Foo - Was: Left Hand Rant. Now: Beginner Acoustic Guitar Search

Yes, I'm a 'South Paw', and yes sometimes it's just not fair. Most of the time I don't notice the disadvantages that the world throws at us lefty's. I learned long ago to use a mouse with the right hand (except those couple weeks healing from surgery on my right forearm) and other things that are erogomically set for the right hand. In cycling I shift my downtube shifters with my right hand by choice as my stronger left hand stays on the bars. But darn it if when it comes to music I just keep getting slapped in the face by my left handed ways.

First it was trombone when I was in middle and high school (yes, I was a band geek too, stop laughing). On the trombone the left hand is used to hold the instrument, and the right hand does all the slide movement. No, you can't just switch it around, yes I asked that the first day in beginner band. But I learned to play nonetheless, and other than getting braces on, then off, then on, then off, and a jaw surgery somewhere in there I learned to play decently for a HS band member with no intentions of making it my life's work. Most brass instruments are the same way. The right hand does all the valve movement.

Fast-forward 7-8 years and I'm considering picking up a new instrument. One that I can play solo with a bit more repertoire than a trombone. (Side note: there is the last I heard one and only one Trombonist in the world talented enough to make a living playing solo trombone. Christian Lindberg. He can play Flight of the Bumblebee on trombone, and it is amazing, more so in person.) So, I'm thinking of picking up guitar. Figure everyone has to take a stab at guitar some time in their life if they have any musical talent in them. And I work with a fantastic blues guitarist and his son (and fellow coworker) is one of the most amazing Bass players I've ever heard. So there's no shortage of guitar talk around the office.

So I start tossing the idea around, make a trip over to Guitar Center with the guys at lunch one day. And suddenly the one thing I had over looked slaps me in the face... the need for the left handed guitar. GAHHHHH! Of course I was first looking at electrics, and on the wall of a hundred guitars I could never afford, there is one, and only one on display, that is left handed. I of course hadn't even had the thought about needing left handed guitar till I saw that left handed model. And WHAM (insert Batman comic bubble), so much for finding a lightly used guitar to start with!

I've since decided, at the recommendation of my guitar/bass playing coworkers to consider an acoustic guitar first, but still doesn't change the fact I'm going to have to go new, and the resale possibilities of it later down the road plummet in a fiery ball of smoke. And that, for all those who have read this far, is my Friday afternoon rant about being left handed. Now I get to go home and put together my new computer for which the parts should have arrived by now. Once this computer upgrade is complete I can start saving for this lefty guitar... unless I take up something like the drums before then. Do drum kits come in left and right hand versions?

buy a right hand symetrical accoustic and restring it for leftie, or stop by the house and borrow mine, I never play it

If you can, learn to play righty. It can be done.

Jsharr - might take you up on that.

Crankshaft - considering it. I've actually gone by guitar center again today and tried to get a feel for what felt more comfortable and while left is certainly more natural I think I could get myself to learn right handed. I managed with trombone. And being someone who works with computers a lot, both hands have a lot of finger dextarity to them to touch type at a reasonably high rate of speed. That is when I'm not constantly hitting the back-space key :o

How about piano? Not easy to haul around though. My daughter is left handed and it doesn't seem to bother her. Maybe as she moves up in ability there will an issue I don't know. Of course pianos are usually more expensive than a guitar would be. There are always the electric keyboards too.

Yup, get yourself a symmetrical acoustic and learn to play slide.

Or a banjo.

Restring a regular strat upside down...it worked wonders for Jimi Hendrix.

This is exactly why my mom took up violin as a kid and my brother drums. I'm left-handed like they are, but all I play is the stereo.

Isn't only 10% of the population left handed? Then expect to get only 10% of a product selection to be custom made for left handers.

And I leave you with a qoute:

In 2007, researchers discovered LRRTM1, the first gene linked to increased odds of being left-handed. The researchers also claim that possessing this gene slightly raises the risk of psychotic mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Must be bucking the odds in my family. I am left handed, my oldest son is left hand and my youngest son is showing every sign of being left handed.

Or do like legendary bluesman Otis Rush... play a righthanded guitar upside down and backwards.

http://www.blindpigrecords.com/images/covers/BP-3188.jpg

Or do like legendary bluesman Otis Rush... play a righthanded guitar upside down and backwards.

http://www.blindpigrecords.com/images/covers/BP-3188.jpg

I find this looks awful. Just my opinion, if you can learn to play righty it's your best bet.

I find this looks awful. Just my opinion, if you can learn to play righty it's your best bet.


It might look awful, but you oughta hear him play that thing......

It might look awful, but you oughta hear him play that thing......

Tell me about it. The man's incredible, I just can't watch him play. Then, I can't watch Hendrix either.

Find a nice left handed electric. I dunno why everyone swoons to the acoustic for noobs. Electrics are quieter to start with and can get much louder when you want them to. Playing around with effects is fun as well.

Find a nice left handed electric. I dunno why everyone swoons to the acoustic for noobs. Electrics are quieter to start with and can get much louder when you want them to. Playing around with effects is fun as well.

Acoustic is much more difficult physically to play, so if you want to play unplugged it's best to start that way. I did.

I find this looks awful. Just my opinion, if you can learn to play righty it's your best bet.
Yes, well we don't think much of how righties look when they play, either. :p ;)

Acoustic is much more difficult physically to play,

Why would anyone want this?

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/1461/nedya6.jpg

How about flute? ;)

Why would anyone want this?

'Cause if ya learn on it you can play. Unplugged is fun.

Find a nice left handed electric. I dunno why everyone swoons to the acoustic for noobs. Electrics are quieter to start with and can get much louder when you want them to. Playing around with effects is fun as well.


Without going on and on.......there is nothing better for learning than an
acoustic. An acoustic separates the players from the noisemakers. Really.
Im a dyed in the wool Marshall-to-12 guy but have to give props to keeping
chops up with the (t)rusty ole acoustic ! :beer:

Oh yeah....
Just play 'normal'...forget that lefty stuff.....
Yer fretting hand is already the good one if your left handed
so why screw that up with guitar magazine type hype :rolleyes:

Both my parents are right handed. Two of the three kids are left handed. I'm one of them.

Can't help you out with the guitar thing.

Or do like legendary bluesman Otis Rush... play a righthanded guitar upside down and backwards.

http://www.blindpigrecords.com/images/covers/BP-3188.jpg

There was a guy who visited my LGS who played like that. Amazing to watch, beautiful to hear.

Find a nice left handed electric. I dunno why everyone swoons to the acoustic for noobs. Electrics are quieter to start with and can get much louder when you want them to. Playing around with effects is fun as well.

Any hack can make noise with an electric, it takes skill to issue forth music from an acoustic.

Think freestyle BMX vs Trials. :D

The more I think about it, the more I think the right thing for me to do is go lefty. Might reduce my avaliable used options down the road, but it just feels so much more natural to play that way. Jsharr - if your offer still stands to borrow yours for a bit I'd much appriciate it.

you got my numbers and yuo know where I live! Mi casa is su casa, as it were.

cuda cuda cuda- why didnt you ask me about this?
Youre basically starting at the beginning here, so its
ok to play a right handed guitar. Youll have a MUCH
larger selection and they are cheaper. Ill teach you
some licks when you decide to do it!

Hobartlemagne - been meaning to shoot you a PM for a few days now about this. I got kind of side tracked this past weekend putting my new PC together and getting that up and running. :) Mmmm.... new stuff goodness. I really should stop spending so much money... naw. I'll do that next year.

I don't play guitar, I play keyboard. Others may know more. My personal feeling is you will never achieve your personal best ability by playing right handed. :rolleyes:

BTW, I'm a lefty. ;)

http://www.southpawguitars.com/

Hobartlemagne - been meaning to shoot you a PM for a few days now about this. I got kind of side tracked this past weekend putting my new PC together and getting that up and running. :) Mmmm.... new stuff goodness. I really should stop spending so much money... naw. I'll do that next year.

Ill go with you to a pawn shop if you want. We'll get you started for cheap.

I'm left handed and the nuns at the elementary school forced me to use my right hand to write but that didn't work. Today I do everything left handed except play the guitar & bat, among a few other things. Those actions, for some reason initially felt natural doing them right handed.

I've always wondered why guitars for right-handed people are made so that the left hand has to do all the complicated stuff. I'm extremely right-handed, and I never managed to get even the simplest chords right in a sequence, because my left hand simply couldn't cope. My highly capable right hand, meanwhile, just had to lightly move up and down... Really stupid!

I've always wondered why guitars for right-handed people are made so that the left hand has to do all the complicated stuff. I'm extremely right-handed, and I never managed to get even the simplest chords right in a sequence, because my left hand simply couldn't cope. My highly capable right hand, meanwhile, just had to lightly move up and down... Really stupid!


I can't play certain songs because for the life of me, I cannot pick them.

Left handers have an advantage by playing 'normal',
The RIGHT way :D Your good hand already has the
coordination. I prefer my right hand but can write with
both hands and comp-mouse with my left.

Cypress : What are you trying to play ??
What is the problem you are experiencing ?

Left handers have an advantage by playing 'normal',
The RIGHT way :D Your good hand already has the
coordination. I prefer my right hand but can write with
both hands and comp-mouse with my left.

Cypress : What are you trying to play ??
What is the problem you are experiencing ?

This sounds silly, but try picking "What's My Age Again" by Blink 182.

Sounds easy - is far from it. My left hand couldn't dream of picking that song (or any other for that matter).

^^^ I love that song but havent heard it in years.
I cant remember it at all.....
Ill check it out and see if its doable .

Kurt Cobain did alright playing a right handed guitar that was restrung for a lefty as well.


Golf clubs are the same way, so I just chose to learn and play right handed.

Kurt Cobain did alright playing a right handed guitar that was restrung for a lefty as well.


Golf clubs are the same way, so I just chose to learn and play right handed.

Kurt Cobain was a good singer, lousy guitarist

cuda- another left/right thing: Most learning books are made for right handed playing

Kurt Cobain was a good singer, lousy guitarist

Excellent marksman too

Excellent marksman too

Zing!

Do drum kits come in left and right hand versions?

Drum kits can be set up however you want. I'm a lefty, and a professional percussionist. I play drum set both right-handed, and left-handed on a righty setup. Really, in percussion (as in piano) you should have both hands equally strong. When I was a kid learning beginning percussion stuff (practice pad) my instructor not only had me double up practicing things with my weaker right hand, but also had me do ordinary, every-day things with my right as well. I had to learn to eat with my right, brush my teeth with my right, tried learning to write with my right, etc. It basically just helped free up my brain, and get it used to utilizing both sides more equally. It wouldn't be that tough for you to learn guitar as a righty. Just will take a little practice and patience.

P.S. seems there are a lot of folks from the Dallas area, including you. I used to teach percussion at JJ Pearce in Richardson. Wasn't really into cycling back then. I wish I had been!

...being a lefty...and disadvantaged...its good you have something to make you realize its a bonus, but calling is a disadvantage is almost insulting those with real disadvantages. And yes, I disagree with your first couple of sentences almost exclusively.

I'm left handed and the nuns at the elementary school forced me to use my right hand to write but that didn't work.
Did you ever have any speech or behavioral problems? I've known a lot of boys who stuttered when they were forced to write with their right hands. Until I was about 4 and a half, my parents didn't notice I was a lefty (my mom is a lefty :rolleyes:), and I remember having terrible headaches and temper tantrums when I tried to write or color. (They told me to use my right hand and I was a good little girl...) Thank goodness I went to preschool where they caught it and set us all straight and I went back to being a happy, even-tempered child. Fortunately, they were more aware when my brother came on the scene and he never had to deal with any of that.

Did you ever have any speech or behavioral problems? I've known a lot of boys who stuttered when they were forced to write with their right hands. Until I was about 4 and a half, my parents didn't notice I was a lefty (my mom is a lefty :rolleyes:), and I remember having terrible headaches and temper tantrums when I tried to write or color. (They told me to use my right hand and I was a good little girl...) Thank goodness I went to preschool where they caught it and set us all straight and I went back to being a happy, even-tempered child. Fortunately, they were more aware when my brother came on the scene and he never had to deal with any of that.

I was told I would have been a lefty...if it wasn't for the disfiguration on my left hand. However I had to force myself to learn to write and play right handed. Ironically, when I took up guitar I played it lefty. (thank god for picks)

Ok, now that my last surgeries are now over with I'm back to thinking about picking up guitar. And I've decided to learn 'right handed'. I went over to Guitar Center a couple times now on lunch break to get my hands on a couple different acoustics. However nothing has really jumped out as what I really want, and I certainly don't know enough to really know what I'm looking for yet. So, Foosters, looking for suggestions on a beginning acoustic.

I missed out on a beautiful Alvarez AF60CK on ebay this evening. I had been watching it, checked it with 10 minutes to go, and forgot to go back in time. Went for within what I would have paid for it too, well below retail and it looked like new. But, I've learned when getting into something for the first time, ebay probably isn't the best route. Yes, I was the guy who bought a 63cm bike off ebay for $10 only to find out I fit more like a 58cm! :o

Additionally I'm in no real big hurry. I'm going to borrow jsharr's acoustic for a while till I'm sure I want to stick with it, so suppose it's best I didn't drop a couple hundred bucks on the Alvarez. But oh was it pretty, and everything I read about it had all good things to say. But I'll invoke the second rule in ebay: "There will always be another deal." (Second rule, only because rule #1 is: "There are a few exceptions to rule #2, know when they are and seize upon them!")

Yes, I'm a 'South Paw', and yes sometimes it's just not fair. Most of the time I don't notice the disadvantages that the world throws at us lefty's. I learned long ago to use a mouse with the right hand (except those couple weeks healing from surgery on my right forearm) and other things that are erogomically set for the right hand. In cycling I shift my downtube shifters with my right hand by choice as my stronger left hand stays on the bars. But darn it if when it comes to music I just keep getting slapped in the face by my left handed ways.

First it was trombone when I was in middle and high school (yes, I was a band geek too, stop laughing). On the trombone the left hand is used to hold the instrument, and the right hand does all the slide movement. No, you can't just switch it around, yes I asked that the first day in beginner band. But I learned to play nonetheless, and other than getting braces on, then off, then on, then off, and a jaw surgery somewhere in there I learned to play decently for a HS band member with no intentions of making it my life's work. Most brass instruments are the same way. The right hand does all the valve movement.

Fast-forward 7-8 years and I'm considering picking up a new instrument. One that I can play solo with a bit more repertoire than a trombone. (Side note: there is the last I heard one and only one Trombonist in the world talented enough to make a living playing solo trombone. Christian Lindberg. He can play Flight of the Bumblebee on trombone, and it is amazing, more so in person.) So, I'm thinking of picking up guitar. Figure everyone has to take a stab at guitar some time in their life if they have any musical talent in them. And I work with a fantastic blues guitarist and his son (and fellow coworker) is one of the most amazing Bass players I've ever heard. So there's no shortage of guitar talk around the office.

So I start tossing the idea around, make a trip over to Guitar Center with the guys at lunch one day. And suddenly the one thing I had over looked slaps me in the face... the need for the left handed guitar. GAHHHHH! Of course I was first looking at electrics, and on the wall of a hundred guitars I could never afford, there is one, and only one on display, that is left handed. I of course hadn't even had the thought about needing left handed guitar till I saw that left handed model. And WHAM (insert Batman comic bubble), so much for finding a lightly used guitar to start with!

I've since decided, at the recommendation of my guitar/bass playing coworkers to consider an acoustic guitar first, but still doesn't change the fact I'm going to have to go new, and the resale possibilities of it later down the road plummet in a fiery ball of smoke. And that, for all those who have read this far, is my Friday afternoon rant about being left handed. Now I get to go home and put together my new computer for which the parts should have arrived by now. Once this computer upgrade is complete I can start saving for this lefty guitar... unless I take up something like the drums before then. Do drum kits come in left and right hand versions?

Come on! I'm left-handed, I play trombone - the 'right' way, I play right-handed guitar, I shoot right in hockey and golf, and I'm proud to say i can eat with either hand:D.

Although this may be hard for you - cause I'm ampidextrous, which is pretty sweet:p.

But hey, Kurt Cobain played left-handed guitar, and he was right-handed.......

Cheers, M.A.M

Come on! I'm left-handed, I play trombone - the 'right' way, I play right-handed guitar, I shoot right in hockey and golf, and I'm proud to say i can eat with either hand:D.

Although this may be hard for you - cause I'm ampidextrous, which is pretty sweet:p.

But hey, Kurt Cobain played left-handed guitar, and he was right-handed.......

Cheers, M.A.M

Yeah, see my latest post. I've decided to go 'right'. After a couple trips to the guitar shop and picking up a few I figure I can learn the 'right' way if I start out that way.