try. I don't think it would make any difference. When I was in the army I once tried firing my M16 left handed and got hot brass down my shirt (laying prone). That was the first and last time I ever tried that. But when I switched to my left hand in the hand gun class I went from #15 to #2 in class on range score with no prior practice left handed. The instructor was slack jawed. For 2 days and almost 600 rounds I was always last on score. Then he said you big dummy why didn't you do that before. That might also have something to do with hand eye coordination. I guess I thought about the guitar a few times but I didn't want to blow money on an experiment if the results would be little difference. Now I think it would be a huge difference. You know how different guitars inspire you to play/write different stuff? Just the mental exercise of imagining playing left handed I immediately felt/heard melodies with my right hand on the neck (I'm a song writer before I'm a guitar player anyway). And then I could imagine my left hand driving (writing) out the song.
I think this is going to work! I'll need a few weeks perhaps to learn to play leftie. I'll give a report soon. Heck I might just be a good player after all.

[Lefty]

i think you would greatly benefit trying to play left handed. doing both is not good though. really confuses the brain. the better you get as a lefty, the right hand playing skills will go away. i knew a few people who learned to play lefty after years of righty playing, because they were forced into it at a young age. in hungary in the late 60's early 70's it was still the standard to try to "flip" kids, often by tying the left hand behind the body, so they could become right handed.

Louis I think you did me a great service. I thought about playing guitar left handed as I was going to sleep last night. And it was only after I made the connection that letter spelling verbally was connected (aural versus visual) through my right hand and writing (visual) through my left that I realized you are probably right. I imagined playing guitar left handed and it felt like my now picking left hand was in the driver seat causing the music to flow serially and my right hand was musically/melodically flowing over the neck. And then I imagined playing right handed like I do now and all that soaring vanished. For those who are right handed who think this is rubbish just try thinking/playing left handed. Even with practice you would never be able to do it as well left handed. I've been doing everything right handed for so long where right handed tools are required I just thought mediocre was the way things were. I never made the visual/aural and driving/soaring connections with sidedness before.

If I replace the nut on a right handed guitar can I play it left handed or is that a mistake because of the horns and controls? I think I'm going out today to buy a cheap used import left handed guitar at Guitar Center or where ever and see what happens. That one guitar center I went to this past week - I don't remember seeing one left handed guitar in the entire store! I would have never fired the hand gun for the final exam left handed if my boss hadn't said why don't you give it a try. I don't think it would make any difference. When I was in the army I once tried firing my M16 left handed and got hot brass down my shirt (laying prone). That was the first and last time I ever tried that. But when I switched to my left hand in the hand gun class I went from #15 to #2 in class on range score with no prior practice left handed. The instructor was slack jawed. For 2 days and almost 600 rounds I was always last on score. Then he said you big dummy why didn't you do that before. That might also have something to do with hand eye coordination. I guess I thought about the guitar a few times but I didn't want to blow money on an experiment if the results would be little difference. Now I think it would be a huge difference. You know how different guitars inspire you to play/write different stuff? Just the mental exercise of imagining playing left handed I immediately felt/heard melodies with my right hand on the neck (I'm a song writer before I'm a guitar player anyway). And then I could imagine my left hand driving (writing) out the song.
I think this is going to work! I'll need a few weeks perhaps to learn to play leftie. I'll give a report soon. Heck I might just be a good player after all.

This will be interesting! Epiphone makes a very nice SG (G-400) left handed that is very reasonably priced - I'm pretty sure GC has that guitar in a RH, maybe LH? Good luck & let us know how it's going.

[zapcosongs]

Welcome lefty_major!

I just found and read this thread. Very interesting stuff. My brother is left handed and plays right. My boy doesn't seem to have much of a natural preference though, and this has actually turned out to be a bit of a curse. He's not real good with either one, plus I have to buy both right and left-handed baseball mits (for example) because he can't decide which arm he wants to use to throw on any particular day....

Hey, when are you expecting your new ASAT? - ed

[jwebsmall]

I went to Guitar Center last week looking for a left handed guitar.
The only one in the entire store was a Taylor low end acoustic.
They said they had a really hard time selling left handed guitars
so they rarely if ever stock them anymore. Of course you could
always order one. But I wanted to try playing it for 30 minutes
or so to see if I how fast I was picking it up.

I know the manager in the acoustic guitar department and this
is the store that has the largest high end acoustic guitar
sales volume in the country. He's in his mid 40's and has played
in a lot of bands and is a excellent player. Any way I explained
to him the experiment I wanted to try playing left handed and
he said one of his customers is a neurosurgeon with whom he
already had this conversation. And he said the brain guy
swore that the playing comes from the same part of the
brain regardless of which handed you play. That's does
and doesn't make sense. If you repeat actions over 3,000
times you start to commit them to muscle memory so
that is somewhere in your spinal chord and whether it is
the same nerves or not really wouldn't make much difference.
The real difference I would suspect is whether you are thinking
with the left or right side of the brain akin to thinking analytically
versus emotionally/creatively. I suppose the motor skills of the hands
ultimately reach to the left or right side depending on which way you
are thinking. So maybe the surgeon is right. In other words motor
control is not co-located with analytical or creative thinking. Any way he talked
me out of the experiment. Or more specifically he talked me out
of buying a guitar that would be hard to resell with such little demand.
Of course one could argue that the supply is likewise limited. Even so
it seems like the only guitars that move on Craigslist regularly are the Fender or Gibson
standbys. So the bottom line is I haven't tried the switch. And there
was one additional complication. I found a guitar I want that isn't
made in a left handed version. In fact they aren't even sold in
the U.S. Confession time. I ordered a Yamaha Pacifica 510V from
a Canadian dealer. The USA Yamaha distributor decided not to
carry this model and warned me don't call them if I have warranty
issues. Before you start laughing this isn't the typical
Pacifica guitar. I have a specific application in mind for this specific
configuration. I've tried a little experimentation thinking differently
and I'm discovering that I tend to favor the analytical and associated
that with my left hand and thinking verbally/emotionally/creatively
with my right hand. If I think of drive my guitar from my right hand
with the focus there away from my typical focus on my left hand it
tends to switch of the analytical. This doesn't make sense but it may
be just habitual with me at this point. Any way I'm going to experiment
some more about where my focus is when playing. I may be able to change
the focus on the hands without reversing the guitar. I guess we get into
ruts the way we think.

[Michael-GnL-Michael]

The brain is not as neatly divided into analytical and creative halves as pop psychology and prevailing broad generalities lead people to believe.

The consequences of right or left handedness are not that predictable or consistent with a right or left-brained dominance.


John,

I would like to encourage you to reconsider the flipped guitar experiment. You may discover something vitally significant. You could use any acoustic guitar with the strings flipped. Just invest in something closer to the cheapest functional acoustic you can find.


And, welcome lefty_major!

[jwebsmall]

Do I need to get a new nut so the strings in reverse order fit correctly?

Your idea is a good one since I can get an el cheapo acoustic for little
cash.

I understand Breedloves actually have thinner tops on the tremble
side versus the bass side. But the cheap acoustics should probably
be the same?

[Lefty]

Do I need to get a new nut so the strings in reverse order fit correctly?

Your idea is a good one since I can get an el cheapo acoustic for little
cash.

I understand Breedloves actually have thinner tops on the tremble
side versus the bass side. But the cheap acoustics should probably
be the same?

If you are going to buy an "El Cheapo" RH guitar & turn the nut around - providing you can do that without breaking the nut - you still will have major problems with intonation because of bridge design on an acoustic guitar. So, why not buy an "El Cheapo" LH guitar on the bay? Either way, the El Cheapo is at best a wall ornament & not an investment.

An alternative would be to buy a used good LH guitar on the bay. A used guitar has already been heavily discounted from it's original price. If you buy used, you should be able to resell it without losing a lot of money as long as you purchase a quality guitar. No?

There are a lot of used LH guitars on the bay, take a peek:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Electric-/33034 ... SRCHX:SRCH

[Michael-GnL-Michael]

Okay yes I see a problem, I just thought a cheap guitar would not even bother with intonation..........I was thinking really really cheap guitar just beyond toy level for the experiment.