I have always wanted to play guitar, and now that i am an adult with adult money i am finally going to learn. I am a lefty, and i do just about everything lefty and always have. archery is about the only thing i know i do righty and that is because the gear i had access to as a kid was right-handed.
I have access to a right-handed guitar, but not to a left-handed guitar to compare.
Curious what other sinister guitarists think before i shell out cash for a lefty.
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Lefty here. I’ve been playing guitar for almost 30 years. I play “right handed” and always have. It felt way more natural to me to fret with my dominant hand, and my family had a right handed guitar, so that’s what I went with. I never really experimented to figure out if I could be better with a left handed guitar (and now it’s much too late).
I also bat right handed and used a regular (what ever you call not-southpaw) stance when I did martial arts.
On the other hand, my dad is a lefty and started learning guitar about 10 years ago. He found holding a right handed guitar unnatural and got a left handed model.
My 2c - even if you don’t know how to play, go to a guitar shop and see which way feels better to hold. It’ll feel awkward either way, but I’ll bet one way will fell less awkward. And if it doesn’t, I’d lean toward right handed because I know it’s a pain to find left handed instruments (and it’s nice to be able to play/try friends’ guitars).
Edit: here’s another 2c: consider trying a ukulele. They are a lot of fun and much easier to learn and get a lot of the basics down. Then pick up the guitar once you have a little bit of experience with that. I recommend this because a vast majority of people never get over the hump when trying to learn guitar. It’s hard. It’s painful. It’s frustrating. You can make something that sounds like music so much more easily on a uke, which means you’re more likely to keep at it. And you’ll get a lot of the guitar basics from it so when you start learning that it’ll be an easier process to once again feel like you’re making music.
… if you do get a uke, make sure you aren’t buying a toy, though. There are a lot of unplayable toy Ike’s out there. People buy them from places like Walmart for their kids all the time thinking that it is a beginner instrument. It isn’t. It won’t stay in tune for more than a few seconds of playing and is nothing more than a noise maker. You can get a real-but-cheap beginner uke for well under $100.
I’m a lefty. Learned guitar right handed. Been playing for 30 years.
Reasons to learn right handed: guitars are (generally) cheaper and easier to come by.
Reasons to learn left handed: if someone hands you a guitar at a party and asks you to play ‘Wonderwall’ you can easily decline.
I will agree with the easier to come by, but browsing Sweetwater they are the same price as righty. And the fact they are all the same price is the only reason I am considering a lefty.
Lefty here. For the most part I’ve taken to right when it comes to things like computer mice for example. I’ve tried playing guitar right handed and for the life of me I have zero coordination with it. In my personal experience there’s just certain things I that I do better with my right and vice versa. Tldr Chose left cause I never got good enough to play right even though I really tried to.
I learned right handed cause it’s what I had access to.
In hindsight I might have tried stringing it backwards. I personally don’t think it made much difference. I didn’t seem to learn any slower than the other kids learning at the time.
I’m mostly only left handed because I’m missing several fingers on my right hand. As a result, I play right-handed since I can still hold a pick with only 2 fingers. I feel like fingering is better suited to the dominant hand anyway, though I suppose certain styles of play still require a lot of dexterity from the picking hand as well.
My son plays bass and he said that about fingering with the dominant hand, so I asked why he doesn’t play a left handed bass.
I imagine most people just don’t really know which style they’d prefer until they’ve already gotten used to the default right-handed method and don’t feel like starting over. Non-standard play also makes it harder to find an instrument, and learn chord finger positions and online tabs, as others have mentioned.
I’m righthanded and I struggled to learn the fingering of a righthanded guitar. Lefthanded seemed more natural to me, but then I wouldn’t be able to just borrow a guitar from anyone. I really wonder why anyone thought it was a good idea to do the strumming with the dominant hand. In more difficult pieces, both hands get their share, like on piano. In easier pieces, the dominant hand has it much easier and the other hand does all the hard work.
I’m left handed and play right handed. 99% of the guitars out there are right handed. It’s so much easier to find gear for righties. I also like the idea of being able to be at a party or a beach or a jam or a whatever and get handed a guitar and be able to play it, rather than have to say “sorry, I’m a leftie.” Playing right handed hasn’t felt weird or anything, it’s been fine.
Now, that being said, I know of several lefties who play right handed guitars… literally just learned how to play it upside down. They still can get handed a right handed guitar and they can just deal with it. It’s pretty wild to watch them play, but they manage. I also know a left handed fiddle player who similarly plays right handed fiddles but just does it backwards. Wild stuff.
I play lefty. Holding a guitar right handed feels super awkward for me and I’d sooner learn to play with the strings reversed than hold it right handed.
Downsides: more expensive, harder to learn cords from books, can’t play borrowed guitars. Upsides: more natural feel, easier to learn fingering looking at the other person’s guitar mirror style, can’t be forced to play borrowed guitars
I have considered a righty upside down.
I also like the idea of a lefty that no one else can play.
I play guitar and bass right handed. Especially for bass, it feels more natural to fret with my dominant hand and use the index and pluck with my right hand. That being said, I play fingerstyle most of the time and I’m not good with a pick, so playing leftie might be better for picking hand dexterity.
I play left-handed. Been playing for 30 years. I also taught my right-handed sister to play left-handed.
