Here's a cunumdrum...

I have been asked to find a guitar teacher for a left handed adult...now I know nothing about playing the guitar... is it possible to buy a guitar laid out for left handed people or do the people simply adjust to a right handed set up...do Guitar teachers adpat for left handed players... questions questions questions...

any thoughts please...

Regards

Andrew

One of my friends plays a left handed guitar. As did one of the Beetles.

I think any teacher could teach a left handed person. Just like my friend manages to teach right handed people fine. He doesnt make everyone play left handed like some right hand teacher make even left handers play right handed...

Did that all make sense? No?... I'm going to bed.

Some guitars you can get away with just stringing them in reverse order if you want to play left handed, but generally you'd at least need to replace the bridge and maybe the nut. You can buy actual left handed guitars, but it limits your choice significantly and the price will probably be higher (if not compared to the same model in a right-handed version, at least compared to many alternative models you could chose if you went for a RH one).

Also, if you play left-handed, you can't just pick up and play other guitars when you're offered a go on them.

Lots of left-handers play guitar right-handed for these reasons.

I've also heard of people who play the guitar left-handed but using a right-handed guitar strung the normal way - this would probably be harder for a teacher to adapt to than an actual left-handed guitar, but it does avoid the issue of needing a special set-up.

I'm slightly left-handed, but guitar is one of the things I deliberately chose to learn right-handed as it means that I have a wide choice of instruments available if I'm buying one and I can play those belonging to friends and family too, and they can play mine.

Guitar is something where both hands are pretty busy, though in different ways, so there's no particular advantage in playing left-handed. If your friend is going to play in a style that doesn't involve finger-picking, he may even find it easier to play right-handed as it's the right hand that has to form all the chord shapes.

So, I would suggest he at least consider the option of learning to play right-handed.

T.

I believe that two such were/are Paul McCartney and Jimmy Hendrix (Wannabee Hendrixes can and do buy left handed guitars and play them right handed to get the same effect!).

In any case, finding the guitar is one thing - I would have thought that being left handed should make little or no difference to the problem of finding a teacher.

My daughter is "left-handed" for everything but guitar she plays "right-handed".

When faced with the same question the guitar teacher just asked if we would look for a left-handed piano?

I'm left handed, and I had my first guitar lesson yesterday
I just played like a right handed person would, but I have a left handed friend who re-strings her guitar to play in a left handed way.
I had no problem in playing in a right handed way, and that's how I would naturally do it.
I can now play 6 chords. Score.

I'm left handed too, and my dad used to string my guitar in a left handed way and I'd play left handed. However when I went to high school, the teacher MADE me play as a right handed person would which I found so difficult to do at first, but now it is really easy !!!

I'm very strongly left handed but learnt the guitar the right-handed way. I thought that actually this was easier, because you need lots of strength and coordination in the left hand. I reckoned that I made progess faster than if I had learnt right handed.

But...one day I mentioned this to my guitar teacher.

He said that yes, in the early stages it was probably an advantage, but that I would never be a virtuoso player because in the end the music is made by the right hand, and that to inject real musicality into your playing you need to make the sound with your preferred hand.

(I wasn't sure whether to believe him, but I noticed that if I pretend to play a violin I hold the imaginary bow in my left hand. This is despite all those years with a guitar where the left hand was in charge of the strings).

He added that, although I'd been playing for around 3 years at the time, if I were really serious it would still benefit me to relearn left-handed. Since I'd only taken it up at age 16 and didn't have any ambitions beyond getting a reasonable tune out of it (I was around grade 4 level) I didn't think it worth it.

So the point of this ramble is that if your friend wants to play for fun, have a lot of choice of instrument and make reasonable progress in the early stages, then try to learn right-handed. If they want to experiment they could always get a standard guitar and restring it. This would give a taste for how it feels that way. ("Starter" guitars are not expensive compared with, say, a violin, so this would not be too much of an outlay).

Then, if they were really serious and felt that playing left handed gave them an edge they should take the plunge and get a properly adapted guitar and go for it, taking into account comments from the other posters about choice, ability to pick up other instruments, etc.

Teaching should be no problem - the teacher can sit opposite and demonstrate as if in a mirror.

The only thing I would absolutely not consider is playing a right-hand strung guitar upside-down. Maybe Jimi Hendrix could do it but it would make even some of my easiest classical pieces practically impossible to play.

[quote name='thouston' date='Jan 28 2008, 01:29 PM' post='659548']

I have to say I am extremely dubious about that assertion. There may be any number of things in the way of virtuosity, but there are several great and and I mean great players, who are naturally left handed but play right handed. Yes, the left has the greater physical workload, yes the right is the driver and controller, both need to be coordinated to produce great results. The whole question of whether or not to make left handers play right is somewhat fraught and there is no true unanimity in the profession. When somebody presents as left handed I do what I can to get them used to playing right, but you can tell when its not going to work.
Right handed teachers work fine for left handers (and vice versa).

Stefano


(Quote)
He said that yes, in the early stages it was probably an advantage, but that I would never be a virtuoso player because in the end the music is made by the right hand, and that to inject real musicality into your playing you need to make the sound with your preferred hand.