So you want to take up learning guitar but you’re unsure if you should be playing right or left handed? Take a read through this article to hopefully find the answer to this tricky question!
Every day I waste at least 30 minutes correcting poor advice given by right handed players who think they know it all. It really is unbelievable the levels of sheer stupidity I see spouted by misinformed players. If you didn’t own a Porsche would you give advice to someone wanting to find out what it’s like to drive? No, you certainly would not! The same principle applies to guitar. Right handed players are in no position to be giving advice about playing guitar left handed.
So here we go, hopefully this will clear everything up once and for all.
Should I Play Guitar Left Handed or Right Handed?
This is a simple question that you can only answer yourself. Do not let anyone try and tell you that one way is better than another because they are in no way qualified to tell you this. Every person’s brain is configured differently and will enable you to perform various tasks in the most easy and efficient manner.
How Do I Discover What Is Best For Me?
Stop what you are doing and play some air guitar for a second, don’t think about it, just do it. Did you strum with your left or right hand? If you strummed with your left hand you should play left handed, and in the same way if you strummed with your right hand you should play right handed. Simple right? Another easy test is to watch how you clap your hands – the hand that does all (or most of) the movement is the hand that you should strum with.
But Another Left Handed Person Told Me He Plays Right Handed
This person is most likely not a true left handed guitar player. As I mentioned above, different people do things different ways depending on how their brain is wired. For example I write with my left hand and play guitar that way too, but I use scissors with my right hand and shoot a bow that way also. Just because someone writes with their left hand doesn’t automatically mean they are predisposed to playing guitar left handed as well.
I’m fairly active on Twitter and on a daily basis I see right handed people talking about how they play guitar left handed. Everyone is unique. As I said above, only you can decide which way you should play.
The Guy In Guitar Center Told Me Just To Learn Righty
Why do you think he’s telling you this? If you buy a right handed guitar you are far more likely to go back to his store and buy more of his product because that is what probably 90%+ of his stock is. He may be too small minded to stock more than a handful of left handed guitars, but he does have the brainpower to deduce that he’ll lose you as a potential repeat customer if he sells you a lefty. After all, are you likely to go back for a second look at his one black Strat copy in the corner? I think not. Bottom line – don’t listen to the store clerks if they tell you this…as explained above, only you can decide to play right handed or left handed.
They Also Told Me It’s Impossible To Find A Left Handed Guitar!
Anyone who tells you this is in possession of an incredibly outdated point of view. This is 2011 not 1966 and this wondrous invention called the internet makes it absurdly easy to obtain almost any left handed guitar you could wish for.
Sure, there are far less options in general when it comes to choosing your guitars but this is a terrible reason to possibly hinder your learning over. I don’t know about you, but I got into guitar because I loved the way it sounded, not because it looked cool. There are plenty of excellent left handed guitars available and as the internet is making the world increasingly smaller the choice is only getting healthier. This year has seen increased left handed ranges from the bigger brands such as Gibson and Ibanez, and even companies who had ceased making lefty models (such as PRS) have started to resume at least limited productions. Things are looking increasingly peachy for the southpaw guitarist!
Isn’t Learning Left Handed Harder?
This is another myth I see crop up on a daily basis. This idea is floating around purely because of misinformed right handed payers who think they are qualified to give advice on playing guitar left handed. It is in NO WAY harder to learn guitar left handed.
See my article on the Myths Surrounding Playing Left Handed Guitar
To sum up though! The only real difference is that chord diagrams are mirrored, but you’d have to be incredibly dim not to be able to read something as simple as this backwards. If you want to ensure you are reading them correctly at the start, check out our left handed chord diagrams. Tabs are not backward, learning materials are not backward and it makes no difference to a guitar teacher if you are left handed – in fact, many say that it is easier to teach a southpaw due to the Mirror Effect!
Will Playing Right Handed Hurt My Playing?
If you are a natural left handed guitar player then of course it will (eventually). If you want to advance beyond the basics and become the best player that you can be I strongly suggest you play the way your body feels the most comfortable with. Alternatively, if you only want to learn a few camp fire songs then sure, you can get away with playing the wrong way around. Most of us, who actually have some ambition would be unsatisfied with just settling for second best however.
To back up my point Andy James did an interview last month where he answered questions from fans. One of the questions was from a lefty who had chosen to play right handed guitar. After six years of practicing for six hours a day he could still only play his favorite band’s songs at half speed. See the article here .. Andy James on Left Handed Guitar .
Please don’t feel that I am trying to push anyone to play guitar left handed. I am merely posting the facts because I am sick to death of reading the chicken scratch advice given to lefties on a daily basis. The bottom line is to play the way that feels natural to you, do not listen to anyone but YOUR OWN BODY. If you decide that you are a left handed guitar player then go for it!
Good luck, and feel free to get in touch if you require any extra advice.
I just love this article… I’m left handed, and when I started out playing guitar, about five years ago, I immediately bought a lefty guitar against the advice of the store clerk. I hate it when right handed people tell me to just learn things right handed. If it feels natural, play lefty because the pros outweigh the cons in the long run…
Hey thanks for the article. Do you think Jimi Hendrix would sound like Jimi Hendrix if he decided to play guitar right handed? Despite what many people say, I think that your picking hand (whether you use plectrum or fingers) requires much more dexterity than your fretting hand. Your picking hand really makes your style so I agree that whatever hand you feel most comfortable with should be the way you play. Never once have I heard of a left-handed person telling another that they should play righty, its always a right handed person that thinks that their way is the only way but how could they comprehend the difference if they themselves have only one perspective?
Yer good post, I’m left handed and I’ve been struggling which hand to play with as I’m quite ambidextrous but I don’t want to make the mistake of starting with my right if I would be better with my left. I’m still not sure. But great site!!
I am a strong lefty but I have always play “right handed”. I don’t actually believe there is such a thing as left or right handed guitar playing, because both hands are required to do equally technical tasks. It’s not like a pair of scissors (scissors are designed for a particular hand, right handed ones don’t work well in the left hand) that are only designed to be used in one hand, a guitar is a two handed item, not a left or a right handed item.
OMG…
Another dubious.
Just fucking reinstall the string on your guitar in reverse order, take the guitar like Jimi Hendrix, and try to play on it!
And you feel the difference – unnecessary muscle tension will just go away, and you feel yourself more natural and comfortably.
It’s just physiology of your body, you can’t avoid this.
Thank you for this article! I’m a left-handed writer (but an adapted ambidextrous in eating and sports), so I assumed I’d need a lefty guitar to learn on. However, I was given a right-handed guitar as a gift and have had difficulties maneuvering the frets. I did the “air guitar” and low and behold, I’m a lefty, just as suspected.
This article is a little shallow. It is not as simple as what “feels” right. Physically it may feel “right” but not work mentally. I can play very very fast and accurate right handed, as my right hand is very very strong. But in fact it is too strong and as a result my picking is sloppy and the feeling is very dissatisfying as their feels like there is a delay between the picking and the actual sound. Perceptually it always seems that time speeds up when I play a right handed guitar and I cant see what to do or play next, like there is a brick wall obscuring my creativity. I was raised as a right hander, while I think I probably shouldve been a lefty, as my dad is. My left hand is very strong, so strong in fact that when I am fretting a right handed guitar I often can create divots in the frets after about a week on a new guitar.
With my left handed black and white squier strat, it is much harder to pick fast, but the picking always feels much more accurate in terms of timing, my leads are smoother because I am forced to slow down, and perceptually it seems that time slows down to a standstill which is a very good feeling when working on leads. Additionally I get many different and creative ideas of how to look at things. I taught myself to write left handed in 2005 and it is still slower and harder for me, but for the most part, “feels” better if still awkward, so this whole idea of “feels better” could be feeling good mentally and feeling awkward physically, or conversely.
The other thing too is that playing right handed feels much more aggressive and not calming because I think the logical part of the brain is doing the fretting which is counterintuitive. Shouldnt the left hemisphere which does the planning move the fretting hand and the creative hand does the timing of the picking? To me this just works out better.
So, playing guitar right handed is far easier, too easy in fact, but I dont really like it all that much because I dont find I get any creative insight whatsoever playing this way. This nonsense of right handers playing a right handed guitar is nonsense, if anything, they should try a left handed guitar, they may like it better.
I still dont know which way my brain is wired, but I suspect that Im a lefty even though most of the time I have used the right hand.
Playing the guitar is intuitive and if you choose to play a left handed guitar you may find that all the nonsense written by right handed guitarists in magazines are just that, nonsense, because you may find your own way of doing things.
I don’t see buying guitars over the Internet as even close to equal to shopping music stores. When I’m in the market for a new guitar, I want to try as many as I can, and side by side, then look on the internet. I doubt I’m unique in this, though I do know one lefty who relishes in the quest for a great lefty guitar bought sight unseen. He’s returned more than he’s kept though, and invests way more time in the search than the most avid righty.
Also, unless you carry a guitar with you at all times, you’re out of luck 95% of the time at impromptu jams, or at a girl’s house who says “Oh, my brother has a guitar, would you like to play it for me?” That’s right, playing lefty can impede your luck with the ladies.