Left/Right Handed?

Vaiai

My son (P7)  is starting guitar at school (Fender classical guitar is being provided) - he is left handed but from discussions with other players and guitar teachers, I have been advised (and agree) that he should be taught right-handed.
He is quite ambidextrous so does not strongly favour his left hand which makes me think he should be fine? Either way, you need dexterity and control in both left and right hand for playing.

Any opinions/advice on this - will it make it harder than it needs to be?  

olafgarten

No it won't, if he starts right handed then he won't notice the difference (assuming there is any) and he will thank you later when he goes to buy guitars. 

mixolyd

It varies from one person to the next: some lefties learn right handed without issue (e.g. Mark Knopfler), others (Paul McCartney) underperform until they switch to lefty.  Our brains are all wired differently so suck it and see is the smart approach.

I’d suggest starting righty and if progress is slow despite him putting the work in then try lefty.

ICBM

Unless it feels really awkward and unnatural to play right-handed - it can for some strongly left-handed kids - then I would try to encourage him to play right-handed, it will make things easier in the long run and may not even be noticeably harder to begin with.

My daughter is left-handed, and started playing viola before guitar. They don't do left-handed viola in orchestras so she had no choice (you'll have someone's eye out with that ), and when she started playing guitar it felt natural to continue right-handed since she'd already got the coordination that way round.

Of course you also need to get him some Van Halen or Mark Knopfler records as an inspiration.

Phil_aka_Pip

mixolyd said:

It varies from one person to the next: some lefties learn right handed without issue (e.g. Mark Knopfler), others (Paul McCartney) underperform until they switch to lefty.  Our brains are all wired differently so suck it and see is the smart approach.

I’d suggest starting righty and if progress is slow despite him putting the work in then try lefty.

This. I was in a band with another guitarist (who played right handed) for 6 months before I discovered he was left handed. He reckoned you need equal agility in each hand.

JerkMoans

Bucking the trend, my daughter is a lefty and has learned left handed, partly because she began strumming on a battered lefty at school so when she started learning properly it felt more natural to her that way, and partly because she (and I) likes to emphasise that characteristic a little. 

The only drawback has been a more limited choice of guitars, but after some assiduous searching she ain’t doing so bad

https://imgur.com/a/QjsCp

stratman3142

I'm left handed but play right handed.

I still remember the first time I picked up a guitar and my brother said "you're holding it the wrong way around", so I switched. I'm so glad that I did that. Personally I've only noticed advantages in playing a right handed guitar, the main one being a greater choice of guitars.

lovestrat74

I'm a lefty but I play right handed. It just felt right to me, but I do play 2 handed sports with a right handed stance too. Weird I know, but go with what is comfortable that's what I'd say 

Bridgehouse

I'm also in the left handed but okay right handed camp - and I was a bit older when I started so I was able to make a conscious decision as to which I preferred.

I think I lasted about 5 seconds in left hand orientation before moving to right and staying there. Much better

guitars4you

Regarding guitar, partly due to Hendrix, Paul McCartney and others it appears to be the case that there is a left handed market - If you went for professional violin lessons etc then it doesn't exists (someone will tell me there is a left handed violinists but it barely exists) - You are professionally taught to play that instrument in a correct manner

Ultimately with a guitar you need to develop a technique that requires the use of both hands - Maybe easy for me to say as a right handed person that I'm playing a 'right handed guitar' and never had to learn to play a left handed guitar - yet if you started to play guitar on the first day, you can't play left or right handed, so why not learn to play in the 'correct manner' - When you've moved on from the early stages, the choice available or you to buy in the left handed market is very very poor in relation to a 'right handed guitar

I've posted this before, but famous southpaws who play a right handed guitar (I prefer to say conventional guitar) include - Gary Moore, Danny gatton, Chris Rea, Duanne Allman, , Phil Hilbourne, Preston reed, Steve Crooper, Steve Morse, Ted Greene, Neal Schon, Noel Gallagher, George Van Eps, Paul Simon - some of these are mighty fine technical players as well - I'm sure there is some advantage in the coordination for a lefty, in that the left hand is the one do the fancy licks and tricks ?

Some can do the left and right in sports - Chris Broad and Ben Stokes are 2 of the latest I can think of

ICBM

guitars4you said:

If you went for professional violin lessons etc then it doesn't exists (someone will tell me there is a left handed violinists but it barely exists)

I've seen a couple of fiddle players and one double bass player who play left-handed - but all folkies, and so self-taught I assume.

guitars4you said:

Ultimately with a guitar you need to develop a technique that requires the use of both hands - Maybe easy for me to say as a right handed person that I'm playing a 'right handed guitar' and never had to learn to play a left handed guitar - yet if you started to play guitar on the first day, you can't play left or right handed, so why not learn to play in the 'correct manner'

…

I'm sure there is some advantage in the coordination for a lefty, in that the left hand is the one do the fancy licks and tricks ?

I think it's the other way round - playing right-handed is natural for a right-hander because the timing and dynamics that drives the playing is from the right hand. The left does have to make more complex shapes, but not with as much timing accuracy - at least not until later when you learn hammer-ons - and with no dynamics. That's why stringed instruments have all evolved this way.

I'm quite ambidextrous, for a right-hander - there are quite a lot of things I tend to do left-handed naturally, and many tools that I've deliberately taught myself to use both ways when it's useful - but playing guitar has always felt far more natural right-handed, even when I was just starting.

stimpsonslostson

ICBM said:

I'm quite ambidextrous, for a right-hander - there are quite a lot of things I tend to do left-handed naturally, and many tools that I've deliberately taught myself to use both ways when it's useful - but playing guitar has always felt far more natural right-handed, even when I was just starting.

This. I'm almost completely ambidextrous and do most things equally left or right handed- using scissors and playing guitar are the only two things I do exclusively right handed.
I learned the guitar right handed because my first teacher taught it that way. I'm encouraging my (equally ambidextrous) daughter to play her uke right handed too- if she ever graduates to guitars then she can play mine. 

@Vaiai ;I think you son (P7?- Strange name ) will be fine. 

Funkfingers

I agree with ICBM. 

One hand will seem more disposed to strumming and/or finger style picking. Either hand can be trained to adopt chord fingering shapes or execute hammer-on and pull-off techniques.

After a while, most of the required actions go into muscle memory. There is an argument for periodically changing tunings to break established habits. 

guitars4you

I'm not a teacher so not sure  the best way to show, explain, teach the required process for right and left hand timing - be it strumming, sweep picking, arpeggios etc etc - But isn't it about practice and execution - play slow and develop - not even sure how I went about it when learning to play - I recall certain issues that I struggled on (still do I suppose) but you systematically break it down, then develop it from walking pace to the required speed - Be it chord work, riffs, licks etc

Surely similar for a drummer playing different 1/4 or 1/8 notes with one hand and 1/16 notes or whatever with the other hand - First lesson or two and you are all over the place - 5 years later and you think your Steve Gadd

Sassafras

Here you go, best of both worlds:

Bridgehouse

Sassafras said:

Here you go, best of both worlds:

Love the codpiece cutout at the bottom

Vaiai

Yeah we are not quite at MAB stage yet

usedtobe

That’s an unusual name!

Roland

We had a thread about left handedness back in the MusicRadar day’s. Three conclusions have stuck with me. First, a significant number of leading guitarists are left handed. There was a suggestion that it might be an advantage to fret with your leading hand, and that right handlers have got it wrong. The second finding was that some left handlers find it difficult to play the conventional way. Finally, if a left hander can learn on a conventional guitar then it will make their life much easier.

tampaxboo

i think it's important people learn left-handed if that is their natural bias. left-handedness is part of what makes people who they are, so it should be valued, not over-ridden.
there is so much pressure in society to conform to standardisation in all aspect of our lives, gender, school, work, etc, that it is healthy practice, and character building, to learn to draw the line and say 'this is me and i'm keeping it'.
your son could even begin to feel that you are stigmatising his left-handedness by wanting to learn to do things the same way as everyone else. maybe he likes that idiosyncratic quality about himself; it makes him feel 'different' in a positive way.

so definitely look beyond the convenience aspect to the personality you are shaping with your interventions (even with the best will in the world).
he may actually be happy to sacrifice some occasional inconvenience in guitar shops in exchange for the feeling that his difference was accepted and valued. he may even like the idea of playing an upside down guitar like hendrix. to be different, to stand out.
maybe hendrix enjoyed and fostered his kooky upside-down look as just another opportunity to show off his 'this is weird but i'm going to do it anyway' attitude. the attitude that ultimately informed his whole musical approach.

he may not be bothered at all, but it's an angle i would think carefully about if i were a parent.

ICBM

I completely agree with you up to a point - but nevertheless my daughter found it easy to learn to play right-handed, and there is absolutely no way she will accept being told that being left-handed is in any way inferior or wrong.

She doesn't play piano left-handed either .

I find several aspects of left-handed guitars very annoying by the way - like why left-handed guitars are usually offered in a restricted range of colours, and why companies never use the correct reverse-taper pots and reverse-numbered knobs. This isn't a refection on whether it's right or wrong to play left-handed, but it does make things more difficult.

I also find things like deliberately right-handed writing desks - when there is no need for them to be 'handed' at all - even more so, for what it's worth.