I am a left -handed bassist!
Are we a rare breed ?
Am i a endangered species’?
I have found that left -handed bass guitars are in limited supply and choice.
Does anyone know who has the best supply and choice of left handed guitars? (U K)
Any tips from left -handed players would be most welcome.
So far I’ve had no problems learning or playing, oh by the way I’ve also got small hands!
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I’m not one, but dont believe they are rare, even our teacher @JoshFossgreen is a leftie, even though he plays a normal bass
but for sure its true that leftie basses are rare to find, in my local shop thay have like 3, so very slim pickings, but at least every shop here I’v been to has some leftie basses.
but I hope someone more knowledgeable chimes in here
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Yeah a lot of us are playing right handed due to various circumstances.
I ran a poll on the left handed subreddit, for anyone playing a stringed instrument and the results were almost exactly 50/50 on whether we played right or left handed.
Me I started on double bass in orchestra at 12, and right handed was absolutely the only option. So when it came time to pick up a bass guitar, that’s already how my brain was wired and I couldn’t imagine playing left handed. I have noticed that younger folks are more likely to play left handed instruments because they’re a bit more available now.
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Ask @PaulD I think he’s cack handed (like myself) but I learned right handed because of this very reason.
He’ll have some info on that as he’s UK based.
Also see this thread.
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This was similar for me, but cello at age 9.
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@PaulD is definitely the man to talk to for all things lefty. A word of caution however, if you talk to him for too long you may find yourself on a plane to Japan and delivered into the hands of @howard At that stage you may as well remortgage your house
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I’m a small-handed lefty, too. However, I write with my right hand, so I guess I’m weird. I’m also Welsh, like @Barney, which might explain a lot.
As for lefty stock, either look on Reverb, Thomann or use your search engine of choice.
The problem for most music stores, especially the small independent places, is that they own their stock so they’re reluctant to carry too many lefties because we’re rare animals. I have a cracking music store three miles from me, family owned and run. I had a mild moan at the owner for not carrying lefties a while back and he told me that for every 100 guitarists that go there, 30 will be lefties so he can justify carrying a few lefty guitars. However, for every 100 bassists that call in, one (yes, one) might be a lefty. At that point, his guitar tech piped up that he’d been there nearly 20 years and he’d had three lefty basses through is workshop and they were all mine. He’s now had seven and yes, they’re all mine.
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Very true, but there’s also the option of sticking a kidney on eBay.
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Distinction without a difference imo.
mae teulu fy mam yn Gymry
(google translated tf out of that)
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This got me thinking, it is interesting that became the default that the dominant hand will pluck and the non-dominant will fret. Fretting is not an easy thing, and it demands a lot of practice and learning for right-handed players to develop the necessary dexterity, precision and speed to fret with the left hand, but this happens thanks to the brain’s neuroplasticity.
Is it maybe harder to pluck with the non-dominant hand? I wonder whether it could be a question of developing dexterity, or whether keeping up the rhythm with the non-dominant hand might be much more difficult to learn? I seriously have no idea. 
I suppose keeping the rhythm must be more difficult? Does anyone here know?
I imagine most people learn to play with either a bass for right or for left handed players, and probably very few people would decide to learn to play both, so maybe we will never know. I’m curious.
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Ah, but from the north or the south?
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I wonder the same thing. And I don’t know that the fact that a sizable percentage of left handers play right handed is necessarily that informative because we have to adapt to using our right hands a lot more than right handed folks adapt to using their left hand (also use my right hand to use a mouse for example, and I can even write legibly with it, though it’s harder).
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I don’t know whether it’s because I’m older but I have to use my left hand for most things, playing a right handed bass would be almost impossible
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It’s an interesting subject @andrea-sld
I’m left handed but as was explained to me I’m cross hand dominant. This is where I choose a specific hand for a task. Delicate movement i.e writing / using a chisel (left) but catching and throwing a ball (right).
My dad was left handed and they made him (i.e physically punished him in school for using his left hand) write with his right hand.
His handwriting was appalling his life.
I chose to play right handed because I thought the fretting part (left) was the more complicated task and therefore my left hand would be best suited. Also as we know buying a left handed bass sucks.
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Oooooooh! 
I’ll give you a clue, I drink shandy
I read it somewhere that you’re doing the ‘right’ (see what I did there?) thing because you’re fretting with your dominant hand.
Like you, I’m cack-handed.
Another lefty here who decided to learn to play right-handed. Mostly for availability of instruments. I’m having a fine time learning and a fun time playing, and I was able to nab a Sterling Stingray in a finish that I think is absolutely gorgeous and doesn’t even come in lefty so … no regerts.
Back when I played in high school (25+ years ago) I actually did play lefty. I remember going to music shops all over my county trying to find a left handed bass, and I found a grand total of two, one of which was an acrylic body fretless, the other a beat up Ibanez precision-style. You’d think that availability of left-handed instruments would have gotten better since then. And I suppose online it has. But I don’t think I’ve seen a single lefty bass in person this time around.
I do always appreciate lefties repping a left-handed instrument. So many people record in mirrored mode though, sometimes it’s hard to tell.
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That’s pretty much what I do myself. I’m right-handed, but there are lots of things I prefer to do with the left hand. I sometimes wondered whether I’m right-handed because I was taught to write with it, and whether the left hand could become as good as the right with a lot of practice. My right hand is better at precise tasks and also fast movements. I whisk eggs and froth a matcha tea with the right hand, but if I try to do this kind of task with the left, the movement is very clumsy and slower. It is possible I wouldn’t be able to pluck as fast with the left, but I’m so curious I will later try that today.
I’m sorry he had to go through that. I have heard many stories like that. In many countries children were physically punished for writing with the left hand. This is so wrong in many ways.
Thanks for the link. It is interesting!
I don’t know how to test which leg is dominant. I’m right-eye dominant, though my left eye has better sight. I just found out recently there is such a thing as a dominant eye. It is easy to test too. One just has to point (with either hand) to a point at the opposite side of the room, with both eyes open. Then while still pointing, just close first one eye, then open it and close the other. It is easy to see which eye is the dominant. At least with the eyes, I don’t think it is a matter of choice, and apparently one eye is always the dominant eye.
But I don’t think there is such a thing as dominant ear?? My left ear has much better hearing, but this probably is due to age and tinnitus. I can’t think of any reasons why nature would favour one ear over the other. Having a dominant hand and dominant eye would be assets for a species, for hunting etc. But ideally both ears should be as developed, so it would be easier to pinpoint the location of a prey or predator.
I’m sorry, I can so easily go on because the right vs left-handed subject is so fascinating and intriguing, and before starting learning to play I wondered whether my left hand could be good at fretting. But I’m right-handed so I feel like I’m invading this thread.
Wow, this is very interesting. What they describe in this article matches me in so many ways, and explains some stuff where I am really bad at (Misplacing things, all the time, check, that is me.)
This also explains why I read slower than others (on the bright side: comes with the benefit that I can find every typo someone does somewhere)
When I was younger, I even could switch my dominant eye, whatever was more convenient. Only recently realized I can’t do that anymore.
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