Left-handed guitar players: HELP!

All are welcome to respond, but I am especially interested in the thoughts of professional guitar teachers, and/or left-handed guitar players.

I am an amateur guitarist with almost thirty years’ experience. Although I write, eat and throw with my right hand, I learned to play guitar left-handed. All my guitars are left-handed models, strung left-handed. I play a variety flat-picked and fingerpicked styles.

I taught guitar for several years, and I was always adamant that my students learn to play right-handed. (My reasons: it’s harder to buy or sell a left-handed guitar. And more importantly, lefties can’t take part in the fullness of the community – e.g., unless I bring my own guitar, I probably can’t sit in with a band or play at a friend’s party).

I play regularly at a local cafe. A little girl whose parents work there recently received a small student guitar for her 8th birthday. She delightly picked it up, and held it… left-handed.

When I corrected her, she insisted on going back lefty, saying, “It feels better this way.”

Since she writes and throws right-handed, my guess (and her parents’) is that since I’m the only guitarist she’s seen play regularly, she assumes this is the ‘right way’

I think it would be better for her to learn to play right-handed, and I am trying to decide what to do. (I am probably the one who will end up teaching her).

For the reasons listed above, I think she would be better off playing right-handed.

On the other hand, forcing this might discourage her from playing altogether.

I am of the opinion that since both hands are involved, guitar handedness is less immutable than writing or throwing – I would liken it to batting, which most people can learn either lefty or righty.

One option, which I never considered during my teaching days: teaching her to play left-handed on a right-handed guitar, ala Jimi Hendrix or Elizabeth Cotten. Although I don’t have much experience playing this way, I foresee problems playing certain styles. E.g., with the strings backwards, it’d be a real handicap playing any kind of polyphonic fingerpicking – you’d have to play the melody with the thumb instead of the fingers, and you only have one thumb.

On the other hand, if all she wanted to do was strum chords while sitting around the campfire, it might be no big handicap.

Thoughts appreciated.

Yuck, don’t do the Hendrix thing. My head hurts just thinking about it.

Sadly, for ease-of-life, it’s probably best to reorient her to playing right-handed. But if she really wants to learn lefty, let her. Just make sure she knows the problems inherent in it. It’s not like it’s IMPOSSIBLE to do it.

In the late '40’s and early ‘50’s left-handed guitarist Frank Remley, who played with Phil Harris’ band. appeared on several shows including Jack Benny’s and also was in several movies. He played the part, of all things, of a left-handed guitar player several times.

I’d say let her learn left handed. It’s just a matter of re-stringing the guitar, correct? I don’t recall ever reading that Jimi ever played with the guitar strung “upside down” to him. He would just invert them. And as far as electric goes, she will have to deal with the knobs on top, but that is a minor adjustment, right?

Well, I think letting her play which ever way feels most comfortable for her is the best thing to do. I’ve been playing for 20+ years and taught many people.

On a different note, my favorite player Steve Morse is a left handed guy that plays right handed. He seems to think it actually helps some. Here is a link. His point that using his left hand to finger the strings is actualy playing left handed seems to make since to me.

To make a WAG I’d bet that when the guitar was first developed the fret hand did less work than the picking hand so the left hand did the fret work. Then it got stuck that way and these days the left and right hand both do a lot of work, depending on styles of coarse.

But then again it is a WAG.

Slee

Yes, Casey, it’s minor with a symmetric guitar (say, a nylon string acoustic). But slightly less so if you play a guitar with a pickguard. More so for cutaways. And if you decide you want to play an electric, the knobs are indeed on the wrong side (controlling my first electric was a pain). While Hendrix played brilliantly on righty-strung guitars, that’s irrelevant here – he was a genius, who could’ve played with his toes if he had to. I’m trying to max out a child’s chances to obtain basic competency.

sleestak, I agree wholeheartedly that guitar playing handedness is not really tied to the hand you eat and write with. (Glen Campbell and George Van Eps are two more left-handed people who play guitar right-handed). That’s why I’m considering the possibility that it may be better to choose a handedness based on external factors.

I’m realizing I need to assess how adverse the little girl feels to switching – if it really seems like something she doesn’t want to do, I will teach her left-handed. (FWIW, she is very bright, with excellent math skills).

Further comments still welcomed – thanks for all so far!

I realize that your intentions are good, but how important is this really? You seem to feel an awful lot of responsibility for the way someone is going to play a guitar. It’s just a guitar.

She’s comfortable left-handed? So she should play left-handed. She ends up teaching herself to play a right-handed guitar upside down? So what? It is clear that you are worried because you care about this little girl and her “musical future,” and beyond some friendly teasing, it is not my intention to belittle that. But when you said:

I nearly pissed myself. I bet Jimmy Hendrix worried constantly about the fact that he couldn’t get that polyphonic fingerpicking down. :smiley:

I will never understand technically obesessed guitarists. Her ability to learn polyphonic fingerpicking is not going to make her a good guitarist. Let her play however comes naturally to her.

The great George Van Eps left us a couple of years ago.

I’m a right-handed bassist, but I’ll respond anyway. Are you her teacher? If not, I wouldn’t worry so much, it’s not your problem. If you are, then yes, I’d probably suggest encouraging her to try to play right-handed, for all of the reasons you listed. You either have a limited selection to buy or you get to mess around with the nut and strap locks of every instrument you get.

My brother-in-law, a local humor-folk-singer who has put out an album and has made #1 on Dr. Demento last year (his website = http://hometown.aol.com/nudeadguy )is left-handed. He plays 6-string and 12-string guitars, strung as if for a righty, and flips the thing upside down. He has always done this, and I’m told that trying to follow the chords by watching him is a challenge.

Neil, her parents are poor immigrants, so if anyone ends up teaching her, it’ll be me, gratis. And I want to do the best possible job, even though nobody’s gonna sue me for it.

Kyomara, your post has provoked the most thought of any so far…

My fancy-schmancy phrase ‘polyphonic fingerpicking’ was meant to describe things like simple bluegrass acommpaniment (think ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’: pick, strum, pick, strum). For reasons I listed, I would think this is harder to do with backwards strings. And I would hate for a wide range of music to be beyond her reach because of how I taught her.

I reiterate, the fact that Hendrix didn’t worry much about playing existing styles is irrelevant here – as a virtuoso, he was capable of mastering more than most of us. And as a genius, more concerned with creating new styles. Most people who take up the guitar are neither.

But your post makes me realize that, more so than with other instruments, guitar technique can be bent and shaped as you progress.

Arigato.

I’ve played right-handed for 20 years and I still don’t quite get it. I do remember the first time I picked up a guitar I wanted to play it lefty, and I’ve observed many other rookies (kids, mostly) do the same thing. I’m much more dextrous with my right hand, so it seems logical that I would want to use that hand on the fretboard, since I consider strumming and picking to require the least dexterity of the two activies you need to do with a guitar. However, I play it the other way, always have, always will… go figure :slight_smile:

Considering other instruments as well… the strings are all played with the left hand fingering the notes. And the brass section gets to use it’s right hand exclusively for fingerings. I’m thinkin there’s probably an ergonomic reason for this.

I would let the girl do whatever feels comfortable, but would have her try it both ways at least a few times. The issue of inability to find left-handed guitars is insignificant IMO, because it’s similar to the windows/macintosh argument. If you use the tools that are comfortable for you, then you are going to be more skilled and more productive and availability of those tools will be a minor problem.

I’m a lefty. Left-handed guitars aren’t that hard to come by anymore. Heck, you can even get left-handed catcher’s mitts these days! If she 's strongly inclined and you’re lefty then it seems pretty good if you’re going to be the teacher. Don’t do the upside down string thing, though. Just don’t.:slight_smile:

Would it be possible to teach her both ways?

I’m left-handed and learned to play the bass guitar right-handed. I understand your reasoning for wanting her to play right-handed, but I also think you’re right in not wanting to discourage her completely.

As a compromise, teaching her both ways just might work.