# Does Seal play reversed strings?



## slapnutz (Aug 9, 2012)

Just was checking out one of my favourite songs of his until i noticed his guitar.
Are the strings reversed from Top to Bottom?

i.e "low e" is the bottom instead of the top?

Probably best to see it in Hi Def @ around 50seconds onwards.


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## Don Vito (Aug 9, 2012)

Not the first time I've seen this.

Rand Burkey(former lead guitar for Atheist) also did this.


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## Varcolac (Aug 9, 2012)

Dan Swanö does this. It's visible on the Bloodbath Wacken DVD if I remember right. He's left-handed and just holds a right-handed guitar with his left hand on the bridge and his right hand on the neck, leaving the strings the same.


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 9, 2012)

Any benefit to that besides not getting a more expensive guitar?


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## All_¥our_Bass (Aug 9, 2012)

Konfyouzd said:


> Any benefit to that besides not getting a more expensive guitar?


Might make it easier to bend the high strings.


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## in-pursuit (Aug 9, 2012)

Konfyouzd said:


> Any benefit to that besides not getting a more expensive guitar?



invoke the power of hendrix, of course.


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## rjnix_0329 (Aug 9, 2012)

Konfyouzd said:


> Any benefit to that besides not getting a more expensive guitar?



It gets people on a guitar forum talking about Seal 

ONLY KIDDING, no Seal hate here 

I've heard some left handed players talk about doing this mostly to make top string bends easier. In Seal's case, you can really hear in this song that most of his focus is on the higher pitched strings anyway, so for him it might make his strumming a little easier too.


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 9, 2012)

in-pursuit said:


> invoke the power of hendrix, of course.



I thought Hendrix played a right handed guitar strung left handed...


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 9, 2012)

rjnix_0329 said:


> It gets people on a guitar forum talking about Seal
> 
> ONLY KIDDING, no Seal hate here
> 
> I've heard some left handed players talk about doing this mostly to make top string bends easier. In Seal's case, you can really hear in this song that most of his focus is on the higher pitched strings anyway, so for him it might make his strumming a little easier too.



I can think of a couple chords that only use the 3 treblemost (I was going to say top but didn't want to cause any unnecessary ambiguity ) that would be a lot easier done this way.


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## Goro923 (Aug 9, 2012)

^Indeed, Hendrix played a right-handed strung left-handed.

I was watching the Wacken Carnage DVD a couple weeks ago and I realized the Dan Swanö thing. My jaw has since remained dropped


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 9, 2012)

I saw some classical dude that shreds like that... All his ascending runs start at what is normally the treble side. Maybe I can find him...


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## Korbain (Aug 9, 2012)

music teacher at my school played like that, he was a brilliant guitarist too, was so weird seeing him playing everything upside down though lol


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## Blasphemer (Aug 9, 2012)

One of Clapton's backup dudes plays like that, too. He said in an interview that he learned that way because it was more comfortable, and didn't know any better. He didn't know that you could just get a guitar that was flipped around to accomodate left handed people


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## jon66 (Aug 9, 2012)

On the topic of playing "backwards" :

I was at a bbq a couple weeks ago, and jamming on an acoustic. My buddy's dad comes over and says "let me see that thing" and he proceeds to jam away on it, left handed. On a right-handed guitar. He said he just learned like that back when he was young since his father played right handed, but holding it left always felt more natural to him. 

So of course, after he handed it back to me I had to try it. I think about 30 people left the bbq at that point. Wow, talk about terribad. I've picked up lefty guitars before, and when you're holding them like that, it's almost like playing in a mirror, and it seems to make more sense to the brain. But when you just flip a right guitar left (or vice versa) and try those same shapes it just throws everything bonkers if you're not used to it.


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 9, 2012)

Blasphemer said:


> One of Clapton's backup dudes plays like that, too. He said in an interview that he learned that way because it was more comfortable, and didn't know any better. He didn't know that you could just get a guitar that was flipped around to accomodate left handed people



Ignorance is indeed bliss. Funny how some ppl have to really think their way through certain things and others just make it work out of necessity/dedication. 




jon66 said:


> But when you just flip a right guitar left (or vice versa) and try those same shapes it just throws everything bonkers if you're not used to it.



Yea, I don't really like playing any guitar in a tuning with which I'm not familiar if I'm being put on the spot. My brain doesn't make the hand-eye interval connection instantly so I usually sound absolutely terrible and understandably so. But it always happens at a social gathering where there just happens to be a guitar and some other dude that plays. At some point they always say "Oh KJ plays guitar too!" And dude hands me a guitar in his proprietary tuning and then looks at me like a noob when I can't play it.  

I guess you could argue I do the same thing to them when I hand them a 7 or 8 string, but at least I give them a guitar with 6 familiar strings.


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## jon66 (Aug 9, 2012)

Konfyouzd said:


> I guess you could argue I do the same thing to them when I hand them a 7 or 8 string, but at least I give them a guitar with 6 familiar strings.



Now that you mention it, it's hilarious that you mention handing a 6-string guy a 7 or 8. They just tense right up and freeze like you've just handed them an armed grenade. It's almost as if they're afraid to touch the fretboard at all. After playing nothing for like 5 or 6 seconds, they just panic and hand it back to you.


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## SpaceDock (Aug 9, 2012)

Paul McCartney played like this and normal left hand. Kurt Cobain and Hendrix. I think it's a common option for lefties.


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## Amanita (Aug 9, 2012)

i learned this way first, and even if i play normal way around for years, this is still useful on social occasions, or even to check out some guitars in store 

oh, here you have another gentleman who plays this way


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## Brill (Aug 9, 2012)

one of the guys from Humanitys Last breath plays like that.


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## Floppystrings (Aug 9, 2012)

Being a lefty may have something to do with it.

He just got used to playing a righty.

I don't think Hendrix ever had any side dots to look, that is something I would like to know for sure.


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## Malkav (Aug 10, 2012)

Blasphemer said:


> One of Clapton's backup dudes plays like that, too. He said in an interview that he learned that way because it was more comfortable, and didn't know any better. He didn't know that you could just get a guitar that was flipped around to accomodate left handed people


 
His name's Doyle Bramhall II he's also done solo stuff and was on tour with Roger Waters for the In The Flesh tour, great vocalist and guitarist. Said he did the flipped thing just because he would borrow his brother's guitar and of course with his bro being right handed it meant his options were play like that or don't play. He seems to have turned out quite awesome 

Here he is doing what is probably my favourite version of Comfortably Numb, the dual solo at the end with Snowy White is monumentally awesome


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