Left-handed guitar

I have taught many left-handed people how to play the "regular" guitar. I don't understand why people feel the need to switch. It is the left hand that does all the fingering on a regular guitar, the right hand just does the picking. If you ask me a regular guitar is made for left-handed people, it's the right-handed people that should have a reversed guitar, if anybody should.

Easy Money wrote: I have taught many left-handed people how to play the "regular" guitar. I don't understand why people feel the need to switch. It is the left hand that does all the fingering on a regular guitar, the right hand just does the picking. If you ask me a regular guitar is made for left-handed people, it's the right-handed people that should have a reversed guitar, if anybody should.

I'm not so sure, and it's not that right hand "just" does the picking. I heard (and witnessed) more than one case where  leftie guitarist played rightie-guitar, developed up to the a certain level...and stopped there, despite the will.

The majority of the human population are right-handed, and the majority of guitarists are playing "right", as they were playing it from the beginning of the string instruments. Why there are not more guitars who are playing fretboard with their "better" hand? I might be wrong, I don't know...but I know when I was a little kid and grabbed guitar for the first time, I did it like a leftie. Which I  am. (My father, who plays a guitar, isn't.)



Edited by clarke2001 - May 03 2008 at 15:06

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=47088 Here's an older thread you should definitely look at.

Im a lefty too, what I did was bought a classic guitar and I just change the position of the strings and problem solve.

you can do the same thing with any regular electric guitar, of course some of them can be unconfortable because of the frets, so buy an SG, Flying V, or just buy any guitar just like Jimmy Hendrix did.

I'm left handed, and play guitar often. Epiphone electrics, and Ibanez acoustics tend to make a lot of left handed guitars, and are pretty common at my guitar center. If you have a GC around you check for some of those.

Indeed, you'll definitely need to replace the nut (or just turn it round) and probably have to do a huge amount of work on the bridge too in order to make the guitar playable.

ClemofNazareth wrote: Thanks for all the opinions and advice.  After much deliberation, I am the happy owner of a new Hohner acoustic (left-handed), and am well underway building up callouses on my very sore right fingers.   I did try both ways just to be open-minded, but in the end several unpleasant practice sessions with one of my son's right-handed guitars convinced me to go 'natural'.  It's really not about which hands fingers and which one picks - it's more about how the guitar is actually held, and holding it left-handed just felt much more comfortable (for me).

Surely you realise that with a left-hand guitar you hold the neck and fretboard in the *right* hand ...

HughesJB4 wrote: BaldFriede wrote: Just string the guitar up the other way round and turn it around, and you have a left-handed guitar. No need to buy one.   Yeah okay, it's really not as simple as that.

With an acoustic guitar it is; I have done it myself.

ClemofNazareth wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Surely you realise that with a left-hand guitar you hold the neck and fretboard in the *right* hand ... Of course (he says, clearly missing the point of the question).

I play both keyboards and guitar, and when I compare both I have to say that on the (right-handed) guitar the left hand leads ... it does the main job, the right hand is only picking the strings.

Of course you can play a left hand guitar ... go right ahead. I'm just saying that in the end it is simply a question of what you're able to get accustomed to.

I have tried playing my dad's right-handed guitar a couple of times and I couldn't even get Smoke on the water right! I consider myself to be quite skilled player. If you are right-handed, and think that the lefties should learn the "proper" technique, why don't you try to play a left-hand guitar. Difficult, isn't it?