How to play left-handed guitar or left-handed guitar

In this article, we will analyze how to play the left-handed guitar, how to rearrange the strings correctly, and what can be done in general so that a left-handed person can play the guitar.

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Let’s just say that a guitar is an instrument where there is a strongly dominant side: 95% of guitars are sold for right-handers, that is, the neck is held by the left hand, and the right hand is held by the resonator hole.

But what if you are left-handed and you want to intuitively (and much more conveniently) sit like this:

Retuning a left-handed guitar

There are several options for solving the problem of learning to play left-handed guitar. One of them is to re-tune a regular right-handed guitar.

This means that you must remove the strings from it and put in reverse order:

In this case, your guitar will “turn over”. If your guitar is approximately symmetrical as in the first picture in this article, then there may not be any serious problems.

And if you have a guitar with a characteristic cutout on the bottom, then when it “turns over”, it will not look right.

this is how it should look like:

but in fact it will be like this:

Accordingly, it is not very convenient and looks, to put it mildly, “ugly”, and to be honest, it’s absolutely dumb. Moreover, experienced guitar masters say that even with complete symmetry, strings cannot be moved, because some kind of balance somehow collapses (which we have no idea about). There is another way to play left-handed guitar – to buy such a guitar.

left-handed guitar for lefties

As they say, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel – and in order not to spoil an initially good guitar by rearranging the strings, it is better to buy a left-handed guitar right away, i.e. for lefties. She will initially have such a structure that her right hand is on the fingerboard, and her left hand is at the resonator hole.

she looks like this

But in this way to solve this problem there are significant disadvantages:

However, of all the proposed options, this one will be the best. And you don’t have to suffer, and the guitar doesn’t need to be damaged.

Learn to play left-handed guitar

Well, and, the last way is a bit masochistic, but it also has a place to be. The bottom line is that even if you are left-handed, start learning to play the guitar “like everyone else”: left hand on the fretboard, right hand on the resonator.

If you are a beginner, then in fact it makes no difference to you how to start learning. The only note is that you may experience some discomfort and difficulty at first that other people do not experience. But, as they say, patience and work will grind everything! Over time, you will get used to it and will no longer notice discomfort.

Notable left-handed guitarists

If you think that you are the only one left-handed, and it’s hard for you, then you are greatly mistaken 🙂 Among the famous professional guitarists, there were also left-handers among the great guitarists.

For example:

Jimmy Hendrix

(here, by the way, he retuned the guitar and turned it over as I described in the first method)

Paul McCartney — The Beatles

here, by the way, is also an “inverted” version: pay attention to the gadgets of guitar effects and the overlay of the white pickup – they are on top, although they should be on the bottom

Kurt Cobain – Nirvana

and here is also an inverted version.

Despite the fact that you immediately saw 3 photos of insanely popular guitarists with “inverted” guitars, you should not compare them with yourself – their guitars were remade for big money and certainly not some Vasya Pupkin from a nearby workshop. Therefore, I personally advise you to buy a left-handed guitar, since there is such an opportunity in the modern world.