is it normal to...........

[i like strats]

is it normal to play a regular (right-handed) guitar when you are left-handed?

i've been playing this way since i started to play the guitar a couple of years ago and was just wondering......

do a lot of left-handed people play this way?

[andyc]

I play a right handed guitar even though I'm left, but I dont think many left handers play right handed guitars for their whole life. I have heard of them playing a right handed guitar first and then when they learn how to read tab and learn the basics they switch to left handed guitars.

[cyberfret]

Actually, I have never really heard of someone learning the basics right handed and then switching to a left handed guitar. I have heard of people starting left handed, becoming confused when trying to learn and switching to right handed.......just my experience.

Here is my view on the subject. There is not a left handed piano, saxophone, flute, or really any other instrument for that matter. Somehow, someone turned around a guitar and it stuck. Walk into a music store and look at your selection of left handed guitars...maybe 1 out of 100. You could turn around a right handed guitar and re-string it to play left handed, but you will have to have some custom work done in order to do so. Either way it is going to cost you more money. Left handed guitars are more expensive, and custom work ain't cheap either.

I have taught guitar professionally for over 18 years and have had plenty of left handed students. I try to get them to start out playing right handed, and here is why. All educational material that you see in books, Internet, video etc. is all written for the right handed guitar player. You could turn around what you see in your head, but most people have enough to worry about when you are first learning to play. I have seen some books written for left handed players. But after you complete that book, there is nothing else written like that. I have found that my student that start out left handed tend to be more confused with learning that way, as opposed to playing right handed.

If you are left handed, your left hand is the strongest. When you play guitar your left hand is the one that does the majority of the work... Why not have your strongest hand do the hard work.

Of course there are those that will say "what does he know, he's right handed". :)

--Shawn

[Coffee]

I'd always wondered if left handers had an advantage in playing a 'right handed' guitar. Frankly, since we right handed players play using our least dextrous hand I wonder if we are all actually playing left handed guitars (Okay now I'm confused.) Personally I think, because of muscle memory, either hand can be trained to do anything. Look at piano players, or, uh oh, how many of you are touch typing. (Are you a left handed or right handed typist.) I also teach and encourage students to play 'right handed' if they are left handed.

[i like strats]

well from my experiance i believe there is an advantage in being left handed since you have more strength and a lot of dexterity in your left hand to begin with.

i once attemted to play a left handed guitar, it didn't feel right. it must of felt like most right-handed feel when they start to play, although i wouldn't know.

[13noon]

My big brother's left-handed, but he plays a regular guitar. (it's really funny- he wears a watch on his right wrist and whenever it gets too close to the pickups, you can hear a "tick-tick-tick" coming out of the amp) I am right handed and play regular guitar. I would suggest learning right handed guitar. Like cyberfret said, 99% of guitars are right-handed. Only if you really can't do it should you play left-handed. Coffee is also right, my left hand has become more dextrous and strong since I started playing.

~13noon

[RoCkStAr3417]

My dad plays left handed, and he says he really mad @ himself because he didn't learn "righty" a long time ago. I play right handed even though i'm a lefty, i tried learning like my dad did but every time he caught me he yelled @ me to "play right" i found it's a lot easier in the long run to learn the right way no matter what handed u are.

[barbietta]

Here's a mind bender for you. Jimi Hendrix was left handed and played a right handed guitar upside down. If you look closely at some old footage of him playing, you'll notice the tremelo arm and the tone/volume knobs are at the top of the guitar rather than the bottom. Maybe that was why he felt compelled to light his guitars on fire and smash them to smithereens...then again, maybe it was the acid! :)

[Ben C.]

I'm a lefty guitar player, and I had to mull over this issue a lot when starting.

I think that when you play guitar, you should strum with your dominant (and usually rythm-endowed) hand. This is because your strumming hand is where the sound actually comes from. You need to be able to accurately pick/strum/whatever or you'll never get anywhere. It's not hard to train your non-dominant hand to do fretwork; EVERY SINGLE righty guitar player has to.

Of course, there is the issue of the availibility (Or lack of, rather) of left-handed guitars. An interesting way to solve the problem would be to buy a right-handed guitar, and play lefty without restringing it. However, this makes chords sound kind of odd (Learn them upstrokes!); and you lack the help of any conventional learning method, but there have been successful lefties that did this. If you do this, you can pick up any righty guitar and play it.

I do admit that there's about 1 lefty guitar for every 100 right handed guitars manufactured. However, lefty guitars are out there, you just have to find them.

As far as learning lefty, it's not as hard as people make it out to be. When looking at chord charts, you can view it as a mirror image of your fretboard rather than a picture of it.

Whatever you decide to do, just do whatever you're comfortable with. I started off learning right-handed, but it just felt backwards and uncomfortable. Besides, if you play lefty, people notice you more than if you're the average right handed player.

[i like strats]

well I found out about the upstroke problem about a month after i bought my first guitar. Luckly I was able to gain really all the control and strength I needed to play with my right arm by just practicing songs like crazy train and I don't know (and a few others that don't come to mind right now). This world was pretty much made for right-handed people, I just adapted to it. So I don't really plan on switching to a lefty guitar any time soon... because I've grown so use to the standard right handed guitar