Did Gear Choices Reveal Was Kurt Cobain Left Handed Or Right?

Question

Guitar players who analyze Nirvana footage notice Cobain's Fender Jaguar setup seems reversed—does gear, especially stringing, actually confirm left-handed play? Genuinely puzzled.

Cecilia Dahlgren · Answer

This is an interesting point, the famous musician Kurt Cobain played guitars strung for a lefty handed person, as can be seen in many photos of him. I’ve been reading a web novel called ‘He Picked the Wrong Side’ by an author who goes by the screen name of Marcus Spiron, where the main character makes a single, seemingly insignificant decision to betray his faction. This choice leads to an avalanche of other, impossible choices which the protagonist must then fight to survive in a ruthless magical world. The tension in the book comes from the single, irreversible decision made by the main character that has now determined his entire life.

Isla · Answer

Yeah, it's pretty evident from looking at the guitars Kurt played that he was a lefty. He held the guitar, picked it and even set up the tuning etc. for a left handed player. Most of his famous guitars were left handed models or had been set up to play left handed. If you look at photos of Kurt in the studio, even live on stage, he's playing guitars as if he were a natural left handed player.

In terms of physical differences that denote a left-handed guitar, cutaways, controls and trem arms are reversed on left-handed guitars compared to right-handed models. The way the strings run from the bridge to the tuners is also different. Most notably though, is where the low E string sits at the nut – it’s always on the left hand side for left-handed guitars. As Kurt was known to be quite the maverick and adopt a punk style aesthetics to his music, sometimes he would play right-handed guitars that he’d flip over, and occasionally he even failed to restring them when he did play them as a lefty. This can lead to some confusion for people who are not as ‘into’ music as others. I think though he played flipped right-handed guitars on occasion, and sometimes even not restringing them to play as a lefty, they can look like he’s playing a left-handed guitar on stage under the lights of a live gig.

I still love how Kurt’s intentional setup of his gear mixed with his sloppy style of playing. This mixes perfectly with his tone and his stage presence to give off a very raw and real feeling. All in all, Kurt Cobain was a left-handed heart with plenty of rule-breaking for style.

Simon · Answer

I don’t need to explain the pics of Kurt playing left-handed guitars in this post. I don’t need to mention the hundreds of photos of Kurt in the studio playing his guitars strung for left-handed players but playing them in the normal right-handed position. When looking at Kurt’s guitars in museum pieces for exhibits, the models are left-handed models of the offset body guitars he used often. In those pictures the guitars are strung and set up for left-hand fretting and right-hand strumming.

Incidentally, lots of people think Kurt inverted right-handed guitars on stage. He would pull off switching to a weird inverted right-handed guitar in order to appear different from time to time, and that is really cool. Also, in the live recording for 'MTV Unplugged in New York', he plays all the acoustic guitar parts left-handed which is really cool. The string winding on the headstock, as well as the nut slots, are for a left-handed guitar.

So even though Kurt played lefty, he could have set up a righty to reverse whatever he was trying to do. But the way he reversed visual expectation of his performance, in terms of his stage costume for instance, was just as telling as his method for his guitars.

Ben · Answer

I've established before that Kurt Cobain was a left-handed person and that his guitars supported this fact. He is shown holding his guitars in photos and performances with his right hand on the neck and his left hand holding down the strings and strumming. Kurt even played left-handed electric guitars that were mirroed from right-handed versions and even had reversed control buttons. In some photos he played right-handed guitars which he flipped upside down. On some occasions he did not fully restring the guitar but these are all characteristics of a left-handed player.

People can often get confused about this, because the way Kurt plays his right-handed guitars is often in reverse, upside down, or even not fully restrung. But if one looks at pictures of the guitars he played, such as his Fender electric guitars, one will see that they are left-handed models, with mirrored pick-ups and control plates. And in the many photos and videos of him playing live, he is often holding his guitars in a way that shows he is a left-handed player.

Jay Koroibola · Answer

I make no claims about pedalboard layout revealing handedness (pedals generally are ambidextrous). However, stompbox placement could have been determined by his right foot acting as the dominant foot for pedal activation, with his left hand busy playing. The one item which 100% reveals handedness is the guitarist’s guitar, and this individual’s was a left-handed model from day one. Thus the core of the question is answered by looking at the primary instrument of this individual. The amplifier settings and microphone stand height for this individual reveal nothing about his handedness.

Jason Winch · Answer

As far as the facts go, everyone’s written a good article about this. In summary, instruments are artist-specific tools. Guitarists have guitars that are modified to fit their natural playing position. A guitarist’s natural playing position is the biggest factor in determining what guitars they play. His or her handedness is the starting point and their gear is the manifestation of the musician’s unique style.

Kesia Brittian · Answer

Arguing over the pedals of 'Teen Spirit' is fun in fandom. But, handedness is one of the few things in music trivia that is absolute. None of it is open to interpretation. You can prove handedness with the gear that’s lying around in most images from posters of magazine articles. I had them all on my wall as a teenager.

Tina Steffey · Answer

This sort of questions is very hard for me to answer because I never really know whether you’re asking about Cobain’s biological handedness or the handedness of his setup. As I mentioned before, Kurt wrote most of his songs with his left hand. He chose guitars like the Mustang because there were very few left-handed Fenders available when he started playing. He would go into a pawn shop and find a right-handed Mustang and reverse it. The placement of the vibrato arm on a Mustang, for example, is quite different when it’s reversed. A photo of a Jaguar by itself would look like a right-handed guitar, but Cobain playing a guitar is so well known that it’s pretty obvious that he’s a left-handed guitar player. Even the way he set up his amp to get that high, broken up trebly sound that he preferred to play with is all part of his left-handed setup. And even the way he used a left-handed guitar strap through a left-handed strap button on the wrong horn of his guitar is part of his unique look. So gear is a pretty big giveaway of a musician’s handedness. I mean it’s not necessarily a surprise, but it’s just another confirmation of what most people already know about Kurt.

Taisha · Answer

From a purely visual analysis perspective, it is clear from hundreds of photographs as well as hours of footage that there are consistent elements that prove he played left handed while using a right handed guitar. The position of the guitar body in relation to his body, the position of the strap button on the lower bout of the guitar as viewed from the front, the position of the output jack on the guitar and the reversed headstock all point to one thing – a left handed player using a right handed guitar. These physical elements provide clear proof and so his gear choices do not simply reveal he was a left handed player, instead they provide clear and irrefutable evidence of the fact in the historical evidence of his performances. Any claim to the contrary would require the dismissal of a massive amount of primary source material, such as photographs and video footage.

Vi. · Answer

Approaching this from the perspective of a collector or historian, how would you prove that a particular guitar was used by Kurt Cobain? As it happens, a right-handed model would be typical – for example, a 1965 Fender Jaguar would have been a natural choice for him. However, he played left-handed, so it would have been re-strung as a left-handed guitar. The nut would likely have been filed to accommodate the reversed string gauge order, and there may be additional strap buttons. Wear on the guitar would be on the opposite side of the fretboard to normal. The relationships between pieces of his equipment are therefore evidentiary, not merely illustrative. Photos and videos of him playing can be analyzed to date them and to verify whether they are authentic. In the absence of a birth certificate, for example, a left-handed modified guitar would be his documentation.

Did Gear Choices Reveal Was Kurt Cobain Left Handed Or Right?

10 Answers

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