...to ask why left-handed guitarists need to play left-handed?

[Splodge1506]

Been skim-reading the thread about people who hold their knives like pens, and there’s quite a lot of mention of left-handed people who have to hold their knives in their LH and forks in RH. It reminded me again that I’ve always been puzzled why left-handed guitarists (like, famously, Paul McCartney) need to hold their guitars the “wrong” way round, with the very inconvenient consequences to stringing/chord shapes. It must make it all so difficult.

I played quite a lot as a teenager and it seems to me that both hands require the same level of dexterity (I’m right-handed). My left-handed friend played “normally”.

So, can anyone enlighten me? Not being provocative, just genuinely curious.

When you are learning to play the guitar, nothing feels natural.

But to some extent, some positions/movements etc feel more instinctive than others.

I'm left handed and play guitar the right-handed way around, eat the right-handed way around, play tennis the right handed way, Makaton sign right-handed - feels fine and normal.

But ask me to use a right-handed tin-opener and I'm stumped. It's SO awkward and difficult.

People are different, I suppose.

But ask me to use a right-handed tin-opener and I'm stumped. It's SO awkward and difficult.

Do you use it as a right-handed person would? Or try to turn it the other way round? Thinking about it, the strength needed to pierce the can using my (non-dominant) left hand isn't easy, though turning the spinny knob with my right is fine.

Not music, but Rafael Nadal plays tennis left-handed, despite that not being his dominant hand.
He's actually right-handed in normal life. They talk about it in this advert, where he also attempts to brush his teeth with his left hand.

Husband and son both lefties but both play the guitar right handed. When you learn that way you get used to it, and saves messing about with strings. I play violin, my left hand has more complicated stuff to do than my right.

Left hander here, I don't play the guitar but I've held one and held it the "wrong" way as it was more comfortable.

I'm really cack handed with utensils like can openers, scissors and stuff. I use my left hand for my fork. I'm left legged too the most annoying thing about being left handed is getting ink smudges when writing.

Also it took me an awfully long time to get used to being taught hairdressing when I was an apprentice because everything was backwards to me but I got there.

I imagine it's mainly down to personal preference/how you first start out? I'm a leftie, not a guitarist but I play the flute the normal way. And there's no way I could use a computer mouse left-handed, or cutlery for that matter. Left handed scissors are essential though. My right-handed sister uses cutlery the left-handed way.

What @LellyMcKelly says. I agree that left-handed people generally have to develop some ambidexterity because the world is set up for right-handed people. But some of it's just innate to that person. I'm right handed but can happily change hands doing most practical stuff - I'll naturally switch hands when sawing or ironing or painting. DP is much more firmly right-handed and can't.

I would guess the OP isn't especially strongly right-biased, which is why nothing feels natural when learning.

Just get your guitar restrung.

I don't actually care either way what other people do however I am left handed, I am literally useless doing anything right handed.

I used to play the violin and played right handed, a pp mentioned that it is your left hand that actually does the intricate work so it would make more sense for me to play that way anyway. I also play piano but my right hand is better at playing faster, trickier stuff as you learn the top lines more with your right hand so it becomes natural.

its easier to play guitar left handed, I can't play it right handed and I've given it a go. It's more comfortable and natural for me to play it left handed.

also I am not ambidextrous at all, I cannot write anything right handed, can't even pour a kettle right handed.

You're asking why left handed people dont play the guitar the right handed way? Because they're left handed

I would guess the OP isn't especially strongly right-biased, which is why nothing feels natural when learning.

I suspect I may be to some degree dyspraxic also. My handwriting is very neat and clear, I type well and as above I played the guitar reasonably well when I played it, but all those things seemed very difficult and unnatural at first. To write neatly I had to write very, very slowly as a child (never had a hint of dyslexia though) and I still find it impossible to write at all decently while taking notes during a phone call. I'm very, very clumsy and bad at sport; I've never really been able to ride a bike, and when I once attempted cricket I was so shamefully, embarrassingly bad than the other beginners that I never went back!

I am very RH, use mouse LH due to RSI issues, it's a mirror image so very intuitive with dominant finger doing the most clicking.

I wonder if anyone ever switched L and R hand around learning to play recorder as a young child?

*worse than the other beginners, not bad!

You don't get right- and left-handed piano keyboards.

DH is a professional guitar teacher (25+ pupils a week, adults and children). He teaches new left-handers the same way round as right-handers. He explained to me that when you are a complete beginner, neither hand knows what it is doing at all, so there is no barrier to learning that way.

There is no reason why a left-handed person can't learn to play a right-handed guitar.

@RandomMess

I am very RH, use mouse LH due to RSI issues, it's a mirror image so very intuitive with dominant finger doing the most clicking.

I wonder if anyone ever switched L and R hand around learning to play recorder as a young child?

Me too (the mouse) although I never bothered to set the mouse to LH buttons.

Guitar is a bit different I think, as you have more scope for doing your own thing, but if you want to play the violin with others in a traditional orchestra or string quartet you have to play right handed otherwise your bow will bash into your neighbour's.

I have a left handed daughter who plays the violin the normal way. It hasn't caused her any problem. As others have said, both hands have complicated stuff to do!

I've been a left handed guitarist for 33 years.

Just picked it up that way. The strings are strung the same way as a right handed guitar (bass top, treble bottom) but the saddle in the bridge, if steel string, is angled the opposite way for optimum intonation and even the internal bracing in the sound box (I also make acoustic guitars).

It's no harder than being a right handed guitarist; reading music, especially TAB, is extremely easy to switch in my head.

With regard to dexterity, I am puzzled. I can easily do hammer-ons, pull-offs and complicated fingerstyle runs with my right hand but put a pen in it, or even an iron, and it is entirely useless!

On stage, it's visually appealing to have a right handed and left handed guiarist standing next to each other!

You don't use both hands at once to use scissors, brush your teeth, play tennis or hold a pen.

When you play a guitar, you use both hands at the same time and each has a different job to do - one is not necessarily easier than the other. A beginner will be crap at both.

I'm right-handed and had a hand injury a few years ago. While it was mending, among other things I learned to use a computer mouse with my left hand, and still do. I play Jenga left-handed as well.

Although you can re-string a guitar to play left-handed, the instrument will not necessarily sound as good. The strings are a different thickness and exert different pressures and stresses on the neck, and an expert maker will take account of that during the construction process. Also, if it is a second-hand guitar which has been strung right-handed for some years, the wood in the neck and the machine head will have adapted to those tensions. Not only that, but the frets will have wear on them in relation to the string thickness. Changing the strings over will mean that the instrument will no longer sound or play quite right.

Some lefty guitarists will string it for a lefty, so the strings are in the normal order top to bottom. Some, like Hendrix, will just play 'upside down

Among well-known guitarists, Hendrix could play anything, but performed with a right-handed guitar strung left handed. The instrument body was upside down but the strings weren’t.

Dick Dale played a real right-handed guitar left-handed.

Paul McCartney played a lot of guitar as well as bass, all strung left-handed.

Left-handed Wilko Johnson learned left-handed and then re-learned right-handed.

Left-handed me plays left-handed on a left-handed guitar. I don’t claim that there’s any sensible reason for that. I use scissors in my right hand, because scissors are right-handed tools.

Left-handed guitars were not commonly available back in the days of the Beatles and Hendrix, although Fender produced a few left-handed Telecasters to order, right from near the start of production. If you look at a Telecaster you can see that it doesn’t take many special carpentry operations to make a “backwards” one.

My left handed sister learnt of standard guitar but my daughter also left handed has a left handed guitar as I expect it easier for her.