Left Handed Guitar
louise_m wrote 26 June 2010
I am currently researching lefty guitars as I want to learn and came across this on teaching yourself guitar:
If you are left handed then you need to think particularly carefully when choosing a guitar. A lefty guitar will probably feel more natural to you – and could be the right choice. However if you can bring yourself to learn on a right handed instrument you will have a much greater range to choose from, will be able to share guitars with other players and won’t have to mentally flip over the chord positions you see or read to match your fretboard. Both hands need to be doing quite precise work after all. You want to avoid choosing one type and then regretting your choice.
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So I’m a lefty and I play guitar righty. I started playing lefty but realized that the hardest part of learning was not the strumming hand, but the fretting hand. Putting my fingers into the chord shapes was hard to do with the right hand.
Switching it around made it easier to learn and back when I was learning (in the 70’s), there were no lefty guitars.
I’ve been teaching guitar lessons for 34 years full time, and happened to be left handed myself.
I’ve wrote this on my website and I’m including part of it here.
Another major problem for choosing the correct guitar for the student is when the student is left handed. I have yet to have spoken to a
salesperson that has ever given me the correct, and precise answer to the question,
“If I’m left handed does it make a difference which way I hold it?”
The obvious answer is Y E S !
But this is a loaded question, and perhaps a bit tricky for the “all knowing” salesmen.
Below are the issues, observations, to this commonly brushed aside dilemma.
First off some lefties are ambidextrous,
and can use their right hand for a lot of activities.
For this type of lefty they can play a right handed guitar if it feels normal.
For the left handed person who does everything with their
left hand it is imperative that they play lefty.
Read more at my link.
http://www.sound.fields.net/Choosing_Guitar.htm
I am a right-handed guitarist and ukulele player, and just addressed a similar question related to playing UKULELE left-handed on my blog site.
My new program (True Joy Acoustics) is admittedly right-hand oriented, but I recently learned how strongly the left-handed community feels about living in a market dominated with right-hand products! In baseball, it’s highly prized to be lefty or ambidextrous, but for everyday citizens, there are many compromises that left-handers face … even scissors and can-openers can pose extra hazard. Right-handers such as me are oblivious to much of this … until motivated to learn more and start offering broader, more inclusive market solutions!
Fortunately, the ukulele brands I feature are versatile in this regard, and with a bit of research, I came across two very helpful resources to learn/play ukulele left-handed (vs. just tell everyone “it’s better to learn right”).
So, I invite readers of this post as well as the web host to visit my blog and let me know what you think!
http://truejoyacoustics.wordpress.com/
Thanks!
im a left handed and proud of it. I use my left hand to write, playing guitar and use knife but i prefer using right hand too doing something like bowling,badminton,tennis and even eat with my right hand. So, am i considered as a left handed just because simply i write with left hand..or am i Ambidexterity?
I’m in a similar situation with Zatie. But instead i forced myself to play guitar on the right. Stupid young me didn’t know lefty guitars exist then. So i too write with my left, but i do many other things with my right hand like Zatie, such as eating and racquet sports.. so i’m curious to know if i’m even considered a lefty :S
I too have played guitar as a “righty” for many years, although I’m a lefty. Luckily my guitar teacher wouldn’t let me play as a left! She said it would just cause problems, and I’m glad she did. Having to interpret each chord or riff from a lefty’s perspective would be too much work, it’s easier in my opinion to get used to the feel of playing as a righty.
Hope that helps someone decide!
I’m a lefty but have been playing guitar right-handed for 20 years. There were certain obstacles and rhythms that I just couldn’t execute.
I won several accolades & sessioned on several musician’s albums but I got to the point where I just couldn’t progress any further.
Someone once told me that you should always use your strongest hand for the rhythm, I finally plucked up the courage and made the switch this year.
Within a few months of playing left-handed, I have come so far and for the first time in 20 years, playing guitar now seems natural.
I always envied people who said it should feel like an extension of one’s arms, but I can honestly see what they mean now.
By the end of this year, I will probably overtake my right-handed playing.
This ‘error’ occurred because my first guitar teacher was amazed at my natural abilities and told me that I was doing so well playing right handed so I may aswell just stick to it.
He was wrong.
Play rhythm with your STRONG hand.
Hey Jim, I read your comment, I’m a professional musician, I started right handed because I didn’t know there was an alternative.
I’ve been playing right handed for 16 years but I’m at the point I can’t progress any more too,I developed a legato way to avoid fast picking, which creates too much tension on my right arm. I’m thinking if I should try to shift to the left hand, but I’m scared by the idea of repeating again all those years of hard work. How the shift happened in your case? Are you keeping trained also your right hand playing or did you choose to change radically?