OK guitar freaks,Todays lesson is Left handed guitar playing. If you follow you know that Jimi Hendrix was left handed. He played several guitars of course but one of his favorites was a Fender strat and mostly had a Right handed guitar upside down and the strings were reversed so that it chorded and played same as any standard guitar with the big string on top. This required the holding down of the BIG strings with the ferrule on the headstock instead of normally holding down the little strings. So they modified the ferrule a bit to hold the bigger strings. The angle of the headstock makes the farthest tuning machine to far away from the neck nut making it want to pop out of the groove so you have a tree or ferrule /post to hold downward angle to keep in place.I have seen some pics of guitars that people claim were his with the strings upside down along with guitar but I dont believe he played them that way. The most famous of the Lefty upside downers is the Legendary Albert King from Texas. He played a regular right hander and absolutely upside down. There may have been some tweaking for his tastes but basically a right handed player could walk up to it and flip it over and play it standard right handed. The reason for this Lefty style upside down playing was mainly back in the old days people were poor and could not find or afford a special left handed guitar so the learned to chord upside down,very difficult and a unique sound is produced because the strings are being bent the opposite way. Its easiest to PUSH the little strings upward when playing right handed but upside down the little strings are at the top so y to have to mash down hard and PULL them downwards. Albert King was a awesome player and the idol of Many famous players from Jimi Hendrix to Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton and many others. Which leads me to Todays selection for your listening pleasures,haha: A tune by Citizen Cope and Doyle Bramhall II played in 2013 at Claptons Crossroads Center Benefit show. You can see Bramhall is a Lefty and his guitar is custom. It like some others is a combination of the styles. His guitar body is a standard(maybe some personal tweaks) Left Handed BUT He has the neck of a Right handed guitar upside down so he is chording upside down the hard way but his knobs and body is standard style. I will post lyrics next (illegally of course) haha :-P ENJOY at proper HIGH VOLUMES :-) youtu.be/06jU-gv6YOA
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 01:22:49 +0000
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