Left handed

good day , so I am a left handed guitarist beginner and I own an electric guitar which is meant for right handed . Is it possible to get improved and play properly with it upside down or its really rare ?

Originally Posted by: darickmendes

good day , so I am a left handed guitarist beginner and I own an electric guitar which is meant for right handed . Is it possible to get improved and play properly with it upside down or its really rare ?

Well, there's this guy. I hear he was pretty good....

Silliness aside, you can absolutely get better. There are a number of left handed guitarists from Jimi Hendrix (pictured), Eric Gales (awesome) to Eliot Easton who were all amazing players. So, no doubt being a lefty is not a reason to stop.

The challenge you may have with playing a righthanded guitar 'lefthandedly' is that it is still strung like a righthanded guitar. Meaning that the heaviest string is at the bottom and the lightest string is at the top (upside down). Not impossible as, if you go watch the amazing Eric Gales play, it's how Eric plays.

Things to be mindful of:

If you want to flip the strings on the righthanded guitar so that the heaviest is at the top and lightest at the bottom (a more standard way to string), you can't just flip the strings this way as the 'nut' at the top of the neck is cut generally for a specific string thickness so you would need to have someone replace the existing nut with a new nut cut for this restring. The person cutting the new nut would re-setup your guitar to play this way.

The benefit of doing this is that you do have to totally rearrange how you think about chords and playing. Particularly when doing lessons. If you left your strings 'upside down', when veiwing a lesson, you both have to 'flip' your head around watching a righthanded player, with you playing lefthanded, AND you have to think 'upside down' because your strings are upside down. Lots of brain flipping for a beginner.

It also depends in what your current righthanded guitar is. If it's a standard acoustic with no cutaway at the neck, no biggie to flip that over. If it's an electric guitar like a Les Paul-style single cutaway for a righthanded person, well, that will be more awkward.

With all that said, you may want to consider getting a proper lefthanded guitar. As a beginner, you likely don't know if guitar playing is going to stick and taking are the safe route of not buying a new guitar to meet your specific needs.

Reconsider this. I mean, it's fair to say that buying a new guitar is not always just as easy as going out to get a new one. It's investing more than just a couple of dollars so I don't say this flippantly. However, guitar playing as a beginner under the best of circumstances is never super-easy. Adding more challenges to your pathway only makes it harder. Not something you can't overcome. Clearly guys like Eric Gales wanted it so bad that he just sat there and figured it out.

If you can consider getting a guitar that meets you needs, do so.

To your original question; yes you can learn and many have. It more a matter of deciding where you're at and if you can work through those extra obstacles.

Don't give up though, playing guitar is awesome and I love all the years I've played.

Hi

I am a lefty player and tried to learn on a right handed acoustic with the nut re-cut in the late 60s because there was not many left handed guitars around. I used to try to tune my guitar using pitch pipes so when I played a chord the guitar was out of tune, for months I thought it was me until i found out about intonation? you cannot convert a right handed fixed bridge guitar to lefty thats why Hendrix played a Fender because the bridge can change.

hope this helps

Tbh the only downside with playing electric guitar upside down is that its hard playing the farthest frets of the guitar but hopefully I can get used to it

I id manage to learn to play 3 cords on right handed strung guitar G-C-D if use barr chords and triads its not such a problem.

Allow me to offer you and all other lefty's out there a different perspective on this.

I am a lefty myself, though I play right handed. I initially studied guitar back in the early 80's. I remember showing up for my first lesson, as there was no online lessons at the time, with a hand me down beat up department store brand student guitar and asked the instructor if I should reverse the strings and play it upside down. He strongly urged against it. Probably for the reasons Jeff has stated, but he really encouraged me to learn it right handed.

I think for a couple of reasons, one mentioned earlier that left handed guitars weren't exactly adorning the walls of the guitar shops back then. They had to be special ordered and also I think it would be difficult for him to teach someone sitting across from him with everything being reversed. I don't know if thats true, but I got to admit even I find it awkward trying to watch a left handed guitar player. Nothing looks right to me when I'm trying to follow what chord shapes they are doing. He also said it really won't be any more difficult learning right handed since I'm starting from the beginning anyway and it turns out he was right. It really wasn't that more of a hindrance as one would think.

Of course, as a kid I played hockey and golf righty and baseball lefty so maybe I'm a bit ambidextrious who knows,

So again this is only perspective and not to be construed as actual advice. Do what feels comfortable, but I really think since your at the beginning of your guitar adventure you might want to consider just trying to learn it right handed. Talk to Christopher or Lisa. They teach the fundamentals so they can better advise you what is the best approach for you as your starting out. Good Luck and have fun no matter how you play it.

Moe

mo,

I am right handed and I have always thought the same thing about lefties actually having a bit of an advantage when it comes to dexterity with chords. That does make complete sense.

However I also understand that it is the picking and sturmming that give the insturment it's drive, most of it's tone, and all of its attitude. After decades of knowing how to grab weird chords with my left hand, without problems... I am still working hard to develop my tone and picking accuracy. I find these skills much more demanding of very subtle control. At this point I think using my dominant hand to strum and pick is paying dividends.

Thats true Sno. Just recently I started some advanced strumming lessons with Anders and he went over those very same things you talked about, but I think because I've developed more strength and accuracy with my right hand over the years playing I hadn't really noticed the difference. I know for me personally switching to a left handed guitar would feel really awkward like I was having to learn everything all over again. Maybe the more we play and learn then both hands start to balance each other out cause they get used to their assigned functions.

Moe

I am pretty sure you are right about how dexterity can be learned either way.