List of musicians who play left-handed


This is a list of notable left-handed musicians who play their instruments naturally. This does not include left-handed people who play right-handed, such as Joe Perry, Mark Knopfler, and Gary Moore.

Guitarists and bassists

Left-handed people play guitar or electric bass in one of the following ways: play the instrument truly right-handed, play the instrument truly left-handed, altering a right-handed instrument to play left-handed, or turning a right-handed instrument upside down to pick with the left hand, but not altering the strings – leaving them reversed from the normal order. Any style of picking with the left hand is considered playing left-handed.

Guitarists

Left-handed with normal stringing

Guitarists in this category pick with their left hand and have the strings in the conventional order for a left-handed player. They either have true left-handed guitars or have right-handed guitars altered so the strings are correct for a left-handed player. Some guitarists in this category play both genuine left-handed instruments and right-handed instruments altered for left-handed playing.
Changing the strings on a right-handed guitar involves several things. The nut of the guitar has to be changed to accommodate the string widths. The bridge needs to be changed to make the lower-note strings longer than the higher-note strings for correct intonation. On almost all acoustic guitars the bracing is non-symmetrical. On electric guitars altered this way, the controls will be backwards.
Notable players

Left-handed with strings backwards

These are left-handed players who play naturally, but with the strings organized to emulate an unaltered right-handed guitar, thus the strings are backwards for a left-handed player. The guitar is held left-handed with the high string on the top side of the neck. Some players in this category had left-handed guitars with the strings as on a right-handed guitar, since they had learned to play that way.
Notable players

Unclassified left-handed players

Bassists

Drummers

A drum kit for a left-handed person is set up so that percussion instruments drummers would normally play with their right hand are played with the left hand. The bass drum and hi-hat configurations are also set up so that the drummer plays the bass drum with their left foot, and operate the hi-hat with their right foot. Some drummers however have been known to play right-handed kits, but play leading with their left hand. This list does not include drummers who are naturally left-handed while playing drums purely right-handed such as Ringo Starr, Stewart Copeland, Dave Lombardo, Travis Barker, Eric Carr, and Chris Adler.

Violinists

The violin can be learned in either hand, and most left-handed players hold the violin under the left side of their jaw, the same as right-handed players. This allows all violinists to sit together in an orchestra.

Ukulele

Trumpet

Trombone

Banjo

Mandolin

Bansuri