Question #11

Q. I am looking into getting started playing the guitar. I am left handed and I am getting conflicting information on how to start out. Should I start with a right handed guitar and try to learn that way, or stay true to my left handedness?

A. This is a very common question. When making your decision keep these things in mind.

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 15 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 you probably 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. If you do start to play right handed remember that it is going to be a little awkward which ever way you hold the guitar. Don't let that awkwardness make you think that you are holding the guitar the wrong way.

Of course there are those that will say "what does he know, he's right handed". You will have fun playing the guitar no matter which way you hold it. But think about these things before you decide.

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