i would have to say just continue with what your doing now.
if you can play well with one hand, theres no point in changing to the other.
just stick with your current hand, otherwise all the work you put into it would go to waste

I say, flip the strings on your righty guitar and play it left handed like Jimi did. if you are more comfortable playing left handed then do it. You are just starting out so you don't have that much to lose. Also, if the discomfort of playng right handed may cause you to lose interest at some point, that is another reason to flip. Remember, you can reverse the order of the strings on your righty guitar and then it becomes a lefty guitar.

You know, I was considering switching the strings but didn't know if it would come out right. I've never changed strings before but i guess I'll have to try it sometime!

I'm assuming the nut has to be removed and turned also? Is this a difficult feat to accomplish LOL?

Steve Morse is a lefty that started playing right handed. He remarked that his picking style really sucked at first so he had to concentrate on that the most, but his left hand being the dominant one was right at home on the fretboard part of things. I say if your just starting out and your just not sure, go right handed because it's a right handed world. However, if playing left handed is easier for you then by all means buy a lefty guitar and go for it

Thanks Fred. I think i'll keep on this way until I either restring or get a lefty. At least if I restring and don't like the feel, I can always restring back. Then I'll get good practice restringing! :D

Thanks Sawa & Richey also!

seek out the quasi chromatic exercises they are designed to eliminate your problem.

Quasi Chromatic exercises? Okay, I'll give that a try. Thanks Rocker!
I assume that's to help correct the finger angle problem, not the can't play for $hit problem? lol

im left-handed, but i play right handed and i think i kinda have an advantage there, just because its easier to build up finger strength (i think), and also because i just feel more comfortable picking with my right hand. do the string thing and keep it that way for a couple days, just to see =]

Thank, um, uh, >>>...
( I don't have a number pad on my laptop lol)
It's nice to meet another lefty! It feels pretty normal playing right handed for me too aside from finger position issue. Maybe because that's how I've always held friend's guitars.

Danno,

"From Rich in San Francisco, CA:
Being an old lefty fiddle player from way back, I was curious if you considered it an advantage being left handed playing the guitar?

Steve Morse:
At first, it probably was. However, once the right hand got busy, things reversed drastically. Still, I struggle to keep the right hand up to speed, not usually having any problems with the left one. So, maybe I should have switched! Seriously, I remember thinking that I've never seen a left handed piano, so people must be able to learn 2 handed instruments, right?"

That's pretty funny. A left handed piano LOL. It is so weird how the body works.
I realized something this evening. When I picked up the guitar a few days ago with an actual desire to learn how to play it, I had a vague Idea of what to do and how to do it. Tonight I flipped the guitar over (standard stringing) and realized it's like I've never seen the thing or held it before. But, like Richey said, I'm really just starting out so if I try lefty and don't like it, I haven't really lost or wasted any great amount of time.

I was working on the quasi chromatic scales for a while this evening anyway. Now my fingers are half sore/half numb. It's still interesting though. I've not lost interest yet!

Yep for about a week I played lefty-style (I'm right-handed) and it felt even more akward than never having held guitar :P ... I've also tried to flip the guitar without flipping the strings. Playing right-handed with the strings in reverse order felt less weird than playing left-handed with the strings in the correct order. But I had already been playing for 5 years when I did this experiment.


I don't mean to scare you or discourage you but what nobody said about stringing the guitar backwards is that the intonation will be way off. If you look closely at the bridge you'll see that the strings vary a little in length. There's a reason for that and stringing backwards will cancel those adjustments. You can still get an idea of how it feels playing lefty, but I think the second you attempt to play any type of chord you'll get frustrated.



I believe lefties are on average a lot more ambidextrous than right-handed people, either because they are made that way or because they are forced to become so, living in a right-handed world. Either way, they have the advantage that neither hand is totally clumsy, unlike us righties.
Still by all means try to play both ways and see which feels right.

Thanks ibzRG. I recently pick up an inexpensive acoustic and noticed that the bridge is slightly angled and has alternating offsets. I was wondering if that would be an issue. I have an electric with a tremolo setup that looks a bit more adjustable but there is still the issue with the nut. No worries though. I'm not discouraged yet!
By the way, interesting experiment. What on earth made you want to try that? :)