Help With a Left Handed Beginner

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by davidbeinct

Jimi restrung his Strat. Albert King played upside down as did Elizabeth Cotton.

Hendrix did restring when playing his well-known flipped Stratocasters in his fame years--but lots of stories that he could just flip a righty-strung guitar over and play it too.


Two personal anecdotes: After reading some accounts that said a flipped Strat has advantages which might account for why he didn't covert to a left-handed guitar when the funds were there to do so, I bought a used left-handed Strat and worked at playing it righty and re-strung to see for myself.

It was awful--and no amount of time seemed to make it less so. The famed ergonomic genius of the Strat was turned into it's opposite. Even just keeping the dang patch cord jack out of the way of my right arm was a trial (I keep watching Jimi on film and it never seems to bother him, yet I could do it myself). The knobs are in an awkward place. The left hand whammy arm placement (which Stevie Ray Vaughn liked on an otherwise righty guitar) seemed slightly worse as are the flipped over 6 on a side headstock tuners.

I eventually bought a "reverse Strat" that just reverses the headstock and pickups which reverse slants the bridge pickup, which I think is the main thing gained (Page guitars does this on some models).

On the other hand, I have picked up left-handed strung guitars and played with the treble strings on top of the fretboard and the bass strings nearer the floor. I was surprised at how easily I adapted. I wasn't strongly tempted to setup a guitar to play like that for an extended period, but that would be an interesting experiment.

When I suggested a lefty-restring for the OP's Seagull, I must have been playing my nylon string or an electric that day. The Seagull, like most steel string guitars has a slanted saddle slot, so flipped and restrung it would be slightly off intonation wise. The moveable saddles on an electric make this easy, and nylon string guitar usually have straight saddles slots.

[Gordon Currie]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

I think it is actually an advantage that my left hand does the fretting. It requires more intricate work and more stretching.

This is my experience. In 1966 left-handed guitars were rare beyond belief (I don't think Sears or wherever my grandparents found my Harmony Stella even offered left-hand guitars for any price).

As I gravitated to lead playing (more active left hand) and flatpicking (less active right hand) it just made sense that my dominant hand did more work.

I sometimes wonder if some right-handed players might benefit from starting out with a lefty guitar...

[jimmy bookout]

Well, I haven't been on the forum for a few days, but it's wonderful to see the "should XX play left handed?" so that we could get all the standard "left handed piano, reverse engineered (my personal favorite for just plain silly) orchestral instruments, blah, blah, blah".
This thread, like the hundreds that came before it, is just as inane as all it's earlier kin.

To the OP:
As a kid, she should definitely TRY to play right handed. The one thing that everyone seems to be missing is that she wants to play like Justin (Bieber). So.....all this hand wringing may fall on deaf ears as you have an 11 year old girl trying imitate her hero/crush.

JImmy

PS Hey Wade, sorry for being so late to the dance, but, as always, you did your usual EXCEPTIONAL job of presenting the lefty point of view. And, as always, MAGA aka Make Acoustic Guitarists Acquiesce, the militant arm of rigtht handed guitar players, are STILL mad about us lefty players.


PS. Here's how serious I am about "reverse engineering"....allow me to introduce my car....a 2017 Chevrolet SS, that started life and was built in Australia, where it was known as a Holden Commodore SS-V. Being Aussie, it was a Right hand drive car, but those heathens at GM reverse engineered it to left hand drive so it could be sold in the U.S. I curse the car every day

[Wade Hampton]

Dwasifar wrote:

Originally Posted by dwasifar

Why is it that right-handed players naturally want to put the left hand on the neck, and vice versa? You'd think that we would want the dominant hand doing the fingering and chords. But it just doesn't work out that way. Why is that?

It's because what the right hand does when the player's right-handed is actually more difficult.


whm

[MHC]

Originally Posted by jimmy bookout

This thread, like the hundreds that came before it, is just as inane as all it's earlier kin.

To the OP:
As a kid, she should definitely TRY to play right handed. The one thing that everyone seems to be missing is that she wants to play like Justin (Bieber). So.....all this hand wringing may fall on deaf ears as you have an 11 year old girl trying imitate her hero/crush.

JImmy

Hello Jimmy,

Thanks for chiming in, and contributing to what has been a very interesting discussion. I did not know that this topic had been discussed "hundreds" of times before nor did I think that this particular discussion was "inane." In fact, despite your judgement of the thread, it's been helpful for me. And isn't that what the AGF is about?

But I do need to correct a false assumption you make. When my niece says that she wants to "play like Justin" she DOES NOT means Justin Bieber, nor does she have a crush on Justin Bieber. Where did you get that?

If you read the post carefully, you'll understand that I sent her to check out Justinguitar.com for beginner lessons. And when she says that she wants to "play like Justin" she means the instructor Justin Sandercoe. Meaning, she wants to play in the same fashion that he's playing (righty) so she can follow along.

Cool car. So sorry you curse it everyday.