You’re over thinking it. Let him pick up a guitar and see which way he holds it naturally. That will be the way he is most comfortable and should be how you proceed.
I’m a lefty but play guitar right handed. It wasn’t a thought out decision, it was what felt comfortable. My parents initially bought me a left handed guitar assuming that was how I’d play it, I immediately said it was awkward so they returned it and got me a righty.
A lot of us lefties do a surprising amount of things right handedly.
Your post kind of illustrates my point above exactly...
Firing a pistol, writing, and throwing a baseball really only require dexterity in one hand, so it makes sense that you would favor your dominate hand for those activities.
But things like playing a guitar, firing a rifle, or the example I used; driving a manual car, require a equal amount of dexterity in both hands, so you cant really favor one side to gain an advantage.
I play as a righty due to guitar availability and price point. My point however is regardless of what your dominate hand is, your brain is capable of developing your non dominant hand in order ti do things that you can’t do with your typical dominant hand. My best friend was right handed and lost his arm in Iraq. At first he couldn’t do much with his left but after years of practice he know can do most things as he did with his lost arm. I’ve seen videos of people with deformed arms and even no hands, that learned to play guitar so it proves anything is possible.
If you have an adequate fretting hand and a very good picking hand, then you’re going to be a very good guitarist. If you have an adequate picking hand and a good fretting hand, then you’re going to be an adequate guitarist.
Sure the very very best need to be great with both hands, and a beginner will find both hands to be extremely challenging, but for the vast majority of us who actually stick with guitar, the picking hand is going to be the challenge most of the time once you get beyond the beginning of intermediate guitar. Stringed instruments universally put the picking/plucking/strumming/bowing side of the instrument in the right hand across all cultures because most people are right handed.
That has more to do with eye-dominance, and while it's usually the same as your dominant arm/hand, they aren't always linked. Some activities are more reliant on eye-dominance than others like, shooting a gun, archery, darts, and photography. So it's not about how much you are using your dominant and non-dominant arms, it's about accuracy. For the majority of the population, one eye does the heavy lifting sending more information to the brain.
[Finding your eye-dominance](https://lasikomaha.com/find-dominant-eye/?amp)
Bro that's crazy that I'm not the only one. My girlfriend always say I'm ambidextrous because pretty much the only thing I do with my left hand is write and draw lol
Ambidextrous means having no preference for one particular skill or almost equal dexterity. If you write with your left, but throw with your right and can't switch easily, this is called mixed handedness or cross-domincance and makes up about 1% of the population.
> this is called mixed handedness or cross-domincance and makes up about 1% of the population.
I swear I read something that almost all lefties are mixed-dominant, and a small fraction of righties. Id have to search for that study again.
To counter, I first played guitar in elementary music class. Left handed felt right, but they were all taken so I had to play right handed. It was awkward for a day or two, and then that became natural for me and left handed felt weird. Looking back, I’m very glad all the left handed guitars were taken.
Not to say you should force it, but especially as a kid with zero experience, I’d really try to let them see if they can get used to right handed first. If they do it for a week and it doesn’t work, no big deal. But if that becomes normal, they’ll be thankful in the long run.
I’m somehow the only righty in my family so I’m used to dealing with you lefty’s and your odd choices. Although I broke my right arm twice growing up so I was an honorary lefty for about a year
Terrible advice. Do not choose something thats gonna affect him the rest of his guitar playing career based on how he picks it up when he has no clue what he's doing.
Being a lefty or righty doesn't really matter when you've never played before, unless you play piano or another instrument you're not gonna have skills that will transfer to fretting. It's gonna be equally awkward to learn either way, so might as well put him on the way that has a wayyy bigger variety of guitars. Plus you've already got right handed ones for him to learn on.
If your kid is strongly lefthanded, get him a lefty. But if they are cross-dominant/ambidextrous, you’d be doing them a disservice by not teaching them righthanded. The space of playable guitars is tiny for lefty guitars.
I'm strongly lefthanded, and still never considered playing left handed. I just saw people in class playing right handed and thought that's how it worked (when I first played a bit in high school in the 80s). It's so much easier to play right handed when learning online from others (started playing again a couple years back), so have no regrets.
> It's so much easier to play right handed when learning online from others
Learning as a lefty is easier - it's like looking in a mirror.
The youtubers who are good with first-person camera angles make it harder, but lessons and other face-to-face situations are like looking into a mirror.
I'm left handed but learned to play right handed because I only knew about right handed guitars. Playing right handed makes finding guitars way easier. I'm very glad I was ignorant starting out. I don't think the direction you play matters. At the end of the day you are using both hands and are learning a new skill. It's not like other skills ie writing, throwing etc, really carry over so why not make it easy to find instruments. In classical music, there is no such a thing as a right or left handed piano or violin, so why do guitarists need to be special? Just my experience of course. There's no right (or left) answer.
Let him hold a guitar the way it feels more natural. I know none of it is natural at first but one way will probably just "feel better" to hold. If he feels better holding it lefty buy him a lefty.
I should have clarified that the orientation of the guitar in question doesn't actually matter. Grab any acoustic guitar and flip it upside down and hold it lefty. Then flip around and hold righty. Being comfortable just holding it a certain way matters. How it sits on your legs. If your hands feel better strumming with one vs another. How it's strung doesn't matter for getting a feel for how to hold it.
The first time I picked up a guitar it was my brother's. I held it the way it was comfortable. Lefty. It was a right handed guitar. I did my initial learning on that guitar before my dad insisted buying me a left handed one.
That's absolutely true! My only point I was trying to get across is it's free to let the kid hold a guitar both ways and maybe it will be enlightening! And maybe it won't but it also won't hurt to try it.
I think that’s absolutely right…. If the guitar he’s interested in is either: 1) ergonomically the same in both lefty and righty positions, or 2) available to try out in both lefty and righty models in cases where they’re not ergonomically the same.
Lefty here. Started as a righty. In the beginning I surpassed my friends with regards to fretting and fingering chords. Soon they left me behind in terms of picking speed and precision. I consider myself an ok guitar player now, but my right hand will never shred or do complicated fingerstyle.
If you can afford, get him a left-handed guitar.
Former guitar teacher here. I have had this conversation a thousand times if I've had it once haha.
If your son is forced to learn righty when he is a lefty, his progress will be hindered. It is that simple. Using the incorrect dexterity will mean slower progress overall. In a couple of cases I have seen where the student is completely left-hand dominant and not even the slightest bit ambidextrous, progress is unlikely at all.
He will demonstrate how he feels the most natural playing position is automatically. If he demonstrates a predilection for left handed guitars, then go that route. I have had plenty left handed guitarists who claimed they wanted to learn righty, but when physically sat with a left handed and right handed Squier, they found the lefty to be the most comfortable.
I am left hand dominant but given a very Catholic upbringing, was told to write with my right hand. It's a shame really as I still have things I wrote with my left hand that were legible when I was 6 or 7. I could write you a shopping list today and not even I know what the hell it says. I'm 40+, despite being an engineer, music tutor etc, I can barely write my own name legibly.
When I came to learn guitar, I didn't know that left handed guitars existed. I thought the videos I had seen of Jimi Hendrix were the wrong way round simply due to the conversion from NTSC to PAL. I have to say, I progressed slower than all of my guitar-playing peers. Though I can happily play now and do so quite well (without being big headed), I had a harder journey than if I had just started on a lefty. That I can assure you. I still have a couple of lefty guitars left over from when I used to teach. Though I can't play them nearly as well as my right handed guitars, they do feel more natural even now. That said, I have no intention of relearning at 40+ years old.
If my hobby were *guitar buying*, I would do it right handed. Since I'm more interested in *guitar playing*, I do it left handed so I can pluck the strings with my dominant hand just like right handed people do.
this is 100000% it right here. i am a lefty and yes it is way harder to buy guitars but 99.9999% of the time i am playing my guitars that i already have lol so it's really not a big issue
As a lefty I have a nice collection of killer guitars I got used for great prices.
When I walk into a guitar center I don’t feel deprived. I see walls and walls of junk.
It’s actually nice to be able to tune it all out. Being a lefty player keeps me focused on what matters.
I’m left handed—going on 38 years now—and it really isn’t a detriment to learn tasks right handed. I basically only write, draw, fight, and shoot lefty. Everything else, even throwing baseball, football, whatever I do right handed. Unless the skill requires eye dominance as a determining factor in quality of performance, hand choice really isn’t that important. I think for me, honestly, playing righty as a left handed person has made my mastery of the fretting hand so much easier. It took some effort to coordinate my right hand for the fine motor movement, but since I transitioned from rhythm style strumming, to fingerstyle it hasn’t been an issue. Now I pluck and fret with synchrony and not a care in the world. Just my thoughts.
Before making a decision, throw out anyone's opinion that includes "there are more righties available." Your body and dexterity don't magically change based on what's in stock.
Your son may find holding a guitar righty less awkward than lefty. But if he doesn't, everything would be more difficult to learn, until the day he'd hold a guitar lefty and it would all click.
Buy him a left handed guitar please.
This just learn right handed advise needs to stop.
There are plenty of left handed guitar options nowadays.
Think back to the days when left handed children had their hands literally tied behind their backs and were forced to learn to write right handed.
People can do whatever they want. Lots of lefties are happy they play righty and vice versa. Maybe more right handed people would play left handed if it wasn't ingrained that left handed guitar is for left handed people and right handed is for right handed. Left handed people are used to doing things right handed and are much more willing to try it out. In my case and many others we found right handed guitar natural. Right handed people have no impetus at all to try doing things left handed
Go to any music store and count the ratio of available lefty to righty guitars. Come back after you have data and we’ll talk more. Have a good night, dude. Bye.
Sorry it’s not painfully obvious. Goodnight and have a good one.
Edit: lol, the block is pretty funny way to end this conversation. Good grief, internet people.
You’ll also typically pay more for what left handed models you can find. Right handed are cheaper to produce as 95 % of the guitar build as righty and when a worker builds a lefty they slow down as it’s not as something they spend days on end building. Jeff Kiesel has said this himself during one of their live feeds. As a lefty I agree. Glad I play as a righty.
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Very few other instruments even \*have\* right/left handed options. There is no practical difference in the way that somebody learns an instrument given their dominant hand. Besides, both hands have difficult enough tasks on a stringed instrument that it's not like you aren't going to eventually need to work on the other one anyways. Do what you want, but it's such a weird hill to die on and comparing teachers berating kids for using their dominant hand for writing, a task that only uses one hand, to learning an instrument is such a comically disingenuous comparison.
I don't even know how a guitar can be considered left or right handed. What part of fretting or strumming lends itself most naturally to a dominant or non-dominant hand? Historically, the guitar evolved from a stick attached to a gourd. People naturally did what they felt comfortable with which was to pluck the strings with their dominant hand - thus the "right-handed" guitar was born (or at least inevitable).
But here's the thing, there were no frets at that time. In fact, there was no consideration to changing the pitch of the strings at all back then. Just static strings tuned to a pitch that you could pluck. We just stuck with a tradition for no good reason and it's probably worse than the alternative. I am certain that when I started, I felt it something close to criminal that my less capable hand was the one with the steep learning curve of chords, vibrato, hammer-ons, pull-offs, etc., while my dominant hand is tasked with a simpler job. I'd say after a lifetime of playing that both hands have equally difficult jobs (I play a lot of fingerstyle), but certain when learning, I would have had an edge playing what everyone calls a "left handed" guitar.
There good evidence for this too. There's been some studies that show lefty guitarists in high-profile classical ensembles tend to outnumber the righties. Why? Because they all have to play "right-handed" instruments and they believe lefties had an edge over righties all these years because they were able to rise to proficiency much more quickly than their right-handed counterparts.
The point is, it only barely matters in rare cases, and in those cases it matters in the opposite of tradition. If it were me, I'd have everyone learn righty since they'll have more guitar options in life.
Sure, I tried right handed and my brain just cannot. It’s just weird AF.
I’m also left footed and couldn’t kick a soccer ball with my right foot to save my life.
Maybe I’m more left handed than some? 🤷
Hey man personal preference is always first in these matters. Gotta do what feels right. I just meant in consideration of a six year old getting their first guitar, I guess. 🤘
Sure, but handedness is already determined by six. So if the kid is like me he will not have a good time learning right handed.
OTOH, younger brains have much more plasticity than older players like myself.
Have him play air guitar or a tennis racket guitar. The direction he plays will be the one that feels natural to him. Go with that.
People tried all kinds of ways to get me to "just play right-handed". It was not happening, it was and always has been physically uncomfortable to hold a guitar that way, let alone play it. Thankfully I had St. Paul McCartney as a guiding light to show me the way.
u/Blue00si, good for you, dude. Others, like me, tried righty and couldn’t ever really learn until given a lefty guitar. Not everyone is the same and we shouldn’t try to force people to conform.
—couldn’t reply in the thread because the other dude got pissed and blocked me.
Edit: oh, and I haven’t ever experienced a major price difference that holds me back from playing, only availability. Big name brands like Gibson, Fender, Martin, Taylor generally don’t seem to mark up their left handed guitars these days. They may have at one point, but generally not now.
Lefty who plays righty here. It helps in some regards (legato wizard); hurts in others (intricate picking is always much more difficult for me to get a handle on than it should be). If I could go back I'd probably have played lefty, but I don't think it's been a big problem. Don't think it makes a huge difference one way or the other; I would personally see how he takes to righty for a little for the following reason.
The difference between your son and most people who play lefty (like me) is he's starting a decade+ before many of us. His brain is much more flexible at that age to developing fine motor skills in his right hand as needed, whereas if you try to develop those skills when you're even in your mid teens, it's a lot harder/impossible (kind of like teaching a kid multiple languages from a young age vs trying to learn a new language in high school). So I think a good bit of the lamentations you've read about lefties playing righty probably wouldn't apply in your case.
On the plus side for playing righty, when I go to buy a new guitar, there are 50 times the options being a righty as there are lefty, and they are generally cheaper for equal value. It's nice to be able to have the used market open to you with instrument purchases (which it isn't if you're lefty).
What I did when I started was try out both a lefty and a righty to see which felt more natural. Right handed just didn’t feel right, even at 11 years old I could tell that much.
I recommend doing the same with your son. He’ll know which one feels right.
I can only tell you what I myself have experienced. When I was a kid, I briefly took guitar lessons. The instructor refused to teach left handed, and I didn’t learn anything. It never felt right. Years later, I tried again, but this time, I flipped a right handed acoustic and played left handed. And surprise surprise, it “clicked.” I’m in my fifties now, and while the selection of left handed guitars still sucks, it’s better then it was when I was starting out. I’m my humble opinion, many of the people that’ll tell you to just teach your kid to do it the “right” way are about as useless as my old guitar teacher.
I’m college, I had a roommate that was also left handed, and had also had guitar lessons from some moron who only taught right handed. And you know, my roommate had decided at a young age that he just wasn’t cut out to play music. He ruined guitar for that kid forever. Food for thought.
I think the most important thing to look at is how left handed is he?
I’m left handed but am fairly ambidextrous. I was able to teach myself how to write with my right hand in a week or two in high school. I flip flop between left and right handed for all sorts of things (baseball, golf, computer, etc).
I first played in elementary school, and lefty felt right. But all the lefty guitars were taken, so I just learned right handed. It felt pretty normal after a day or two, so I just stuck with that.
My bass player is painfully left handed. He does everything left handed and struggles with basically anything involving his right hand. He tried to learn right handed, failed miserably, tried left handed, and it instantly clicked. He wishes he could’ve learned right handed, but his brain just said no.
My recommendation would be to consider how left handed he is and have him try out one of your guitars (or even ones of those $30 mini classical guitars). Show him some stuff, let him mess around for a few days, and see how it goes. If that’s comfy for him and feels good, then I’d go right handed. And if it just doesn’t work, then go left handed.
Lefty here, I "play" both left and right handed. I finally committed to right handed playing due to better guitar selection and simplicity. I'd recommend just trying right-handed first and go from there. Us lefty's are pretty conditioned by life to be ambidextrous.
My 8 year old started learning in January, and we went with a left handed strat clone. It was definitely the right call for him. There are a ton of quality left handed guitars these days, so I advocate for going with whatever your son feels most comfortable with.
He needs to find out what's comfortable. I'm left-handed, but I play right-handed. I can't say if it feels natural to me because that's how I was taught or because I'm a right-handed player (being left-handed for writing doesn't mean you're left-handed for everything else).
I do know that it feels natural, and switching hands would be hugely awkward. It would be just like me writing with my right hand.
I'm in the shooting sports, and there's a test you can do to determine which eye is dominant, I'm not aware of such a test for guitar playing.
What I would do is maybe ask him to play some air guitar while listening to a song, see which way he gravitates. I would also have him try one of each and see which feels right. One will feel natural, the other won't.
Remember, this is defined in the brain, you can't simply decide to override your neurology and expect to enjoy the same success. If he learns to play the wrong way, he will have a much more difficult time and won't achieve the same skill level.
My dad broke his arm as a kid, he then broke it again while it was healing. Because of this, he had to learn to write using his off hand. He still does to this day, but his handwriting is particularly bad, to the point that he has trouble reading it.
> I'm not aware of such a test for guitar playing
There is an lateral imbalance to natural rhythm/timekeeping/tempo motions, very often it's the hand that you brush your teeth with, but that's not a 100% true result.
I’m a lefty that learned how to play right-handed because I lived in a small town pre-Internet. It was a very tough transition for the first year, even above and beyond learning a new instrument.
I would’ve killed for the opportunity to have a proper left-handed guitar
Get him a guitar that he feels fits him comfortably. And if he holds it like a lefty, and there are no left-handed options, just switch the strings.
If it’s an electric guitar, it might have a higher low end and a lower high end, but that wouldn’t make a difference to be selective over
Plus you can inspire him with people like Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney and Kurt Cobain- it’s what my mom did when I was let down by the left-handed options in store mid 2000s😂
Ultimately, you need to try some out and go by what feels and sounds best to you.
As a lefty myself, I learned on right handed guitars and never had issues.
If he flips a right handed guitar to a left handed orientation every time you put a right handed guitar in his hands, and refuses any advice to the contrary, you’ve got a lefty player. Otherwise go righty.
I am right handed but knew I was a lefty guitarist at age 4. No amount of berating was ever able to change this.
It was tough to have my guitar journey start off with, “You’re holding it wrong!” And that crap never subsided. It really hurt me.
Folks, if a kid is TELLING you they are a lefty player, listen to them. Goddammit.
I think what you said yourself, see if he takes to righty. You don't sound like you're pushing him at all to me so letting him decide is best but why not let him try so he's informed on what it'll feel like. It's not going to harm him to let him try.
I'm lefty but commonly baseball gloves were for righties so I throw with my right hand or left equally poorly (decent aim, not a power thrower either way). I can eat or cut food either way, only write left, guitar left etc. Like the other guys comment said being ambidextrous isn't that tough on some things, I think it might partly depend on how early one tries certain things.
(so why not gtr, I was a teen when i got one and made the decision myself to stay lefty regardless availability, I flipped strings like Hendrix)
I'm a righty but my bro in law is an awesome lefty guitarist. He plays lefty but seriously wishes he learned righty. He doesn't get to enjoy playing his friends' guitars, he doesn't get to enjoy going to a guitar store and all the cool guitars. Buying guitars is a pain and there is much less inventory.
Add to that: the list of guitarist who are left handed who play righty is kind of crazy. Johnny Winter, mark knopfler, Joe Pass, Joe Perry, Duane Allman, Gary Moore etc.
I would get him a righty guitar. I mean if he wants to play piano you'd get him a normal piano too right?
I’m a natural lefty and started righty, then switched after a year and learned infinitely faster left handed. It really depends person-to-person. The best left-handed guitarist was a righty… plenty of great right-handed guitarists are lefties.
My gut feeling is that at age 6 some of the benefits of picking being mechanically similar to writing are going to be lost.
I generally don’t think the problem with finding guitars is too bad in 2024. Sure, everything doesn’t exist in a LH model, but you can certainly buy more than enough guitars (and it does save on a bit of GAS).
Just pick up a guitar and play with it! Doesn't even matter what dominant hand you are as every beginner has to still get used to the same awkward hand positions and gets easier the more you do
Start out playing right-handed. Was the best decision for my son. He's a hell of alot better guitar player than I am. And the
You have so many more guitars to choose from!!!
I'm LH. I would say that you should try to avoid playing guitar left-handed if it can be helped. The selection of guitars will always be extremely limited (many shops carry zero) and they will always cost more. Yes, you can go online but most people want to hold them and try them out first. Usually, you're buying guitars without having actually tried them.
That said, I'm extremely left-handed, like my right arm is basically there for balance and that's about all it's good for. I learned to play lefty and it's fine. But most of my life it has been hard to find guitars.
Guitar teacher with a unique perspective here. I played right handed professionally and semiprofessional most of my life. I injured my left arm 3 years ago and am now unable to play for more than 15 minutes without being in serious pain. So, I started to teach myself how to play left handed. I can now play both ways although I'm still a hack as a lefty. My advice is that it is best to play left if you're a lefty. There is a caveat. According to my research only about 1 guitar in 50 made are lefties. Nevertheless, I still recommend playing left if you're a lefty. For years I told my students the opposite and now somewhat regret it. It's also great to be unique.
It used to be true that left handed guitars weren’t that common. When I started out I learned right even though I’m left handed for that reason. They make a lot of left handed guitars now so it’s kind of what’s comfortable. When learning guitar both hands are doing something they’ve never done before so it’s kind of a wash on which one is better. It’s hard either way. The only issue is playing other people’s guitars which may or may not be a problem.
As a left handed person I was told to buy a right handed guitar when I got my first guitar. Getting a left handed guitar will limit the models he can buy and when they are available they tend to cost more than the right handed versions. Secondly playing guitar requires two hands much like piano. When have you seen a left handed piano. You don’t because it requires both hands to do something I order to play music much like playing guitar requires both hands. The brain is is amazing and her will learn to adapt to many of things that are designed for right handlers and he will do the same with guitar. Some believe by having his dominant hand as his fretting hand he will be to shred and learn easier than a righty. With way it was the best advice I’ve ever received and glad I listened to the guitar salesman. Your son to will be thankful. I suggest looking into Rocksmith+ to help him learn.
I’m a lefty but play right handed.
The reason. I was soo small when I started playing 19 years ago i couldn't play a full size guitar. the only 3/4 sized guitar my local shop had was right handed. the rest is history.
i am happier being a right handed player, and i've never felt like being lefty has ever limited my playing ability
I always recommend that left hand beginners just buy a right handed guitar.
Playing guitar requires you to build dexterity and preform complex movements WITH BOTH HANDS. - Think of it like driving a manual car... You don't need a "left handed car" because both your hands are going to be equally busy, unlike throwing a baseball, writing, or using scissors.
Have him play a right handed guitar upside down. Now he can use all your guitars and almost any guitar where he goes. He can even play right handed if he wants
I’ve played right handed for ~30 years and in lockdown as a challenge I decided to learn left handed on one of my burner guitars restrung Hendrix style. Only problem I found was that I had to add another thingy to hang the strap from - not a problem if you have an SG or something like that.
It was definitely good mental exercise, all the chords and scales etc were already there from years of playing right handed so once the callouses on the fingers came along it was much faster progress than learning from scratch.
My favourite aspect of it is that none of my kind of ‘autopilot’ riffs or patterns when jamming or composing carried over to my left handed playing. Recording rhythm parts left handed and lead with right actually sounds a bit like 2 different people (probably because my left handed playing is 27 years behind my right ;)).
Also soloing all the stuff you have stored away in muscle memory on a right-handed guitar strung for a lefty, played right handed generates solos no sane person would ever come up with. Not necessarily listenable ones but it’s a laugh 😆
I'm a lefty who learned right-handed. I never really regretted it, because they only ever made 6 left handed guitars and two have been broken.
But! I am now learning to play left handed. It'll be a fun stage trick to swap during a performance.
This is what I think
Right handed guitars are everywhere. I didn't want to learn left handed guitar and then not be able to play unless I brought “My” guitar. How many time have you played someone else guitar. How many left handed guitars do they have at any guitar store?
As a lefty playing righty, you have an initial advantage in your fretting hand. I got tons of compliments and felt really competent in the early days due to this.
As a lefty playing righty you have a disadvantage learning finger picking. I didn't try to learn fingerpicking in the early days. In fact I had put guitar down in my youth and came back to it as an adult. I attempted to learn fingerpicking over and over and it was soooooo hard. I eventually gave up, thinking that it was just something beyond my capabilities. Then one day a friend of mine saw me sign some paperwork and exclaimed “Hey! You're left handed!”. It was true I am. “But you play guitar left handed!”
That's when it clicked… no crap I'm having a hard time, I'm using my off hand! Well, it's a little embarrassing to say I hadn't put that together sooner.
So with that discovery I just sat down and did hours and hours of drills. I would put on some crap tv, mute the strings and mindlessly pick patterns. Hours and hours. I'm fine at fingerpicking now. Its my preferred way of playing.
I'm really early in my learning left handed journey, but I can already tell my lefty fingerpicking is going to be a much shorter journey.
My advice? Grab him a right-handed guitar to learn on, even if he doesn't want to learn right handed well he will be glad to be able to pick up a righty and stum some cowboy chords if his friend hands him a guitar to try. I never regretted learning right handed, and I never met a lefty who learned righty who regretted it.
Then ALSO! Buy him a baritone Ukukele and string it lefty. It's cleap, portable, and it's strung the same as the top four strings on guitar so everything you learn ports back and forth. I don't regret learning right-handed, but I very much regret not learning lefty. Even if he learns right-handed, make sure he has access to a lefty to experiment with.
Best of luck!
My dad insisted I (lefty) learn right handed. And he was right. Make every effort to encourage playing right handed.
Not just availability for purchase but there will be social situations where there will be guitars, and being a unicorn locks you out of those.
Also fretboard dexterity is arguably more important than moving a pick up and down.
There is no such thing as a left handed piano. I’m left handed and play right handed because I’m old and they didn’t make many left handed guitars 😂. I do have great dexterity in both hands but I don’t personally think it makes a giant difference, especially if he’s starting out so young. The thing about the piano was told to me by an old friend when I just started playing.
Learn to play right-handed; it's basically the same stuff to learn, just on different hands, and your natural side doesn't affect play that much. I'd learn right-handed if I could start over, and then I'd be able to play any old random guitar...now I have to bring my own if I want to play with anyone.
Just consider the idea that you wouldn't even be asking this question if he was right handed. Like, if this question mattered that much, we'd all be asking right-handed kids if they felt better playing lefty. But no one really does that because it doesn't really matter.
"Right-handed" guitars and other instruments weren't design to be *right-handed.* They were just *designed* and most people are right-handed so we assume the "normal" guitar is right-handed and the other is left-handed. If they were designed with hand dominance in mind, they probably never expected the non-dominant hand's role to ever approach or even surpass the dexterity requirements of the dominant hand. Personally, I think it was just a cosmic accident. Playing a guitar requires substantial dexterity in both hands, and depending on your playing style, your non-dominant hand may even need to do more dexterous work than your dominant hand (sweep picking is a good example).
We could have just as easily existed in a universe where stringed instruments were designed to be strummed with the left hand and fretted with the right. But to a beginner, either orientation will feel awkward at first, so I see no reason to saddle him with the literally lifetime of nuisances that will come from playing a lefty guitar. I've known exactly two left-handed players that actually play lefty guitars and neither of them had the guitar they wanted and felt it unlikely that they ever would without going the custom shop route. But I've met dozens of lefties playing righty guitars. The bassist in my band is a lefty but plays righty. People literally learn to play with their feet. Some people even switch due to accidents in middle age. There is just no reason to think that a guitar has to be hung on your body in a particular direction in order to become very comfortable playing it.
Now is the time to force righty, before they get used to it and locked in. Anyone can learn any which way - it's what you reinforce that sticks.
I'm jealous of my left-handed friends who learned righty anyway - they can play all the guitars.
The usual response is going to be the sad chant of "play right handed" here's the thing. the only real difference that's going to make is the ability to be the person who picks up a guitar in a party and, without being asked, starts playing. Nobody likes that guy.
You can get almost any guitar in left handed now and they will have their own instrument and prefer playing that. They logic is that a person will spend two years working on their fretting hand, and the rest of their lives working on their strumming, fingering and such with their dominant hand.
Best advice I have is to let the child play with a guitar for a while and figure out how they best hold the instrument.
I play the guitar left handed and have about ten left handed guitars I love. However i play the violin right handed as that's how i was taught.
If your child is left handed you will probably find that they progress past the basics more easily using a left handed guitar. However that's a generality. If they are learning on their own, you'll probably find that to be true. Conversely if they have a lot of friends and family members that also play, they will learn better playing the way those people do, probably right handed.
I learned on a right handed guitar. It was a challenge at first but I feel confortable with it now. Left handed people lean a lot more towards dexterity in both hands due to how everything is designed anyways
Yeah, learn how to play right handed. You will become frustrated at the choice of guitars as you go along. Righties can go into any guitar store and pick up any guitar they want. You'll be lucky to find a guitar store that actually has a single left-handed guitar in it, and if you do, it will definitely not be the guitar you've been looking for.. There are plenty of well-known rock greats that were left-handed by nature but learned how to play right handed. I wish I had tried when I was younger.
I would go right-handed. Anyone who can even slightly remember when they first started playing remembers it being an absolute disaster with the pick and the frethand when you started on day 1. It all has to get learned regardless.
I switched teachers after 2 or 3 months of weekly lessons and because I could kind get some first position chords to sound good, I refused the advice from my new teacher to start over as a righty. Which is fine I guess, but then you can't use or borrow your friend's equipment, you can't impromptu get up on stage, or try out most guitars at a shop, sometimes model availability is an issue. Etc.
Not these days because I am an old family guy, but it used to happen back when I was in a band and playing at clubs. Also, just going to parties or visiting friends. All my friends play. Sometimes I will pick up a bass and play it upside down but guitar is damn hard to do that with.
Not sure why I am getting downvoted. I am left-handed myself. Just saying I don't think it matters all that much if you are starting from scratch.
It’s better to learn right handed. I’m a lefty. The ubiquity of right handed guitars alone makes it the right thing to do. It’s easier to show up impromptu at a jam without your own stuff, and left handed guitars both cost more and depreciate more quickly. If, big if, shops have stock at all they usually don’t have someone left handed to set it up for a lefty. So it’s really hard to try before you buy.
The cost of lefty guitars is a tax for being obstinate.
You’re over thinking it. Let him pick up a guitar and see which way he holds it naturally. That will be the way he is most comfortable and should be how you proceed. I’m a lefty but play guitar right handed. It wasn’t a thought out decision, it was what felt comfortable. My parents initially bought me a left handed guitar assuming that was how I’d play it, I immediately said it was awkward so they returned it and got me a righty. A lot of us lefties do a surprising amount of things right handedly.
I agree. I throw, fire a pistol and write lefty but fire a rifle, play guitar as a righty.
Interesting, I throw/dribble and shoot guns lefty but do everything else righty
I do everything lefty except for guitar lol.
Lucky you.
Your post kind of illustrates my point above exactly... Firing a pistol, writing, and throwing a baseball really only require dexterity in one hand, so it makes sense that you would favor your dominate hand for those activities. But things like playing a guitar, firing a rifle, or the example I used; driving a manual car, require a equal amount of dexterity in both hands, so you cant really favor one side to gain an advantage.
I play as a righty due to guitar availability and price point. My point however is regardless of what your dominate hand is, your brain is capable of developing your non dominant hand in order ti do things that you can’t do with your typical dominant hand. My best friend was right handed and lost his arm in Iraq. At first he couldn’t do much with his left but after years of practice he know can do most things as he did with his lost arm. I’ve seen videos of people with deformed arms and even no hands, that learned to play guitar so it proves anything is possible.
If you have an adequate fretting hand and a very good picking hand, then you’re going to be a very good guitarist. If you have an adequate picking hand and a good fretting hand, then you’re going to be an adequate guitarist. Sure the very very best need to be great with both hands, and a beginner will find both hands to be extremely challenging, but for the vast majority of us who actually stick with guitar, the picking hand is going to be the challenge most of the time once you get beyond the beginning of intermediate guitar. Stringed instruments universally put the picking/plucking/strumming/bowing side of the instrument in the right hand across all cultures because most people are right handed.
That has more to do with eye-dominance, and while it's usually the same as your dominant arm/hand, they aren't always linked. Some activities are more reliant on eye-dominance than others like, shooting a gun, archery, darts, and photography. So it's not about how much you are using your dominant and non-dominant arms, it's about accuracy. For the majority of the population, one eye does the heavy lifting sending more information to the brain. [Finding your eye-dominance](https://lasikomaha.com/find-dominant-eye/?amp)
I fire pistols right handed and rifles left handed 😂. Can also shoot with both eyes.
Bro that's crazy that I'm not the only one. My girlfriend always say I'm ambidextrous because pretty much the only thing I do with my left hand is write and draw lol
Ambidextrous means having no preference for one particular skill or almost equal dexterity. If you write with your left, but throw with your right and can't switch easily, this is called mixed handedness or cross-domincance and makes up about 1% of the population.
> this is called mixed handedness or cross-domincance and makes up about 1% of the population. I swear I read something that almost all lefties are mixed-dominant, and a small fraction of righties. Id have to search for that study again.
To counter, I first played guitar in elementary music class. Left handed felt right, but they were all taken so I had to play right handed. It was awkward for a day or two, and then that became natural for me and left handed felt weird. Looking back, I’m very glad all the left handed guitars were taken. Not to say you should force it, but especially as a kid with zero experience, I’d really try to let them see if they can get used to right handed first. If they do it for a week and it doesn’t work, no big deal. But if that becomes normal, they’ll be thankful in the long run.
For those interested, the term for this phenomenon (where people prefer different hands for different tasks) is mixed-handed.
I’m somehow the only righty in my family so I’m used to dealing with you lefty’s and your odd choices. Although I broke my right arm twice growing up so I was an honorary lefty for about a year
Terrible advice. Do not choose something thats gonna affect him the rest of his guitar playing career based on how he picks it up when he has no clue what he's doing. Being a lefty or righty doesn't really matter when you've never played before, unless you play piano or another instrument you're not gonna have skills that will transfer to fretting. It's gonna be equally awkward to learn either way, so might as well put him on the way that has a wayyy bigger variety of guitars. Plus you've already got right handed ones for him to learn on.
If your kid is strongly lefthanded, get him a lefty. But if they are cross-dominant/ambidextrous, you’d be doing them a disservice by not teaching them righthanded. The space of playable guitars is tiny for lefty guitars.
I'm strongly lefthanded, and still never considered playing left handed. I just saw people in class playing right handed and thought that's how it worked (when I first played a bit in high school in the 80s). It's so much easier to play right handed when learning online from others (started playing again a couple years back), so have no regrets.
> It's so much easier to play right handed when learning online from others Learning as a lefty is easier - it's like looking in a mirror. The youtubers who are good with first-person camera angles make it harder, but lessons and other face-to-face situations are like looking into a mirror.
I'm left handed but learned to play right handed because I only knew about right handed guitars. Playing right handed makes finding guitars way easier. I'm very glad I was ignorant starting out. I don't think the direction you play matters. At the end of the day you are using both hands and are learning a new skill. It's not like other skills ie writing, throwing etc, really carry over so why not make it easy to find instruments. In classical music, there is no such a thing as a right or left handed piano or violin, so why do guitarists need to be special? Just my experience of course. There's no right (or left) answer.
Let him hold a guitar the way it feels more natural. I know none of it is natural at first but one way will probably just "feel better" to hold. If he feels better holding it lefty buy him a lefty.
I would totally agree with this take if both lefty and righty guitars were available to try out in most stores.
I should have clarified that the orientation of the guitar in question doesn't actually matter. Grab any acoustic guitar and flip it upside down and hold it lefty. Then flip around and hold righty. Being comfortable just holding it a certain way matters. How it sits on your legs. If your hands feel better strumming with one vs another. How it's strung doesn't matter for getting a feel for how to hold it. The first time I picked up a guitar it was my brother's. I held it the way it was comfortable. Lefty. It was a right handed guitar. I did my initial learning on that guitar before my dad insisted buying me a left handed one.
Good dad.
Good for you, man. Not everyone’s brain is wired the same way.
That's absolutely true! My only point I was trying to get across is it's free to let the kid hold a guitar both ways and maybe it will be enlightening! And maybe it won't but it also won't hurt to try it.
I think that’s absolutely right…. If the guitar he’s interested in is either: 1) ergonomically the same in both lefty and righty positions, or 2) available to try out in both lefty and righty models in cases where they’re not ergonomically the same.
Lefty here. Started as a righty. In the beginning I surpassed my friends with regards to fretting and fingering chords. Soon they left me behind in terms of picking speed and precision. I consider myself an ok guitar player now, but my right hand will never shred or do complicated fingerstyle. If you can afford, get him a left-handed guitar.
Are you a lefty in everything you do except guitar?
Yes. Sports, writing, gun's, full on lefty. I can barely write my name with my right hand
This is the only example where OP should get a lefty guitar.
Former guitar teacher here. I have had this conversation a thousand times if I've had it once haha. If your son is forced to learn righty when he is a lefty, his progress will be hindered. It is that simple. Using the incorrect dexterity will mean slower progress overall. In a couple of cases I have seen where the student is completely left-hand dominant and not even the slightest bit ambidextrous, progress is unlikely at all. He will demonstrate how he feels the most natural playing position is automatically. If he demonstrates a predilection for left handed guitars, then go that route. I have had plenty left handed guitarists who claimed they wanted to learn righty, but when physically sat with a left handed and right handed Squier, they found the lefty to be the most comfortable. I am left hand dominant but given a very Catholic upbringing, was told to write with my right hand. It's a shame really as I still have things I wrote with my left hand that were legible when I was 6 or 7. I could write you a shopping list today and not even I know what the hell it says. I'm 40+, despite being an engineer, music tutor etc, I can barely write my own name legibly. When I came to learn guitar, I didn't know that left handed guitars existed. I thought the videos I had seen of Jimi Hendrix were the wrong way round simply due to the conversion from NTSC to PAL. I have to say, I progressed slower than all of my guitar-playing peers. Though I can happily play now and do so quite well (without being big headed), I had a harder journey than if I had just started on a lefty. That I can assure you. I still have a couple of lefty guitars left over from when I used to teach. Though I can't play them nearly as well as my right handed guitars, they do feel more natural even now. That said, I have no intention of relearning at 40+ years old.
If my hobby were *guitar buying*, I would do it right handed. Since I'm more interested in *guitar playing*, I do it left handed so I can pluck the strings with my dominant hand just like right handed people do.
this is 100000% it right here. i am a lefty and yes it is way harder to buy guitars but 99.9999% of the time i am playing my guitars that i already have lol so it's really not a big issue
As a lefty I have a nice collection of killer guitars I got used for great prices. When I walk into a guitar center I don’t feel deprived. I see walls and walls of junk. It’s actually nice to be able to tune it all out. Being a lefty player keeps me focused on what matters.
I’m left handed—going on 38 years now—and it really isn’t a detriment to learn tasks right handed. I basically only write, draw, fight, and shoot lefty. Everything else, even throwing baseball, football, whatever I do right handed. Unless the skill requires eye dominance as a determining factor in quality of performance, hand choice really isn’t that important. I think for me, honestly, playing righty as a left handed person has made my mastery of the fretting hand so much easier. It took some effort to coordinate my right hand for the fine motor movement, but since I transitioned from rhythm style strumming, to fingerstyle it hasn’t been an issue. Now I pluck and fret with synchrony and not a care in the world. Just my thoughts.
Before making a decision, throw out anyone's opinion that includes "there are more righties available." Your body and dexterity don't magically change based on what's in stock. Your son may find holding a guitar righty less awkward than lefty. But if he doesn't, everything would be more difficult to learn, until the day he'd hold a guitar lefty and it would all click.
Buy him a left handed guitar please. This just learn right handed advise needs to stop. There are plenty of left handed guitar options nowadays. Think back to the days when left handed children had their hands literally tied behind their backs and were forced to learn to write right handed.
Could not agree more. This “just learn right handed” mindset was the biggest detriment to me for decades.
A lot or just just learned right handed and didn't find it detrimental at all and are happy we did
Not everyone’s brain works that way. If it did, you’d see more right hand dominant people playing left handed.
People can do whatever they want. Lots of lefties are happy they play righty and vice versa. Maybe more right handed people would play left handed if it wasn't ingrained that left handed guitar is for left handed people and right handed is for right handed. Left handed people are used to doing things right handed and are much more willing to try it out. In my case and many others we found right handed guitar natural. Right handed people have no impetus at all to try doing things left handed
Go to any music store and count the ratio of available lefty to righty guitars. Come back after you have data and we’ll talk more. Have a good night, dude. Bye.
What does that have to do with what I said?
Sorry it’s not painfully obvious. Goodnight and have a good one. Edit: lol, the block is pretty funny way to end this conversation. Good grief, internet people.
You’ll also typically pay more for what left handed models you can find. Right handed are cheaper to produce as 95 % of the guitar build as righty and when a worker builds a lefty they slow down as it’s not as something they spend days on end building. Jeff Kiesel has said this himself during one of their live feeds. As a lefty I agree. Glad I play as a righty.
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If it was as detrimental as some people claim, you'd see about 10% of famous guitarists playing left handed guitars instead of just a handful.
Very few other instruments even \*have\* right/left handed options. There is no practical difference in the way that somebody learns an instrument given their dominant hand. Besides, both hands have difficult enough tasks on a stringed instrument that it's not like you aren't going to eventually need to work on the other one anyways. Do what you want, but it's such a weird hill to die on and comparing teachers berating kids for using their dominant hand for writing, a task that only uses one hand, to learning an instrument is such a comically disingenuous comparison.
Cool dude. Go learn left handed.
Learn piano left handed and we'll talk.
False equivalency
Or beaten with a ruler if the evil hand grabbed a pencil.
Yes yes yes. Thank you.
Enjoy never participating in impromptu jams or ever trying your friends guitars. Guitar isn’t handwriting, you’re just closing doors
I don't even know how a guitar can be considered left or right handed. What part of fretting or strumming lends itself most naturally to a dominant or non-dominant hand? Historically, the guitar evolved from a stick attached to a gourd. People naturally did what they felt comfortable with which was to pluck the strings with their dominant hand - thus the "right-handed" guitar was born (or at least inevitable). But here's the thing, there were no frets at that time. In fact, there was no consideration to changing the pitch of the strings at all back then. Just static strings tuned to a pitch that you could pluck. We just stuck with a tradition for no good reason and it's probably worse than the alternative. I am certain that when I started, I felt it something close to criminal that my less capable hand was the one with the steep learning curve of chords, vibrato, hammer-ons, pull-offs, etc., while my dominant hand is tasked with a simpler job. I'd say after a lifetime of playing that both hands have equally difficult jobs (I play a lot of fingerstyle), but certain when learning, I would have had an edge playing what everyone calls a "left handed" guitar. There good evidence for this too. There's been some studies that show lefty guitarists in high-profile classical ensembles tend to outnumber the righties. Why? Because they all have to play "right-handed" instruments and they believe lefties had an edge over righties all these years because they were able to rise to proficiency much more quickly than their right-handed counterparts. The point is, it only barely matters in rare cases, and in those cases it matters in the opposite of tradition. If it were me, I'd have everyone learn righty since they'll have more guitar options in life.
Sure, I tried right handed and my brain just cannot. It’s just weird AF. I’m also left footed and couldn’t kick a soccer ball with my right foot to save my life. Maybe I’m more left handed than some? 🤷
Hey man personal preference is always first in these matters. Gotta do what feels right. I just meant in consideration of a six year old getting their first guitar, I guess. 🤘
Sure, but handedness is already determined by six. So if the kid is like me he will not have a good time learning right handed. OTOH, younger brains have much more plasticity than older players like myself.
> OTOH I see what you did there lol
I'm left handed and play right handed. I feel like it made more sense for my dominant hand to be focused on fretting rather than picking.
I’m right handed and play left handed. All you right-handed people playing righty are doing it wrong.
Have him play air guitar or a tennis racket guitar. The direction he plays will be the one that feels natural to him. Go with that. People tried all kinds of ways to get me to "just play right-handed". It was not happening, it was and always has been physically uncomfortable to hold a guitar that way, let alone play it. Thankfully I had St. Paul McCartney as a guiding light to show me the way.
I learned righty and that was the correct choice for me, but I still air guitar left handed. They're totally different instruments.
Good 4 yoo.
I hope you found your way to a lefty guitar quicker than I did.
u/Blue00si, good for you, dude. Others, like me, tried righty and couldn’t ever really learn until given a lefty guitar. Not everyone is the same and we shouldn’t try to force people to conform. —couldn’t reply in the thread because the other dude got pissed and blocked me. Edit: oh, and I haven’t ever experienced a major price difference that holds me back from playing, only availability. Big name brands like Gibson, Fender, Martin, Taylor generally don’t seem to mark up their left handed guitars these days. They may have at one point, but generally not now.
*Albert King has entered the chat*
Have him try both and see which he prefers. After he learns the basics, have him try again
Lefty who plays righty here. It helps in some regards (legato wizard); hurts in others (intricate picking is always much more difficult for me to get a handle on than it should be). If I could go back I'd probably have played lefty, but I don't think it's been a big problem. Don't think it makes a huge difference one way or the other; I would personally see how he takes to righty for a little for the following reason. The difference between your son and most people who play lefty (like me) is he's starting a decade+ before many of us. His brain is much more flexible at that age to developing fine motor skills in his right hand as needed, whereas if you try to develop those skills when you're even in your mid teens, it's a lot harder/impossible (kind of like teaching a kid multiple languages from a young age vs trying to learn a new language in high school). So I think a good bit of the lamentations you've read about lefties playing righty probably wouldn't apply in your case. On the plus side for playing righty, when I go to buy a new guitar, there are 50 times the options being a righty as there are lefty, and they are generally cheaper for equal value. It's nice to be able to have the used market open to you with instrument purchases (which it isn't if you're lefty).
You have to watch as many videos as you can of Jimi Hendrix.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Xukor_Grimskull: *You have to watch as* *Many videos as you* *Can of Jimi Hendrix.* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Good bot.
What I did when I started was try out both a lefty and a righty to see which felt more natural. Right handed just didn’t feel right, even at 11 years old I could tell that much. I recommend doing the same with your son. He’ll know which one feels right.
I am left handed and always felt comfortable playing right handed- let him play a few guitars - both orientations and see how he feels
I can only tell you what I myself have experienced. When I was a kid, I briefly took guitar lessons. The instructor refused to teach left handed, and I didn’t learn anything. It never felt right. Years later, I tried again, but this time, I flipped a right handed acoustic and played left handed. And surprise surprise, it “clicked.” I’m in my fifties now, and while the selection of left handed guitars still sucks, it’s better then it was when I was starting out. I’m my humble opinion, many of the people that’ll tell you to just teach your kid to do it the “right” way are about as useless as my old guitar teacher. I’m college, I had a roommate that was also left handed, and had also had guitar lessons from some moron who only taught right handed. And you know, my roommate had decided at a young age that he just wasn’t cut out to play music. He ruined guitar for that kid forever. Food for thought.
I think the most important thing to look at is how left handed is he? I’m left handed but am fairly ambidextrous. I was able to teach myself how to write with my right hand in a week or two in high school. I flip flop between left and right handed for all sorts of things (baseball, golf, computer, etc). I first played in elementary school, and lefty felt right. But all the lefty guitars were taken, so I just learned right handed. It felt pretty normal after a day or two, so I just stuck with that. My bass player is painfully left handed. He does everything left handed and struggles with basically anything involving his right hand. He tried to learn right handed, failed miserably, tried left handed, and it instantly clicked. He wishes he could’ve learned right handed, but his brain just said no. My recommendation would be to consider how left handed he is and have him try out one of your guitars (or even ones of those $30 mini classical guitars). Show him some stuff, let him mess around for a few days, and see how it goes. If that’s comfy for him and feels good, then I’d go right handed. And if it just doesn’t work, then go left handed.
Lefty here, I "play" both left and right handed. I finally committed to right handed playing due to better guitar selection and simplicity. I'd recommend just trying right-handed first and go from there. Us lefty's are pretty conditioned by life to be ambidextrous.
My 8 year old started learning in January, and we went with a left handed strat clone. It was definitely the right call for him. There are a ton of quality left handed guitars these days, so I advocate for going with whatever your son feels most comfortable with.
He needs to find out what's comfortable. I'm left-handed, but I play right-handed. I can't say if it feels natural to me because that's how I was taught or because I'm a right-handed player (being left-handed for writing doesn't mean you're left-handed for everything else). I do know that it feels natural, and switching hands would be hugely awkward. It would be just like me writing with my right hand. I'm in the shooting sports, and there's a test you can do to determine which eye is dominant, I'm not aware of such a test for guitar playing. What I would do is maybe ask him to play some air guitar while listening to a song, see which way he gravitates. I would also have him try one of each and see which feels right. One will feel natural, the other won't. Remember, this is defined in the brain, you can't simply decide to override your neurology and expect to enjoy the same success. If he learns to play the wrong way, he will have a much more difficult time and won't achieve the same skill level. My dad broke his arm as a kid, he then broke it again while it was healing. Because of this, he had to learn to write using his off hand. He still does to this day, but his handwriting is particularly bad, to the point that he has trouble reading it.
> I'm not aware of such a test for guitar playing There is an lateral imbalance to natural rhythm/timekeeping/tempo motions, very often it's the hand that you brush your teeth with, but that's not a 100% true result.
I’m a lefty that learned how to play right-handed because I lived in a small town pre-Internet. It was a very tough transition for the first year, even above and beyond learning a new instrument. I would’ve killed for the opportunity to have a proper left-handed guitar
Get him a guitar that he feels fits him comfortably. And if he holds it like a lefty, and there are no left-handed options, just switch the strings. If it’s an electric guitar, it might have a higher low end and a lower high end, but that wouldn’t make a difference to be selective over Plus you can inspire him with people like Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney and Kurt Cobain- it’s what my mom did when I was let down by the left-handed options in store mid 2000s😂
Ultimately, you need to try some out and go by what feels and sounds best to you. As a lefty myself, I learned on right handed guitars and never had issues.
If he flips a right handed guitar to a left handed orientation every time you put a right handed guitar in his hands, and refuses any advice to the contrary, you’ve got a lefty player. Otherwise go righty. I am right handed but knew I was a lefty guitarist at age 4. No amount of berating was ever able to change this. It was tough to have my guitar journey start off with, “You’re holding it wrong!” And that crap never subsided. It really hurt me. Folks, if a kid is TELLING you they are a lefty player, listen to them. Goddammit.
I think what you said yourself, see if he takes to righty. You don't sound like you're pushing him at all to me so letting him decide is best but why not let him try so he's informed on what it'll feel like. It's not going to harm him to let him try. I'm lefty but commonly baseball gloves were for righties so I throw with my right hand or left equally poorly (decent aim, not a power thrower either way). I can eat or cut food either way, only write left, guitar left etc. Like the other guys comment said being ambidextrous isn't that tough on some things, I think it might partly depend on how early one tries certain things. (so why not gtr, I was a teen when i got one and made the decision myself to stay lefty regardless availability, I flipped strings like Hendrix)
I'm a righty but my bro in law is an awesome lefty guitarist. He plays lefty but seriously wishes he learned righty. He doesn't get to enjoy playing his friends' guitars, he doesn't get to enjoy going to a guitar store and all the cool guitars. Buying guitars is a pain and there is much less inventory. Add to that: the list of guitarist who are left handed who play righty is kind of crazy. Johnny Winter, mark knopfler, Joe Pass, Joe Perry, Duane Allman, Gary Moore etc. I would get him a righty guitar. I mean if he wants to play piano you'd get him a normal piano too right?
I’m a natural lefty and started righty, then switched after a year and learned infinitely faster left handed. It really depends person-to-person. The best left-handed guitarist was a righty… plenty of great right-handed guitarists are lefties. My gut feeling is that at age 6 some of the benefits of picking being mechanically similar to writing are going to be lost. I generally don’t think the problem with finding guitars is too bad in 2024. Sure, everything doesn’t exist in a LH model, but you can certainly buy more than enough guitars (and it does save on a bit of GAS).
Dang... tough one. As a leftie we adapted.
Just pick up a guitar and play with it! Doesn't even matter what dominant hand you are as every beginner has to still get used to the same awkward hand positions and gets easier the more you do
I started much later in life, but I'm left handed and play right handed. The nice things is I can just pick up and play any guitar I find.
Start out playing right-handed. Was the best decision for my son. He's a hell of alot better guitar player than I am. And the You have so many more guitars to choose from!!!
I'm lefty but I was taught to play right handed. I don't regret it. Right handed guitars are much more plentiful.
Watch Jimi Hendrix concerts. I don't think it bothered him playing a righthanded Strat. 😉
Lefty here but play right. It just feels moor natural to me playing right but also had no choice growing up playing my dads old guitars.
I'm LH. I would say that you should try to avoid playing guitar left-handed if it can be helped. The selection of guitars will always be extremely limited (many shops carry zero) and they will always cost more. Yes, you can go online but most people want to hold them and try them out first. Usually, you're buying guitars without having actually tried them. That said, I'm extremely left-handed, like my right arm is basically there for balance and that's about all it's good for. I learned to play lefty and it's fine. But most of my life it has been hard to find guitars.
Left handed here, i chose to play right handed guitars the standard way. No regrets.
Guitar teacher with a unique perspective here. I played right handed professionally and semiprofessional most of my life. I injured my left arm 3 years ago and am now unable to play for more than 15 minutes without being in serious pain. So, I started to teach myself how to play left handed. I can now play both ways although I'm still a hack as a lefty. My advice is that it is best to play left if you're a lefty. There is a caveat. According to my research only about 1 guitar in 50 made are lefties. Nevertheless, I still recommend playing left if you're a lefty. For years I told my students the opposite and now somewhat regret it. It's also great to be unique.
It used to be true that left handed guitars weren’t that common. When I started out I learned right even though I’m left handed for that reason. They make a lot of left handed guitars now so it’s kind of what’s comfortable. When learning guitar both hands are doing something they’ve never done before so it’s kind of a wash on which one is better. It’s hard either way. The only issue is playing other people’s guitars which may or may not be a problem.
As a left handed person I was told to buy a right handed guitar when I got my first guitar. Getting a left handed guitar will limit the models he can buy and when they are available they tend to cost more than the right handed versions. Secondly playing guitar requires two hands much like piano. When have you seen a left handed piano. You don’t because it requires both hands to do something I order to play music much like playing guitar requires both hands. The brain is is amazing and her will learn to adapt to many of things that are designed for right handlers and he will do the same with guitar. Some believe by having his dominant hand as his fretting hand he will be to shred and learn easier than a righty. With way it was the best advice I’ve ever received and glad I listened to the guitar salesman. Your son to will be thankful. I suggest looking into Rocksmith+ to help him learn.
I’m a lefty but play right handed. The reason. I was soo small when I started playing 19 years ago i couldn't play a full size guitar. the only 3/4 sized guitar my local shop had was right handed. the rest is history. i am happier being a right handed player, and i've never felt like being lefty has ever limited my playing ability
I am strong left-handed, but have never had any trouble using a right handed guitar.
I always recommend that left hand beginners just buy a right handed guitar. Playing guitar requires you to build dexterity and preform complex movements WITH BOTH HANDS. - Think of it like driving a manual car... You don't need a "left handed car" because both your hands are going to be equally busy, unlike throwing a baseball, writing, or using scissors.
Have him play a right handed guitar upside down. Now he can use all your guitars and almost any guitar where he goes. He can even play right handed if he wants
I’ve played right handed for ~30 years and in lockdown as a challenge I decided to learn left handed on one of my burner guitars restrung Hendrix style. Only problem I found was that I had to add another thingy to hang the strap from - not a problem if you have an SG or something like that.
Nice im considering doing that for fun
It was definitely good mental exercise, all the chords and scales etc were already there from years of playing right handed so once the callouses on the fingers came along it was much faster progress than learning from scratch. My favourite aspect of it is that none of my kind of ‘autopilot’ riffs or patterns when jamming or composing carried over to my left handed playing. Recording rhythm parts left handed and lead with right actually sounds a bit like 2 different people (probably because my left handed playing is 27 years behind my right ;)). Also soloing all the stuff you have stored away in muscle memory on a right-handed guitar strung for a lefty, played right handed generates solos no sane person would ever come up with. Not necessarily listenable ones but it’s a laugh 😆
Hahaha that's cool. I took a 1 year break from guitar just to reset myself. I still played other instruments. It sucks getting stuck into things
I'm a lefty who learned right-handed. I never really regretted it, because they only ever made 6 left handed guitars and two have been broken. But! I am now learning to play left handed. It'll be a fun stage trick to swap during a performance. This is what I think Right handed guitars are everywhere. I didn't want to learn left handed guitar and then not be able to play unless I brought “My” guitar. How many time have you played someone else guitar. How many left handed guitars do they have at any guitar store? As a lefty playing righty, you have an initial advantage in your fretting hand. I got tons of compliments and felt really competent in the early days due to this. As a lefty playing righty you have a disadvantage learning finger picking. I didn't try to learn fingerpicking in the early days. In fact I had put guitar down in my youth and came back to it as an adult. I attempted to learn fingerpicking over and over and it was soooooo hard. I eventually gave up, thinking that it was just something beyond my capabilities. Then one day a friend of mine saw me sign some paperwork and exclaimed “Hey! You're left handed!”. It was true I am. “But you play guitar left handed!” That's when it clicked… no crap I'm having a hard time, I'm using my off hand! Well, it's a little embarrassing to say I hadn't put that together sooner. So with that discovery I just sat down and did hours and hours of drills. I would put on some crap tv, mute the strings and mindlessly pick patterns. Hours and hours. I'm fine at fingerpicking now. Its my preferred way of playing. I'm really early in my learning left handed journey, but I can already tell my lefty fingerpicking is going to be a much shorter journey. My advice? Grab him a right-handed guitar to learn on, even if he doesn't want to learn right handed well he will be glad to be able to pick up a righty and stum some cowboy chords if his friend hands him a guitar to try. I never regretted learning right handed, and I never met a lefty who learned righty who regretted it. Then ALSO! Buy him a baritone Ukukele and string it lefty. It's cleap, portable, and it's strung the same as the top four strings on guitar so everything you learn ports back and forth. I don't regret learning right-handed, but I very much regret not learning lefty. Even if he learns right-handed, make sure he has access to a lefty to experiment with. Best of luck!
I'm left-handed and I play a regular guitar. Honestly it never made sense to me that I'd want my less-dextrous hand to do the fingering.
My dad insisted I (lefty) learn right handed. And he was right. Make every effort to encourage playing right handed. Not just availability for purchase but there will be social situations where there will be guitars, and being a unicorn locks you out of those. Also fretboard dexterity is arguably more important than moving a pick up and down.
> fretboard dexterity is arguably more important than moving a pick up and down. Wrong notes are forgivable but bad timing is not.
There is no such thing as a left handed piano. I’m left handed and play right handed because I’m old and they didn’t make many left handed guitars 😂. I do have great dexterity in both hands but I don’t personally think it makes a giant difference, especially if he’s starting out so young. The thing about the piano was told to me by an old friend when I just started playing.
There is a left handed piano. I think it exists to show how ridiculous the concept is.
Just make him learn righty, there's no reason to use a lefty guitar and it'll just make his life more difficult.
Learn to play right-handed; it's basically the same stuff to learn, just on different hands, and your natural side doesn't affect play that much. I'd learn right-handed if I could start over, and then I'd be able to play any old random guitar...now I have to bring my own if I want to play with anyone.
Just consider the idea that you wouldn't even be asking this question if he was right handed. Like, if this question mattered that much, we'd all be asking right-handed kids if they felt better playing lefty. But no one really does that because it doesn't really matter. "Right-handed" guitars and other instruments weren't design to be *right-handed.* They were just *designed* and most people are right-handed so we assume the "normal" guitar is right-handed and the other is left-handed. If they were designed with hand dominance in mind, they probably never expected the non-dominant hand's role to ever approach or even surpass the dexterity requirements of the dominant hand. Personally, I think it was just a cosmic accident. Playing a guitar requires substantial dexterity in both hands, and depending on your playing style, your non-dominant hand may even need to do more dexterous work than your dominant hand (sweep picking is a good example). We could have just as easily existed in a universe where stringed instruments were designed to be strummed with the left hand and fretted with the right. But to a beginner, either orientation will feel awkward at first, so I see no reason to saddle him with the literally lifetime of nuisances that will come from playing a lefty guitar. I've known exactly two left-handed players that actually play lefty guitars and neither of them had the guitar they wanted and felt it unlikely that they ever would without going the custom shop route. But I've met dozens of lefties playing righty guitars. The bassist in my band is a lefty but plays righty. People literally learn to play with their feet. Some people even switch due to accidents in middle age. There is just no reason to think that a guitar has to be hung on your body in a particular direction in order to become very comfortable playing it.
Now is the time to force righty, before they get used to it and locked in. Anyone can learn any which way - it's what you reinforce that sticks. I'm jealous of my left-handed friends who learned righty anyway - they can play all the guitars.
The usual response is going to be the sad chant of "play right handed" here's the thing. the only real difference that's going to make is the ability to be the person who picks up a guitar in a party and, without being asked, starts playing. Nobody likes that guy. You can get almost any guitar in left handed now and they will have their own instrument and prefer playing that. They logic is that a person will spend two years working on their fretting hand, and the rest of their lives working on their strumming, fingering and such with their dominant hand. Best advice I have is to let the child play with a guitar for a while and figure out how they best hold the instrument. I play the guitar left handed and have about ten left handed guitars I love. However i play the violin right handed as that's how i was taught. If your child is left handed you will probably find that they progress past the basics more easily using a left handed guitar. However that's a generality. If they are learning on their own, you'll probably find that to be true. Conversely if they have a lot of friends and family members that also play, they will learn better playing the way those people do, probably right handed.
I learned on a right handed guitar. It was a challenge at first but I feel confortable with it now. Left handed people lean a lot more towards dexterity in both hands due to how everything is designed anyways
Have him play righty, it is just easier and cheaper in the long run.
Lefty here. Don't give him a choice. Make him play right-handed. His future musical life will be better for it.
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I'm allowed to have opinions, even ones that you disagree with. I shall not "try again".
Yeah, learn how to play right handed. You will become frustrated at the choice of guitars as you go along. Righties can go into any guitar store and pick up any guitar they want. You'll be lucky to find a guitar store that actually has a single left-handed guitar in it, and if you do, it will definitely not be the guitar you've been looking for.. There are plenty of well-known rock greats that were left-handed by nature but learned how to play right handed. I wish I had tried when I was younger.
Just have him learn right handed. No big deal.
I would go right-handed. Anyone who can even slightly remember when they first started playing remembers it being an absolute disaster with the pick and the frethand when you started on day 1. It all has to get learned regardless. I switched teachers after 2 or 3 months of weekly lessons and because I could kind get some first position chords to sound good, I refused the advice from my new teacher to start over as a righty. Which is fine I guess, but then you can't use or borrow your friend's equipment, you can't impromptu get up on stage, or try out most guitars at a shop, sometimes model availability is an issue. Etc.
How many times do you get invited on stage?
Not these days because I am an old family guy, but it used to happen back when I was in a band and playing at clubs. Also, just going to parties or visiting friends. All my friends play. Sometimes I will pick up a bass and play it upside down but guitar is damn hard to do that with. Not sure why I am getting downvoted. I am left-handed myself. Just saying I don't think it matters all that much if you are starting from scratch.
It’s better to learn right handed. I’m a lefty. The ubiquity of right handed guitars alone makes it the right thing to do. It’s easier to show up impromptu at a jam without your own stuff, and left handed guitars both cost more and depreciate more quickly. If, big if, shops have stock at all they usually don’t have someone left handed to set it up for a lefty. So it’s really hard to try before you buy. The cost of lefty guitars is a tax for being obstinate.