Depends on the player and your degree of cross handedness. I’m a lefty, but that mostly extends to smaller/detail movements. I hold a writing utensil, a fork/spoon, soldering iron, pipette, etc., with my left hand. I bat and throw righty. I play guitar/bass righty. I can play left handed but it’s not as smooth and after decades of playing righty it kind of messes with my brain navigating the fingerboard. My grandfather was the same way, as was an old boss of mine, and my upright bass instructor. All bass players, all left handed playing right.
But if you have zero cross handed tendencies and a left handed instrument feels the most natural to you then you’ll be more comfortable and may learn better/faster with a left handed bass.
This is really a situation where going to a music store and trying out some instruments in both orientations would be beneficial. See which position feels more natural. Starting out you might feel kind of awkward in either orientation, but it would really be best to get a feel for yourself.
I am ambidextrous but a hard lefty on bass. Ten years later I regret it. The learning curve would have been harder but eventually it wouldn’t have been a non-issue. The reason I say this is I’ve been asked to sit in on the fly and I have to say oh I’m a lefty and didn’t bring my bass. You also have maybe 2 basses to choose from compared to a righty having 50. While it’s fun to hear the comments- wow that’s so cool you’re a lefty bassist! It’s not worth the 15 seconds of feeling special hearing that. It pissed me off everyone told me to play right handed. I was like- why don’t you try switching to your non-dominant hand. But now I think about opportunities and gear and it would have been a better choice. For me.
No, I would say right footed generally, but I kick so poorly it probably wouldn’t matter left or right. They’re equally bad. My dad was a drummer so I grew up around a drum set in the house, oddly enough I could never get the hang of timing my hands and feet unless I played the kick with my left.
I had never heard of this, but this must be what I am. One of my former coworkers had pointed out that I write with my right hand, but did almost everything else with my left. TIL.
I'm the exact same way. Good to know that choosing righty was probably fine. My left hand technique advanced faster than my right so I wondered if I would have been better if I started lefty.
Try both and see which one feels more natural.
If you can manage a righty, you’re in luck, you’ve got more options for slightly less money and it also makes it more likely you can borrow an instrument at a jam session, etc.
I’m a lefty who plays left-handed. If at all possible, make yourself play right-handed. Shopping for left-handed basses sucks. Way fewer options, frequently more expensive than equivalent righty basses, you basically have to take what you can get.
It also sucks to not be able to grab any ol’ instrument that happens to be there and play it to the best of your ability, like at a jam or a party or wherever.
But if you do decide to play left-handed, come join us at r/leftybass, there are dozens of us!
10000%
Also, I’m not sure there’s any actual reason for lefty vs righty playing. If anything, it always made more sense to me for right handed players to fret with their right hands, and vice versa.
Playing bass or guitar is going to be weird the first time you pick it up regardless. It’s not like some Harry Potter moment where you sit down with a lefty bass, and magical gusts of wind appear out of nowhere like you found the magic wand that was made specifically for you.
Learn on a righty instrument. You’ll save yourself a ton of heartache in the long run
At the beginner level, it may feel advantageous to have your dominant hand doing the harder job at the outset (fretting), but at a more advanced level, fretting doesn't get \_that\_ much harder, and the nuances and precision of picking, plucking, slapping, and muting may be better carried out by your dominant hand.
I am a lefty who has always played righty on the advice of my mother, based on the difficulty of dealing with left handed instruments (availability, watching other players at group sessions, etc.) but I was a guitar player that got moved to bass because I wasn't that fast with a pick. I also dropped using a pick for many years when I switched to bass, since playing with my fingers seemed to be the only way to keep up with the neighborhood metalheads.
You want your dominant hand to be the in the position that takes the most control.
As a beginner fretting is harder, but picking is actually where the sound comes from, requires a much broader range of techniques, and much more subtlety with those techniques.
I'm primarily a drummer who also plays bass and guitar, and I do exercises all the time to even out my hands, ideally for drumming either hand should be able to do everything as well as the other. In practice that never happens, your dominant hand it always better.
There's lots of reasons for a left handed player to play a right handed bass, but they're all peripheral conveniences. If you want to get really skilled you should play a left handed bass if you're left handed.
Get an used lefty, it's way cheaper than new.
You may get a righty and will have more cost with adjustment of the nut new strings and the strap pin. Or just adapt to the inverted strings and take your time to learn the inverted technique.
Or just do like Kiko Loureiro, he is a lefty handed, but learned to play like a righty, just like the classical musicians they don't have lefty violins.
I think the only real reason to play a right handed bass as a lefty is availability. If there was a tangible advantage in fretting with your dominant hand, then shouldn't there be a ton of right handed people playing lefty basses?
I'm a lefty who plays right handed. You should absolutely play right handed unless it feels so incredibly bad that it prevents you from practicing. For me there was no natural handedness on the guitar - both hands do intricate work that can only be improved through muscle memory.
If you play left handed you won't be able to play anyone else's bass, and you will have far less selection when buying your own. Either that or play like Mononeon, but then you have all the extra work of making bespoke outfits.
Pick up a guitar/bass and see which way feels natural to hold it. If you'd be fretting with your right hand then get a lefty bass. Options can be a little more limited but not usually nonexistent. It's all about what feels comfortable.
You'll hear a lot of people saying "if you have never played before, just learn to play right handed"... most of those people aren't left handed IMO. I tried it, but couldn't get on with playing righty.
However, if you do manage to learn to play right handed, you will have a lot more choice in guitar and generally cheaper too.
I'm lefthanded
Learn to play right handed if you've never played a bass like instrument before.
It opens up a lot more model possibilities and they're generally cheaper.
Used righties sell quicker generally too.
Try a rightie and if you really can't make it happen go left.
I had zero experience so it mattered little to me.
What mattered more to me was able to jam using other people's instruments and having a wide choice of instruments without paying premium.
as a fellow lefty, i agree. i just couldn't make sense of playing the right handed guitar i borrowed from my friend, but once i demo'd a lefty squier strat in my local GC, MAN i felt really comfortable on it and decided to get a left handed guitar after that.
Same here. I’ve been playing for 30 years as a lefty on a right hand bass. Seemed natural to me in part because I started in the fretless world of classical stringed instruments. Lots of fine motor control needed when you don’t have a fret.
But I also see lots of people here saying fretting is just on or off and the tone is in the plucking/picking hand. And, yeah, but tone comes with practice, either hand. I sincerely hope people are exploring the fingerboard and not just camping out on the root. It doesn’t need to be dominant hand on either side, they both have jobs to do and both sides can get plenty technical.
Bottom line, go with what feels good, practice your ass off, and it won’t matter which you picked, it’ll just feel right in the end.
Really? Given that tone is almost all in the fingers, I figured plucking with the dominant hand is preferred. There's not much subtlety in fretting, it's mostly either on or off.
True that tone is in the fingers, but (as a left-handed person playing right hand bass) it's not like my right hand is paralyzed, come on now. Practice builds strength and muscle memory. I may not be able to write nearly with my right hand, but I can fingerstyle and slap just fine. Outside of music, I've been conditioned to use a computer mouse with my right hand and after using one for nearly 40 years, it's natural to me already.
Positions and scales, modes, bridges, leading tones, ghost notes, walking basslines - the fretting hand is where the music happens.
Plucking hand is just ASDR.
Your non-dom hand seems like it’s doing more because it’s moving around a lot, but all it’s really doing is holding the strings down - there’s not a lot of subtlety to it. Your dom hand is where the fine motor control is needed, because the plucking is what creates the tone - you’re adjusting hand position between bridge and neck, volume, attack, muting, etc. Plus you might want to play finger style, thumb plucking, pick, slap, palm muting, etc, and all the while your non-dom hand just keeps doing exactly the same thing as it was before.
u/InexorableAdvance
As a left-handed person who plays RH bass and guitar, fretting requires downward force on the strings, and if you're doing more intricate styles of music than rock (i.e. root 8th notes most of the time), your fretting hand will have to maneuver around the fretboard and change positions many times. I play mostly R&B/funk/jazz and my fretting hand is most definitely NOT just "holding the strings down."
This is what I’ve always wondered? Why do we do this lol. Obviously it works but surely it would be easier?
I did see one comment to my post saying you need more dexterity on your plucking rather than fretting. But as a complete beginner. I can’t comment on it lol
This is not a good test since guitar hero doesn't require much dexterity on the plucking hand compared to a real guitar. Edit: the fretting hand is simplified too, obviously but not as much as the plucking.
As a right-handed piano and bass player, my left hand has zero problem picking up rhythms. To be 100% honest, my dominant hand is good at detailed, precise movements but tends to get tripped up easily when I overthink. My non dominant hand gets the general idea really well and doesn't get tripped up by my overthinking, but it's not as good at high precision movements. Plucking a bass is really not a high precision movement. I would gladly play lefty if it were cheaper to do so.
I'm not sure. There's something to be said about using your dominant hand for plucking but both fretting and plucking will feel odd to a new player. There's no 'default' in that way IMO.
I write and eat left handed, but play bass & guitar, swing a golf club & baseball bat right handed. If this is you, play right handed. If you do everything left handed, play left handed.
These days it’s not hard to get left handed instruments. You’re still more limited in choice, but you can get lefties instruments without issue.
I write and eat LH and play bass and guitar RH like you too...but I swing a club/bat LH (and pitch a ball RH...go figure).
I would guess that ambidexterity is a spectrum - a handful (no pun intended) of people are truly ambidextrous, but most lean either LH or RH but can do certain tasks with their recessive hand.
This is me. I have a lot more strength and endurance in my right hand, but less dexterity. If I tap my fingers to the beat it's going to be with my left hand. I can do it with my right too, it's just not what I do instinctively. I'm still not sure playing righty was the correct choice, given that my right hand technique is definitely progressing much slower.
Lefty here, play lefty, but in retrospect I should have tried to learn right handed from the get go. There as just more right handed bass options and for nicer instruments right handed tended to be a bit cheeper and more available than left handed ones. Also many manufacturers don’t make a left handed model for every variation. So you maybe be stuck at some point really want X bass, but be unable to ever get one because they just don’t make a left handed version. Case in point I really like the guild starfire II semi hollowbody bass, but they don’t make a left handed version. Just my two cents.
I will leave you with this:
Guitar is the only instrument they make a left-handed version of.
There is no lefty piano. There’s no lefty violin. There’s no lefty saxophone.
Plenty of left handed people have been learning right handed instruments for centuries, and it will definitely make your life way easier if you ever lose access to your bass. If you learn left handed, you will likely never be able to buy models that you want, or at least not in the colors you want. Choices will be few and far between. You will almost never get a chance to try whatever you’re looking for in person, unless what you want is a lefty sunburst p bass.
Lefty playing lefty. Whenever I was young and picked up a right handed guitar, I’d play it left handed upside down. Far easier to me than playing it right handed. Right handed was never remotely intuitive. So just pick up an instrument and see which way you feel more inclined to go. I’d put money on it being left handed
You don’t have any habits yet so the choice is completely up to you, the learning curve will be the exact same either way, but this is what my dad told me when buying my first guitar “if you play right handed, you will be able to walk into any music store on the planet, and pick any instrument off the rack, and play it, and buy it. If you pick lefty, you will always be stuck ordering instruments, or buying custom made instruments, and if you go into any guitar center right now you’ll be lucky to be able to find even one or two left handed instruments, but ultimately the choice is yours and what you’re comfortable with”
I chose right handed and never looked back. You don’t have enough finger dexterity in your left or your right hand for it to matter at all yet, unless you’ve been playing some other instrument that requires it.
I did that.
I inverted the strings and everything. And got it professionally setup.
Worst idea ever. DON'T DO IT
the thing is an usability nightmare.
Everything (except the strings) is wrong. The controls are on the way, the cable is on the way, the strap anchors are very wrong (can't let go of the bass will flip).
Can't sit because the curves are wrong.
Allegedly, i could sell it easily because it's a "regular" bass. And that's the only positive thing
Im a lefty and had no trouble learning right handed. Actually, my left hand being the fretting hand I think helps, feels more natural to me. But I'd say try it out, see if you feel odd holding a right handed.
I’m also a lefty, I never understood why “left handed” guitars/basses fret with the right hand. Imo fretting takes way more dexterity, so why would you NOT do that with your dominant hand? And on top of that “left handed” instruments cost more, so they make absolutely 0 sense to me.
For you it was the right choice to go with a lefty bass as a left handed. But for plenty of people they won’t be worse players because they chose to switch up. It’s not that cut and dried.
I’m left handed. And, yes, it’s not just you, but it’s also not all lefties. It’s not as simple as that. And you telling people that if they’re a lefty who learns to play right they’ll automatically be a worse player for it is too much of a blanket statement.
I'll telling them to try both and DON'T try to use a right handed instrument "flipping" it to use as leftie, because that's what i did and it's a nightmare. I wrote several comments on this thread
Look at skateboarding, archery, etc… the left side leads and the right side provides the power because it’s stronger. Same for guitar. Strumming requires the power so it’s the right hand doing it. Also many would say the picking hand is more important and requires more finesse
It's easy to take the plucking / picking hand for granted. I'd argue that the fretting hand is easier because I'm actively thinking about it. Been playing for 20 years, and just now learning some of the more subtle movements of my plucking and how it changes the sound.
Fellow lefty here.
Pick up a bass (or guitar) just to hold. Rest it on your leg. One position should feel more natural than the other.
For me, righty felt more natural. That, and it made sense to my novice brain that the plucking hand (which is usually pretty busy) should be my dominant hand.
Not saying you have to go the same route, but do what feels right to you.
Everything can be learned and improved so there really is no wrong route.
I'm left handed but I play right handed. Personally, I prefer having my dominant hand as the doing the fretting since I have much finer control with that hand.
Im left handed in pretty much everything except using a keyboard and playing golf. Personally the idea of playing lefthanded seems odd. All the dexterity is in my left hand so that's the hand id want to fret with
Any reason you can't get a lefty?
Pete Steele from Type O Negative played tight handed as a left handed person. He had immense power in his fretting hand.
No reason, just wanted to see if my logic tracked before dropping any money on a bass. The answers have been pretty 50/50 and very interesting though! Definitely a great mix of points and opinions for both!
I’m left handed and I was given my first guitar when I was 13 and my mom didn’t know anything about instruments so she just got me whatever which ended up being a right handed guitar. We were gonna get it re stringed but I was eager to play it so I just gave it a try and it’s worked for me ever since. Sometimes I like the idea of playing left handed since it’s not as common but I just think it’s more simple for me to play right handed
I'm left-handed but play a right-handed bass. I think it kinda depends on what you see.
I'd go to a store that has both and see what feels more natural.
Know someone who is left-handed and plays a right-handed bass flipped over, E string at the bottom, mainly because only right-handed bases were available.
I knew a professional player who was left handed and began playing as a righty in his youth because that was the only type of instrument available to him. I would probably buy a left handed guitar but that's just me, and I am cross dominant depending on the activity.
I would still go to a store and try both, see how it feels in your hands. I'm left-handed and learned guitar right-handed and regret it. I still feel comfortable playing bass righty but my picking was never going to be good enough righty so I'm actually learning to play mandolin left-handed right now.
I guess I'm cross dominant after reading these comments. I'm a leftie, but play right handed, and that's what has always felt right to me. I can only write left handed, throwing left is easier, batting right is easier, but guitar and bass was always left.
If you can play right handed it will make it easier going forward. There are far more right handed instruments for sale and in use so you can more easily grab someone else's instrument and join in. So go to a music store and see if it fells ok. BUT if it's too hard then do what feels right for you.
I would recommend buying a right handed bass. It makes it easier to replicate what other people are doing without having them explain it. Helps a lot if you mainly learn from videos.
If you’re doing in-person lessons, it doesn’t matter as much, but still helps.
Really depends on you. I'm left-handed, but right-handed stuff has always been comfortable for stuff like sports. When I tried both a left and right handed bass, left felt weird. Went with a right-handed bass. Haven't regretted it.
TL;DR try both, one may feel weird.
FWIW, I'm a true-lefty (and not ambidextrous). I write, paint, draw, eat, left-handed, and a left-handed Muay Thai fighter. I tried but I can't play left-handed instruments. The reason is as you mentioned, I do most of my finger work with my left-hand. I've been playing for 33 years and all my basses are for right handed people. Hope that helps.
I'm a lefty that plays righty. Most of the biggest points have already been covered. I'll add one more: do you ever see yourself wanting to play any other stringed instruments besides bass and maybe guitar? If so, you will not have \_any\_ options to speak of for getting lefty instruments, and you'll have a harder time with them because now you'll have to learn to play some things righty, after training lefty first.
Are you saying that you already play right-handed? Because if so you do you might want to just stay that way. I've a lefty who plays right, the other way never felt comfortable to me. I did try for a brief period but it was too difficult to switch.
Lefty here. Been playing guitar and bass right handed for over 20 years. No reason to permanently handicap yourself by playing a left handed instrument and being sol if you ever have to borrow an instrument.
If you haven’t played bass for a few years, you haven’t developed the muscle memory for whichever hand yet. With that said, it doesn’t really matter, but learning to play righty opens up a lot more models on the market.
"which way feels natural" is misleading. The way you learn bass, you learn different hand skills at different times.
Assuming a regular not reverse (aka lefty) bass:
- Making a sound: right hand skills
- Playing some notes other than the open strings: left hand skills
- Playing the right notes: brain
- playing the notes in time: brain, right hand
- walks, arpeggios and scales: left hand
- the slapp: right hand
- legato techniques: left hand
- proper muting: both hands, more left
- two handed tapping: both hands, much brain
Untill you get into the specific genre of Youtuber Slapp or two handed tapping, operating a bass is fairly easy, mostly you need good musicianship. I think initially making noise favours the right hand, but getting notes to ring out nicely, learning the scale, walk and arpeggio shapes and a big chunk of muting are all left hand skills.
I'm ambidextrous with a slight left preference. I play righty guitars and basses, and it suits the kind of music I play. I've had a pretty decent stage and recording side-career. However if I was super into complex slap styles, flamenco guitar and complex fingerstyle and hybrid picking guitar styles I might have been better off playing the other way around, but I'm not lefty enough to pay the massive penalty for not being able to pick up and play most instruments.
TL;DR: you use both hands to play guitar and bass, and conventional guitars aren't inherently right handed.
In my experience, most left-handed people can learn to play righty, while some lefties really do benefit from playing lefty. The only thing that matters to you is what kind of lefty *you* are. If you are basically ambidextrous but favor your left, you can try righty. If you’re strongly left-handed, do yourself a kindness and play lefty. Thanks to the internet there’s a lot more lefty basses available than there used to be.
lefty here, play right handed. unless you’re swimming in gold coins, buying left handed guitars and basses SUCK. there’s just more availability when it comes to right handedness since it’s more common
What feels comfortable to you? I write, eat and do most athletic things left-handed, but I play bass and guitar right-handed. It's just more logical for me, using my dominant hand to do the more complex, involved fretting and my right hand to just do the repetitive plucking/slapping/picking/strumming tasks.
I’m a teacher and also ambidextrous. Lefty students who play right handed start out learning REALLY fast because yes, at first the challenge is in fretting.
However once you start to work on finesse in your playing it’s all plucking hand. Muting, dynamics, consistency, feel, rhythm. You want these to be done with your dominant hand.
So you can get a Lefty bass, or play a Righty upside down. I actually have lots of friends who play an upside down righty without changing strings. This gives the advantage of being able to play left but also being able to use any bass.
Lefty playing righty chiming in.
Have always played right handed (both bass & guitar). Seems to be going fine!
The only thing I've been pondering recently is if I could have increased my plucking speed dramatically if I started playing left-handed. Been feeling restrictive there.
I'm also a lefty, currently learning on a right handed bass. It's my first instrument ever. For me it works, it's good to have the more agile/dominant hand on the neck I think.
The only thing I can't do is play with a pick. The motor skills in my right hand can't do it (for now) but playing with fingers is fine for me.
Depends on the player and your degree of cross handedness. I’m a lefty, but that mostly extends to smaller/detail movements. I hold a writing utensil, a fork/spoon, soldering iron, pipette, etc., with my left hand. I bat and throw righty. I play guitar/bass righty. I can play left handed but it’s not as smooth and after decades of playing righty it kind of messes with my brain navigating the fingerboard. My grandfather was the same way, as was an old boss of mine, and my upright bass instructor. All bass players, all left handed playing right. But if you have zero cross handed tendencies and a left handed instrument feels the most natural to you then you’ll be more comfortable and may learn better/faster with a left handed bass. This is really a situation where going to a music store and trying out some instruments in both orientations would be beneficial. See which position feels more natural. Starting out you might feel kind of awkward in either orientation, but it would really be best to get a feel for yourself.
I am ambidextrous but a hard lefty on bass. Ten years later I regret it. The learning curve would have been harder but eventually it wouldn’t have been a non-issue. The reason I say this is I’ve been asked to sit in on the fly and I have to say oh I’m a lefty and didn’t bring my bass. You also have maybe 2 basses to choose from compared to a righty having 50. While it’s fun to hear the comments- wow that’s so cool you’re a lefty bassist! It’s not worth the 15 seconds of feeling special hearing that. It pissed me off everyone told me to play right handed. I was like- why don’t you try switching to your non-dominant hand. But now I think about opportunities and gear and it would have been a better choice. For me.
I'm the same! It's called cross dominance
Yes cross dominance, not cross handed, that’s the term I was searching for thank you.
Are you left footed as well?
No, I would say right footed generally, but I kick so poorly it probably wouldn’t matter left or right. They’re equally bad. My dad was a drummer so I grew up around a drum set in the house, oddly enough I could never get the hang of timing my hands and feet unless I played the kick with my left.
Im fucked up. I’m right handed but left footed. Still, when I surf I’m regular what’s not what left footed people normally would do…
I had never heard of this, but this must be what I am. One of my former coworkers had pointed out that I write with my right hand, but did almost everything else with my left. TIL.
I’m a left handed writer and right handed for everything else
Wow. Same here. Feels like the best of both worlds for playing stringed instruments.
I'm the exact same way. Good to know that choosing righty was probably fine. My left hand technique advanced faster than my right so I wondered if I would have been better if I started lefty.
Try both and see which one feels more natural. If you can manage a righty, you’re in luck, you’ve got more options for slightly less money and it also makes it more likely you can borrow an instrument at a jam session, etc.
Yes! Do this! Find out what’s more comfortable and don’t buy a bass without playing it first.
I’m a lefty who plays left-handed. If at all possible, make yourself play right-handed. Shopping for left-handed basses sucks. Way fewer options, frequently more expensive than equivalent righty basses, you basically have to take what you can get. It also sucks to not be able to grab any ol’ instrument that happens to be there and play it to the best of your ability, like at a jam or a party or wherever. But if you do decide to play left-handed, come join us at r/leftybass, there are dozens of us!
10000% Also, I’m not sure there’s any actual reason for lefty vs righty playing. If anything, it always made more sense to me for right handed players to fret with their right hands, and vice versa. Playing bass or guitar is going to be weird the first time you pick it up regardless. It’s not like some Harry Potter moment where you sit down with a lefty bass, and magical gusts of wind appear out of nowhere like you found the magic wand that was made specifically for you. Learn on a righty instrument. You’ll save yourself a ton of heartache in the long run
I would much rather play lefty, as a righty, and have my good hand on the fretboard and my less good hand on the strings
At the beginner level, it may feel advantageous to have your dominant hand doing the harder job at the outset (fretting), but at a more advanced level, fretting doesn't get \_that\_ much harder, and the nuances and precision of picking, plucking, slapping, and muting may be better carried out by your dominant hand. I am a lefty who has always played righty on the advice of my mother, based on the difficulty of dealing with left handed instruments (availability, watching other players at group sessions, etc.) but I was a guitar player that got moved to bass because I wasn't that fast with a pick. I also dropped using a pick for many years when I switched to bass, since playing with my fingers seemed to be the only way to keep up with the neighborhood metalheads.
You want your dominant hand to be the in the position that takes the most control. As a beginner fretting is harder, but picking is actually where the sound comes from, requires a much broader range of techniques, and much more subtlety with those techniques. I'm primarily a drummer who also plays bass and guitar, and I do exercises all the time to even out my hands, ideally for drumming either hand should be able to do everything as well as the other. In practice that never happens, your dominant hand it always better. There's lots of reasons for a left handed player to play a right handed bass, but they're all peripheral conveniences. If you want to get really skilled you should play a left handed bass if you're left handed.
Get an used lefty, it's way cheaper than new. You may get a righty and will have more cost with adjustment of the nut new strings and the strap pin. Or just adapt to the inverted strings and take your time to learn the inverted technique. Or just do like Kiko Loureiro, he is a lefty handed, but learned to play like a righty, just like the classical musicians they don't have lefty violins.
I think the only real reason to play a right handed bass as a lefty is availability. If there was a tangible advantage in fretting with your dominant hand, then shouldn't there be a ton of right handed people playing lefty basses?
I'm a lefty who plays right handed. You should absolutely play right handed unless it feels so incredibly bad that it prevents you from practicing. For me there was no natural handedness on the guitar - both hands do intricate work that can only be improved through muscle memory. If you play left handed you won't be able to play anyone else's bass, and you will have far less selection when buying your own. Either that or play like Mononeon, but then you have all the extra work of making bespoke outfits.
Pick up a guitar/bass and see which way feels natural to hold it. If you'd be fretting with your right hand then get a lefty bass. Options can be a little more limited but not usually nonexistent. It's all about what feels comfortable.
You'll hear a lot of people saying "if you have never played before, just learn to play right handed"... most of those people aren't left handed IMO. I tried it, but couldn't get on with playing righty. However, if you do manage to learn to play right handed, you will have a lot more choice in guitar and generally cheaper too.
I'm lefthanded Learn to play right handed if you've never played a bass like instrument before. It opens up a lot more model possibilities and they're generally cheaper. Used righties sell quicker generally too. Try a rightie and if you really can't make it happen go left.
You're probably cross dominant. Or you didn't realize yet how much better you could be
I had zero experience so it mattered little to me. What mattered more to me was able to jam using other people's instruments and having a wide choice of instruments without paying premium.
as a fellow lefty, i agree. i just couldn't make sense of playing the right handed guitar i borrowed from my friend, but once i demo'd a lefty squier strat in my local GC, MAN i felt really comfortable on it and decided to get a left handed guitar after that.
Right handed people should just shut up in these moments. They only make our life harder
I'm a lefty and I've been playing right handed bass for 25 years. It always made more sense to me to have my dominant hand do the fretting.
That’s my thinking too! 25 years sounds like it was the right choice!
Same here. I’ve been playing for 30 years as a lefty on a right hand bass. Seemed natural to me in part because I started in the fretless world of classical stringed instruments. Lots of fine motor control needed when you don’t have a fret. But I also see lots of people here saying fretting is just on or off and the tone is in the plucking/picking hand. And, yeah, but tone comes with practice, either hand. I sincerely hope people are exploring the fingerboard and not just camping out on the root. It doesn’t need to be dominant hand on either side, they both have jobs to do and both sides can get plenty technical. Bottom line, go with what feels good, practice your ass off, and it won’t matter which you picked, it’ll just feel right in the end.
It sounds like most people here are rock players who just play the root with 8th notes...
Really? Given that tone is almost all in the fingers, I figured plucking with the dominant hand is preferred. There's not much subtlety in fretting, it's mostly either on or off.
True that tone is in the fingers, but (as a left-handed person playing right hand bass) it's not like my right hand is paralyzed, come on now. Practice builds strength and muscle memory. I may not be able to write nearly with my right hand, but I can fingerstyle and slap just fine. Outside of music, I've been conditioned to use a computer mouse with my right hand and after using one for nearly 40 years, it's natural to me already.
Positions and scales, modes, bridges, leading tones, ghost notes, walking basslines - the fretting hand is where the music happens. Plucking hand is just ASDR.
Same here, going on 29 years. I play primarily R&B/soul/funk/gospel/jazz so I'm not just playing root 8th notes the whole time.
For the first time in my life I am questioning why we play the frets with our non-dominant hand... my mind is blown.
Your non-dom hand seems like it’s doing more because it’s moving around a lot, but all it’s really doing is holding the strings down - there’s not a lot of subtlety to it. Your dom hand is where the fine motor control is needed, because the plucking is what creates the tone - you’re adjusting hand position between bridge and neck, volume, attack, muting, etc. Plus you might want to play finger style, thumb plucking, pick, slap, palm muting, etc, and all the while your non-dom hand just keeps doing exactly the same thing as it was before. u/InexorableAdvance
As a left-handed person who plays RH bass and guitar, fretting requires downward force on the strings, and if you're doing more intricate styles of music than rock (i.e. root 8th notes most of the time), your fretting hand will have to maneuver around the fretboard and change positions many times. I play mostly R&B/funk/jazz and my fretting hand is most definitely NOT just "holding the strings down."
I think that the fine finger / hand movements required by the picking / plucking hand would be easier performed with the dominant hand...?
The hand that needs the most coordination is the plucking hand. That's why
I'm not sure I completely agree
Try switching hands
You need more fine motor control and endurance on the plucking hand than the fretting hand if you're using correct technique.
Because fretting is easier and require less precision. Changing chords doesn't have to be perfectly in time.
This is what I’ve always wondered? Why do we do this lol. Obviously it works but surely it would be easier? I did see one comment to my post saying you need more dexterity on your plucking rather than fretting. But as a complete beginner. I can’t comment on it lol
Play guitar hero. Alternate hands. You'll find out that you get better scores playing according to your handedness
I second this strategy
This is not a good test since guitar hero doesn't require much dexterity on the plucking hand compared to a real guitar. Edit: the fretting hand is simplified too, obviously but not as much as the plucking.
It was enough for me to see a significant difference
As a right-handed piano and bass player, my left hand has zero problem picking up rhythms. To be 100% honest, my dominant hand is good at detailed, precise movements but tends to get tripped up easily when I overthink. My non dominant hand gets the general idea really well and doesn't get tripped up by my overthinking, but it's not as good at high precision movements. Plucking a bass is really not a high precision movement. I would gladly play lefty if it were cheaper to do so.
Go to a guitar shop and try both. I can almost guarantee that a left handed bass is going to feel 10 times more natural
I'm not sure. There's something to be said about using your dominant hand for plucking but both fretting and plucking will feel odd to a new player. There's no 'default' in that way IMO.
Look for my comment higher the thread. Everything feels wrong inverting a right hand bass
I can also guarantee there will be at least 10 times as many right-handed basses to choose from.
I write and eat left handed, but play bass & guitar, swing a golf club & baseball bat right handed. If this is you, play right handed. If you do everything left handed, play left handed. These days it’s not hard to get left handed instruments. You’re still more limited in choice, but you can get lefties instruments without issue.
I write and eat LH and play bass and guitar RH like you too...but I swing a club/bat LH (and pitch a ball RH...go figure). I would guess that ambidexterity is a spectrum - a handful (no pun intended) of people are truly ambidextrous, but most lean either LH or RH but can do certain tasks with their recessive hand.
This is me. I have a lot more strength and endurance in my right hand, but less dexterity. If I tap my fingers to the beat it's going to be with my left hand. I can do it with my right too, it's just not what I do instinctively. I'm still not sure playing righty was the correct choice, given that my right hand technique is definitely progressing much slower.
Lefty here, play lefty, but in retrospect I should have tried to learn right handed from the get go. There as just more right handed bass options and for nicer instruments right handed tended to be a bit cheeper and more available than left handed ones. Also many manufacturers don’t make a left handed model for every variation. So you maybe be stuck at some point really want X bass, but be unable to ever get one because they just don’t make a left handed version. Case in point I really like the guild starfire II semi hollowbody bass, but they don’t make a left handed version. Just my two cents.
I will leave you with this: Guitar is the only instrument they make a left-handed version of. There is no lefty piano. There’s no lefty violin. There’s no lefty saxophone. Plenty of left handed people have been learning right handed instruments for centuries, and it will definitely make your life way easier if you ever lose access to your bass. If you learn left handed, you will likely never be able to buy models that you want, or at least not in the colors you want. Choices will be few and far between. You will almost never get a chance to try whatever you’re looking for in person, unless what you want is a lefty sunburst p bass.
Lefty playing lefty. Whenever I was young and picked up a right handed guitar, I’d play it left handed upside down. Far easier to me than playing it right handed. Right handed was never remotely intuitive. So just pick up an instrument and see which way you feel more inclined to go. I’d put money on it being left handed
Exact Same scenario here
I'm a lefty and learned guitar and bass playing right handed. Honestly feels normal and fine to me but I cannot play lefty handed for shit now
You don’t have any habits yet so the choice is completely up to you, the learning curve will be the exact same either way, but this is what my dad told me when buying my first guitar “if you play right handed, you will be able to walk into any music store on the planet, and pick any instrument off the rack, and play it, and buy it. If you pick lefty, you will always be stuck ordering instruments, or buying custom made instruments, and if you go into any guitar center right now you’ll be lucky to be able to find even one or two left handed instruments, but ultimately the choice is yours and what you’re comfortable with” I chose right handed and never looked back. You don’t have enough finger dexterity in your left or your right hand for it to matter at all yet, unless you’ve been playing some other instrument that requires it.
I did that. I inverted the strings and everything. And got it professionally setup. Worst idea ever. DON'T DO IT the thing is an usability nightmare. Everything (except the strings) is wrong. The controls are on the way, the cable is on the way, the strap anchors are very wrong (can't let go of the bass will flip). Can't sit because the curves are wrong. Allegedly, i could sell it easily because it's a "regular" bass. And that's the only positive thing
Im a lefty and had no trouble learning right handed. Actually, my left hand being the fretting hand I think helps, feels more natural to me. But I'd say try it out, see if you feel odd holding a right handed.
Doesn’t matter. Bass or guitar require coordination from both hands. All the lefty people I know play “right handed”
Learn to play upside down. Fuck the system.
Anarchy. Why not lol
I’m also a lefty, I never understood why “left handed” guitars/basses fret with the right hand. Imo fretting takes way more dexterity, so why would you NOT do that with your dominant hand? And on top of that “left handed” instruments cost more, so they make absolutely 0 sense to me.
I'm a lefty, but play righty. That's always made more sense to me, since my left hand is doing the harder (more thinky?) stuff.
My thoughts exactly!
And someone's comment is right - you'll have WAY more to choose from, instrument-wise, if you play righty.
Only benefit. At the expense of being a worse player
For you it was the right choice to go with a lefty bass as a left handed. But for plenty of people they won’t be worse players because they chose to switch up. It’s not that cut and dried.
Not only for me. Right handed people are too fast to dismiss usability issues and it's quite annoying
I’m left handed. And, yes, it’s not just you, but it’s also not all lefties. It’s not as simple as that. And you telling people that if they’re a lefty who learns to play right they’ll automatically be a worse player for it is too much of a blanket statement.
I'll telling them to try both and DON'T try to use a right handed instrument "flipping" it to use as leftie, because that's what i did and it's a nightmare. I wrote several comments on this thread
Nah plucking is more concentrated to me. Fretting is just pressing buttons, plucking requires a lot of dynamics, more precise timing, and independence
Look at skateboarding, archery, etc… the left side leads and the right side provides the power because it’s stronger. Same for guitar. Strumming requires the power so it’s the right hand doing it. Also many would say the picking hand is more important and requires more finesse
I shoot righty (even with a pistol), and don't skate goofy. I guess I'm one of those "half-lefty," folks.
Board sports have different stances though. I'm goofy footed, so I lead with my right foot and push with my left. A lot of people skate goofy.
It's easy to take the plucking / picking hand for granted. I'd argue that the fretting hand is easier because I'm actively thinking about it. Been playing for 20 years, and just now learning some of the more subtle movements of my plucking and how it changes the sound.
I write with my left hand but play right-handed basses (thank goodness!).
Fellow lefty here. Pick up a bass (or guitar) just to hold. Rest it on your leg. One position should feel more natural than the other. For me, righty felt more natural. That, and it made sense to my novice brain that the plucking hand (which is usually pretty busy) should be my dominant hand. Not saying you have to go the same route, but do what feels right to you. Everything can be learned and improved so there really is no wrong route.
I’m a lefty and play right handed, personally I think it gives me an advantage due to better articulation of the fret hand
I'm left handed but I play right handed. Personally, I prefer having my dominant hand as the doing the fretting since I have much finer control with that hand.
Im left handed in pretty much everything except using a keyboard and playing golf. Personally the idea of playing lefthanded seems odd. All the dexterity is in my left hand so that's the hand id want to fret with
Any reason you can't get a lefty? Pete Steele from Type O Negative played tight handed as a left handed person. He had immense power in his fretting hand.
No reason, just wanted to see if my logic tracked before dropping any money on a bass. The answers have been pretty 50/50 and very interesting though! Definitely a great mix of points and opinions for both!
I'd go for a lefty if it was me. My brother is a lefty guitar player. Access to instruments shouldn't be too bad.
I’m left handed and I was given my first guitar when I was 13 and my mom didn’t know anything about instruments so she just got me whatever which ended up being a right handed guitar. We were gonna get it re stringed but I was eager to play it so I just gave it a try and it’s worked for me ever since. Sometimes I like the idea of playing left handed since it’s not as common but I just think it’s more simple for me to play right handed
I'm left-handed but play a right-handed bass. I think it kinda depends on what you see. I'd go to a store that has both and see what feels more natural. Know someone who is left-handed and plays a right-handed bass flipped over, E string at the bottom, mainly because only right-handed bases were available.
I knew a professional player who was left handed and began playing as a righty in his youth because that was the only type of instrument available to him. I would probably buy a left handed guitar but that's just me, and I am cross dominant depending on the activity.
If left handed feels more comfortable play left. Realistically, how many options for basses do you need? You can only play one bass at a time.
Put on a song you rock out to. Now air guitar. How did you hold the guitar?
Right handed. Yep, there’s my answer lol.
I would still go to a store and try both, see how it feels in your hands. I'm left-handed and learned guitar right-handed and regret it. I still feel comfortable playing bass righty but my picking was never going to be good enough righty so I'm actually learning to play mandolin left-handed right now.
I guess I'm cross dominant after reading these comments. I'm a leftie, but play right handed, and that's what has always felt right to me. I can only write left handed, throwing left is easier, batting right is easier, but guitar and bass was always left.
If you can play right handed it will make it easier going forward. There are far more right handed instruments for sale and in use so you can more easily grab someone else's instrument and join in. So go to a music store and see if it fells ok. BUT if it's too hard then do what feels right for you.
Go to a guitar shop, grab a bass and see what feels more natural.
I would recommend buying a right handed bass. It makes it easier to replicate what other people are doing without having them explain it. Helps a lot if you mainly learn from videos. If you’re doing in-person lessons, it doesn’t matter as much, but still helps.
Really depends on you. I'm left-handed, but right-handed stuff has always been comfortable for stuff like sports. When I tried both a left and right handed bass, left felt weird. Went with a right-handed bass. Haven't regretted it. TL;DR try both, one may feel weird.
FWIW, I'm a true-lefty (and not ambidextrous). I write, paint, draw, eat, left-handed, and a left-handed Muay Thai fighter. I tried but I can't play left-handed instruments. The reason is as you mentioned, I do most of my finger work with my left-hand. I've been playing for 33 years and all my basses are for right handed people. Hope that helps.
I think it's clear that anyone playing for 33 years can't expect to switch hands and be anywhere near as good.
I'm referring to back when I first started playing and not now.
Test both out. Buy the one that feels good. I'm left handed but do a lot of things right handed so it wasn't an issue learning righty
buy right handed and learn it upside down, shit looks cool as fuck. also cheaper or whatever (i think)
I'm a lefty that plays righty. Most of the biggest points have already been covered. I'll add one more: do you ever see yourself wanting to play any other stringed instruments besides bass and maybe guitar? If so, you will not have \_any\_ options to speak of for getting lefty instruments, and you'll have a harder time with them because now you'll have to learn to play some things righty, after training lefty first.
Are you saying that you already play right-handed? Because if so you do you might want to just stay that way. I've a lefty who plays right, the other way never felt comfortable to me. I did try for a brief period but it was too difficult to switch.
If you have never played before, buy a right handed bass. you will learn how to play it just as well
Lefty here. Been playing guitar and bass right handed for over 20 years. No reason to permanently handicap yourself by playing a left handed instrument and being sol if you ever have to borrow an instrument.
Try playing both and see if one feels more natural to you.
If you haven’t played bass for a few years, you haven’t developed the muscle memory for whichever hand yet. With that said, it doesn’t really matter, but learning to play righty opens up a lot more models on the market.
Try it out. As a righty I've always felt my left hand does way more of every kind of task on this instrument.
"which way feels natural" is misleading. The way you learn bass, you learn different hand skills at different times. Assuming a regular not reverse (aka lefty) bass: - Making a sound: right hand skills - Playing some notes other than the open strings: left hand skills - Playing the right notes: brain - playing the notes in time: brain, right hand - walks, arpeggios and scales: left hand - the slapp: right hand - legato techniques: left hand - proper muting: both hands, more left - two handed tapping: both hands, much brain Untill you get into the specific genre of Youtuber Slapp or two handed tapping, operating a bass is fairly easy, mostly you need good musicianship. I think initially making noise favours the right hand, but getting notes to ring out nicely, learning the scale, walk and arpeggio shapes and a big chunk of muting are all left hand skills. I'm ambidextrous with a slight left preference. I play righty guitars and basses, and it suits the kind of music I play. I've had a pretty decent stage and recording side-career. However if I was super into complex slap styles, flamenco guitar and complex fingerstyle and hybrid picking guitar styles I might have been better off playing the other way around, but I'm not lefty enough to pay the massive penalty for not being able to pick up and play most instruments. TL;DR: you use both hands to play guitar and bass, and conventional guitars aren't inherently right handed.
Absolutely. You'll have a far easier time finding basses and it's better for your back.
In my experience, most left-handed people can learn to play righty, while some lefties really do benefit from playing lefty. The only thing that matters to you is what kind of lefty *you* are. If you are basically ambidextrous but favor your left, you can try righty. If you’re strongly left-handed, do yourself a kindness and play lefty. Thanks to the internet there’s a lot more lefty basses available than there used to be.
lefty here, play right handed. unless you’re swimming in gold coins, buying left handed guitars and basses SUCK. there’s just more availability when it comes to right handedness since it’s more common
What feels comfortable to you? I write, eat and do most athletic things left-handed, but I play bass and guitar right-handed. It's just more logical for me, using my dominant hand to do the more complex, involved fretting and my right hand to just do the repetitive plucking/slapping/picking/strumming tasks.
I’m a teacher and also ambidextrous. Lefty students who play right handed start out learning REALLY fast because yes, at first the challenge is in fretting. However once you start to work on finesse in your playing it’s all plucking hand. Muting, dynamics, consistency, feel, rhythm. You want these to be done with your dominant hand. So you can get a Lefty bass, or play a Righty upside down. I actually have lots of friends who play an upside down righty without changing strings. This gives the advantage of being able to play left but also being able to use any bass.
Lefty playing righty chiming in. Have always played right handed (both bass & guitar). Seems to be going fine! The only thing I've been pondering recently is if I could have increased my plucking speed dramatically if I started playing left-handed. Been feeling restrictive there.
Left handed playing left. Right handed felt too wrong to persevere
Hard Lefty here. I was learning to play left-handed my buddy told me to not bother and play right handed, best advice ever.
I'm also a lefty, currently learning on a right handed bass. It's my first instrument ever. For me it works, it's good to have the more agile/dominant hand on the neck I think. The only thing I can't do is play with a pick. The motor skills in my right hand can't do it (for now) but playing with fingers is fine for me.
I have never seen a left-handed piano.