# Eric Gales plays the blues upside down

> The blues guitarist explains why flipping a right-handed guitar rewires everything he can play on it.
- Title: Eric Gales plays the blues upside down · Guitar World
- Summary: The blues guitarist explains why flipping a right-handed guitar rewires everything he can play on it. Blues is the groundwork for any guitar style, and how…
- Keywords: guitar, blues, eric gales, technique, lessons, Eric, Gales, plays, upside, Guitar World
- Source: Guitar World — https://guitarworld.com/lessons/artist-lessons/eric-gales-blues-lesson
- Published: 2026-09-12T12:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: guitar, blues, eric gales, technique, lessons
## Blues came first
Gales grew up in a family of musical brothers where blues and gospel were everyday sound. That mix, plus soul and R&B, became the foundation for how he plays.

> blues and gospel played a big part in our lives and provided a strong foundation for me as a musician
## He studied the kings
He and his brothers worked through B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King and T-Bone Walker, borrowing from all of them while hunting for a sound of his own.
## Play like you sing
His first example is a medium-slow shuffle in B, built on B major pentatonic phrases with chordal accents like B9 and E7. He keeps a vocal mindset so the lines speak.

> maintaining a "vocal" mindset helps me to stay focused on speaking in a musical way
## The guitar is upside down
Gales takes a right-handed guitar, flips it, and plays it left-handed, the way Albert King and Otis Rush did. His late brother Little Jimmy King played the same way.

> I choose to play the guitar "upside down."
## Bends pull down, not up
Bending a treble string means pulling it downward instead of pushing up. It also opens odd voicings, like an F7#11 where his thumb wraps the neck to fret the high B at the 7th fret.

> Playing this way completely changes the riffs, phrases and chords that are available to you.
## Chase the chord tones
Over the I-IV-V in B, he targets each chord's tones: B, D#, F#, A over B7, then E, G#, B, D over E7, then F#, A#, C#, E before resolving home.

> Having a firm grasp and understanding of the blues lays an essential groundwork for all guitar players
## Key takeaway

Blues is the groundwork for any guitar style, and how you hold the instrument shapes the vocabulary you can reach.