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Guitar question, left handed ?
steve m - 12/10/20 at 08:42 PM

Guitar question, left handed ?

long story cut very short!
I am learning the Guitar, and have done so in the last 6 months of covid/lockdown, etc
I can play various stuff BADLY !! well some are not!

Grand kids also want to learn, as they have heard my renditions
Grand daughter can play the same as i do, pick in right hand, left hands on the frets, yet both of the grand sons are left handed, and want to play the wrong way round, as in pick in the left hand,

Question is, and its difficult for me, is their small scale guitars are configured for right hand, as in low e at the top, and high e on the bottom. but both Boys switch it over, to a left handed config and its doing my head in !!

Do i change the stings around on their small guitars, or stay with the wrong config

I ask the question, as i cant get my head around trying to teach them notes and frets, the wrong way round

steve

Slimy38 - 12/10/20 at 09:26 PM

Well, if it was good enough for Hendrix...

Just to confuse things, I'm left handed, and I play 'right hand'. After a few Google searches I couldn't figure out whether it was more common for lefties to use left handed guitars. So I just went for a regular guitar.

Ask them why they want to play that way round. Let them play upside down if they want, you can do handstands can't you?

I wouldn't recommend swapping the strings. Apart from anything the nut will be wrong and the strings won't sit right.

adithorp - 12/10/20 at 09:29 PM

I believe you're supposed to swap the strings around to make it left handed. However I seem to remember that several self taught musicians actually play a right-handed guitar, left handed. Paul McCartney used to I seem to remember (but might have relearned)

Edit... I'll bow to the above over my sketchy knowledge

[Edited on 12/10/20 by adithorp]

joneh - 13/10/20 at 07:41 AM

My boy is left handed and plays his bass and other guitars right handed. I don't think you can just swap the strings over as all sorts will be wrong, depending on shape, pick board and as Slimy mentioned the strings probably wont sit right due to the groove thicknesses and height in the nut.

You might be better buying a couple of cheap left handed guitars or just teach them right handed.

Slimy38 - 13/10/20 at 08:12 AM

Here's one article that turns the waters into thick mud when it comes to who plays what;

https://www.guitartricks.com/blog/10-Legendary-Left-Handed-Guitarists

Apparently Hendrix did restring his guitar, although he would have made all the other changes as well. Then again, it also mentions he could turn the guitar over on demand and not be any worse off, so I guess when you get to legendary guitar status you can do whatever you want!

Mash - 13/10/20 at 09:17 AM

Hmmm, Paul McCartney is right handed, but definitely plays a left handed guitar left handed

Jimi Hendrix was a lefty but played a right handed strat strung left handed. A number of left handers played, or play right handed.....

So it's pretty much up to them what they feel better with....

As others have said, r-stringing is not as easy at it might seem, mainly due to the nut, but Jimi Hendrix' guitar always did look really cool

steve m - 13/10/20 at 04:01 PM

Thanks for the replies,

Today, i went round after school. theirs not mine!
Grandaughter who is 10, can play Happy Birthday, , after an hour, so that was quite cool, from tabs that i learnt
One 6 yr old, who has the attention span of a Goldfish, just strums the guitar, and in his head also playing happy birthday, but is just noise
and can play the same noise either left handed or right handed, so at least hes consistant!

His twin brother who is a full on child, now holds the guitar as i do, and is picking strings, but no usefull fret usage yet, but i left the madhouse, with one girl upstairs practising, one 6 yr old strumming the guitar while playing on a switch, and watching childrens programme on the TV, all at the some time

The full on child, who is getting incredibly frustrated that he cant play a thing, but his sister can, is now threatening to bash his twin brother over the head with his guitar, so i came home !!!

For all you Parents out here, i dont know how you, (or i did) cope with all this mayhem, and all i can say is being a grandparent is so cool, as when things
get real bad or ugly, i can just walk away, and go home !!

So in conclusion, i dont think it really matters what strings are were, or in what hand, but at least one of the three, is trying


steve

Mr Whippy - 15/10/20 at 07:24 AM

I don't play the guitar but is this not like saying a ABC keyboard is easier to learn than a QWERTY one when in fact it makes no difference and you just get use to whatever you learn on?

Flick - 15/10/20 at 09:21 AM

I am left handed and learnt both guitar and bass right handed, normal string layout. My guitar teacher was also the same. Does have some advantages....
You can have the guitar and strings in any configuration I would of thought, which ever best suits.


Noel Gallagher left handed, plays right handed.
David Bowie was left handed, played right handed.
Iron maiden guitarist (name eludes me) lefty plays righty
Elvis Costello Lefty, plays righty.
Joe perry has a left handed guitar backward, stringed in reverse

Etc

jps - 15/10/20 at 12:31 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I don't play the guitar but is this not like saying a ABC keyboard is easier to learn than a QWERTY one when in fact it makes no difference and you just get use to whatever you learn on?


It's a good point, and I can only think of one good reason why the answer is probably 'no' (i'm answering as a guitarist). There are a few other reasonably good answers, but they are all overcome by saying 'you'd just learn to play differently'.

I remember reading somewhere once that the ear 'hears' low to high notes in that order.
So when you play a chord, multiple notes at the same time - but using a plectrum you sweep across the strings, the ear locks onto the first note it hears then processes each subsequent notes in the context of the previous one - and then puts it together into a nice harmonic sound for the brain.

So it's typically going to sound right if you have the lowest note sounding first, then the next lowest, etc.

From a practical point of view for how the guitar is typically held, it would be *best* to have the lowest pitch string nearest the ceiling.

You could adapt your strumming to lead with an 'up' stroke (it's usual to lead with a down) - but then that would make the fairly common technique of palm muting rather more difficult, for example.

Ulitmately you could probably work around this with technique, but you'd be having to solve problems that wouldn't exist if you had a 'conventionally' strung guitar. So why make it hard for yourself? A bit like the QWERTY layout - which also developed for good reason!

[Edited on 15/10/20 by jps]

[Edited on 15/10/20 by jps]

BenB - 15/10/20 at 09:23 PM

Although of course the Qwerty keyboard was designed back when typewriters had manual arms and it was designed such that letters next to each other were unlikely to be sequentially pressed (to allow the arm to return to the home position).

IE Qwerty was designed to be slow.

Compare that to the Dvorjak keyboard modelling whereby keys next to each other were designed to be likely to be sequentially pressed (to reduce finger moves).

If you look at speed typing records they're all on Dvorjak. Which BTW is also available for Iphones

Qwerty isn't the way it is for a good reason nowadays. We're just used to it.

So it would be like saying playing guitars RH is worse than LH, we're just used to playing it this way.

Anyway, useless facts over!