The brain is such a fascinating machine. Whenever you exercise it and stretch its abilities for one thing, it makes new synaptic connections in seemingly unrelated areas. 

I'm learning to play guitar all over again. Don't get me wrong - I've been playing for forty-some-odd years now and can play quite well.  But I play backward. Not just left-handed, but upside down as well. A few years ago, this led to a desire to play 'true' left-handed so that I could learn to Travis pick (fingerstyle).  The exercise didn't go as planned because it made me mildly schizophrenic. The strings were all backward - even though I was using the same hands I'd always used; and you've no idea how confusing this is. Depending on which guitar I picked up I could be strumming/picking and fingering chords either one direction or the other. 

But after doing this for several weeks, I discovered that I was soon able to Travis pick backward - which I couldn't do before. Granted I only used my index finger and thumb, but it was quite dramatic. I no longer play with a plectrum (guitar pick) as fingerstyle sounds so much better. I've improved this style in the intervening years, and can play some awesome stuff backward, but once again felt limited as I wasn't using the whole hand to pick. 

So a couple of weeks ago, I took on learning to play both upside-down and backward - or actually the way everybody else plays guitar - right handed. This didn't lead to the schizo problem I had a few years ago because both hands were now doing different things entirely. 

The first thing I discovered was how hard it is to learn to play in the first place. I was starting over from scratch. For the first week, the fingers of my left hand were tender and blistered, and my right arm ached. It takes time for the ends of your fingers to get damaged and heal again - and eventually callouses develop. My right arm wasn't used to playing rhythm, it was always doing melody and complex fingerings. 

Now a couple of weeks later it's starting to get easier to play and progress to barre chords and all the other stuff one needs to learn to play effectively.

But something changed.

If I flip the guitar over and play backward again, all of a sudden I find myself able to do a full clawhammer; the ultimate in fingerstyle picking. I've tried it before but wasn't pleased with the result. Now it suddenly becomes completely natural - as if I had been doing it for years. With clawhammer picking one can produce an entire orchestra of sound with intertwined rhythm, melody and harmony. I've managed to include everything but the pinky in my clawhammer, which will take a bit more work. It's really strange and difficult having your pinky beat out a rhythm on the bass strings, but I find there's no problem doing it with my ring finger. So now I've got four fingers actively picking out rhythm/melody/harmony instead of just two (and sometimes three).

If I continue down this path, it should be amusing to try a public performance. Start out right-handed and play something impressive; then flip it upside down and blow everybody away.