Just feel like venting....

NewMan

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Some of you might know, a lot of you won't know, but I played guitar for around 15 years until two of my fingers on my left hand became stiffened and basically unusable due to arthritis, so I had to stop... Now, I've always been naturally left-handed, but was (self-)taught guitar as if I were right handed, so when my left hand packed up, I figured I'd eventually just teach myself to play in a left handed style - no problem right? Ha! Wrong! I've got a left-handed acoustic, but it's so infuriating to know all the chords, to be able to see them in your head and reverse them for the left handed style, but then to find your damn hand won't do what it's told! I feel like I can't even hold the guitar comfortably, just seems wrong and my fingers keep sitting over the strings so I end up muffling half the strings when playing a chord...

I know it's going to take time and patience, but damn, it's frustrating. The worst part is, I can't remember back when I started playing, so have no idea if this was how I felt back then or if I'm having a whole host of new problems.

Anyway, cheers for listening!
 
Your brains been conditioned over the years and has memorised everything including touch and feel, I can't imagine how difficult it must be to recondition your brain to think the opposite way round, would imagine your patience being pushed to the limits, good luck though.
 
Your brains been conditioned over the years and has memorised everything including touch and feel, I can't imagine how difficult it must be to recondition your brain to think the opposite way round, would imagine your patience being pushed to the limits, good luck though.

As charvelj says, knowing the chord shapes is half the battle, and I can easily transpose them in my head (apparently something us left-handers do very well, along with reading upside down and back to front, all that jazz) - to the point where I can make the chords with my hands "Joey-style" (from the episode of Friends where Phoebe teaches him to play guitar but he's not allowed to touch a guitar). It all falls apart when I try to make those shapes over the strings. It's more or less right, but like you say, just feels wrong. Even just holding the guitar feels wrong somehow, and often I switch back to right-handed just to see if that's how I would hold it "normally"...

Still, practice practice practice - hopefully one day it'll make one of those wonderful "overcoming adversity" stories... :D
 
just think of rick allen, he had to learn how to play the drums differently when he lost his arm.

keep going and one day it will just click
 
Hi
Have you tried using a capo on different strings. I use a capo on just the first 4 strings to get a good sound and playing situ. This might hepl getting you back into the guitar.
 
Hi
Have you tried using a capo on different strings. I use a capo on just the first 4 strings to get a good sound and playing situ. This might hepl getting you back into the guitar.

I've only ever used a capo to change pitch for all strings - never even realised you could use one on selected strings only! Will have to investigate that, I guess... Cheers.
 
You can play around with tunings and such but this is what i ment from a capo on not all the strings. Nice song too
 
:eek:

I wasn't as good as that before my hand went to crap... I'll be happy just being able to play the chords... :laugh:
 
A normal capo on the 2nd fret covering the 5 strings gives you a great sound and easy chords to play. might be like a drop D tuning but I dont know as I dont read music or cant learn ,Thick or something but I just play by ear or year as Im welsh :D
 

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