FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Left Handed Guitar For Beginner

Question:
My 9yo left-handed son is starting guitar lessons. He is motivated by a strong guitar culture at the summer camp he attends, where guitar is used to accompany spirited sing-alongs, prayer, etc. The style of guitar playing at camp is almost exclusively chords and strumming (i.e., no complicated finger-picking). Given this, and what I've read in the archives so far, and the fact that we already own a righty guitar (that I used to play), I'm leaning strongly toward having him start out right handed. Playing chords should be easier if he gets to use his more dextrous hand for the fretting, and thus he'll have more success earlier. BUT, he's really, really left-handed (I knew before he was a year old) and if he does ever want to get seriously into finger-picking, etc., he may well want/need to change. So... how hard is it to switch once you've begun learning one way? Is that possibility worth the hassles and initial difficulty of starting out left-handed, in your opinion? And finally, what exactly is different about a left-handed guitar? Would stringing a right-handed guitar upside-down be a reasonable facscimile?

Answer:
I'm a lefty (very dominant left hand) that learned to play right handed. Not a handicap at all. My lack of talent has been an occasional problem, but hand dexterity hasn't been. There are SOME lefties for whom a right-handed guitar just feels unnatural from day one. That's actually pretty rare, but it happens. Those folks should learn to play left-handed instruments. Otherwise, the vast majority of lefties do fine on right-handed guitars, and there are MANY advantages to learning to play that way...like, ability to find guitars easily (and more cheaply), ability to play your roomate's guitar, ability to learn from other people more easily, less chance of being burned as a witch, etc. How to tell? If he's one of those rare birds that NEEDS a lefty guitar, he'll probably feel it the first time he picks up a right-handed guitar. He'll feel an overpowering need to flip it the other way. In particular, strumming will feel very awkward. If there's not a REAL strong need to flip it over...if he's not sure which way feels better...there's probably not an issue. If your son starts out right-handed, chances are that at some point in the first few weeks he'll say, I can't learn this way because I'm left-handed. Most likely, he's just dealing with the same difficulties as every other beginner...left or right handed. Just so you know and can tell the difference...if orientation is the problem, it won't be evident in his ability to fret notes, it will most likely be a problem with right-hand coordination...strumming, picking, etc. Most beginners get frustrated with the left hand, not the right (actually, they just get frustrated with their right hands a few months later when they realize that their rhythm sucks). Beginning to play the guitar is difficult, and newbies come up with all sorts of reasons why it's physically impossible to play an F chord...My fingers are too fat/thin/long/short, my hand is too big/little, my hands aren't strong enough, it just hurts too much, I need a different guitar, etc. Daily practice is the only cure. Assuming that playing right handed doesn't give him the heebie jeebies the first time he picks up an instrument, it shouldn't be a handicap in any way. There's almost no chance that he'll go back and learn left-handed to improve his fingerstyle chops...his right-hand abilities will be fine.