Beginner Dad - Left Handed

it's not too late! reverse the strings!!!
lol j/k i have not seen any guitar instruction dvds for leftys but there have been products available such as scale & chord books. do a thorough google and i'm sure something wil turn up.
good luck!

here's one i found on the first browse
http://www.amazon.com/Left-Handed-Guitar-Troy-Stetina/dp/0793587883

If he's "generally" left-handed but he can comfortably play guitar right-handed, I would suggest he do so. If he'd rather play lefty, I say stay away from learning material that is specifically for the left-handed person (assuming you can find any). I'm a left-handed player, and switching scale and chord diagrams around in my head is second nature for me. If he's going to play lefty, he may as well get used to reading the material that's written for right-handed people, which is about 99 percent of whats out there. He'll get used to it fairly quickly. Good luck to both of you.

agreed with Dan. I'm a left-handed girl who plays guitar right-handed, and I've never had a problem doing so. both hands are weak and uncoordinated when you start, no matter which way round you learn to play.

and the lefties I know all had to learn to read right-handed diagrams, etc. and how to restring right-handed guitars if they wanted the same choices as righties in the buying dept.

and you don't even wanna know the price for left-handed amps.... :wink:

stay away from learning material that is specifically for the left-handed person

Agree with this. Having said that however, when I did see a left handed chord book, it did seem easier to decipher. As a lefthanded player I never thought about a chord book for lefthanded players primarily because when I started they weren't available (early '70's). You, as a rightie, will probably have more problems seeing your mirror image than he will watching you. Whenever I have come across another leftie player I usually have a bit of a problem watching them only because I play more with righthanded players and I'm used to it. Likewise with the friends I grew up with, they have no problem with seeing what I'm playing because they're used to seeing me play.

I think the main problem is in finding a good sounding left handed guitar within a reasonable price.

As far as learning goes, there is absolutely no need to look for 'left handed' tutorials. That would be too much I guess. It is very easy to decipher from the right handed chord chart, what to play on the left handed guitar.

And same goes for the righty people as well. Now, Mr. David Hodge is a lefty guitarist, but its not that only lefty people come to learn from him. I guess he is in great demand for instruction from both righty and lefty guitarists. So in his case, the 'righty' guitarists have to learn from a 'lefty' guitarist. Its not difficult at all. It's simply the mirror thing :wink: .

I am a born lefty who always recommends playing lefty, if that's their natural way of playing.

And believe me; in this world of righty guitarists, a lefty looks way cool on the stage. 8)

Good Luck to your dad.

Rahul

Thanks people for all your advice!

Will pass all the info onto him

rahul makes some good points - I guess what I was trying to convey is that you shouldn't feel that left- or right-handedness in other 'walks of life' should dictate which way you play guitar.

Yep your right. He's still learning on the left handed as he says its fine. We found a site that flips the chord arrangements for leftys etc...

Many thanks, lets hope he sticks at it!

Yep your right. He's still learning on the left handed as he says its fine. We found a site that flips the chord arrangements for leftys etc...

Many thanks, lets hope he sticks at it!

That's interesting. I've found in my experience of teaching lefties that the chord box layout isn't actually as big a problem as you'd think. I'm naturally left-handed, but play my guitar right-handed, as so many do. The thing is, in a world where you can buy left or right-handed scissors and rulers, and you have switch your fridge door to make it open left-handed, but you can only buy right-handed phones, calculators, pianos and PCs, us lefties get used to automatically reversing 90% of the instructions we get about anything to make them work for left-handed people.

Best,

A :-)

Yep your right. He's still learning on the left handed as he says its fine. We found a site that flips the chord arrangements for leftys etc...

Many thanks, lets hope he sticks at it!

That's interesting. I've found in my experience of teaching lefties that the chord box layout isn't actually as big a problem as you'd think. I'm naturally left-handed, but play my guitar right-handed, as so many do. The thing is, in a world where you can buy left or right-handed scissors and rulers, and you have switch your fridge door to make it open left-handed, but you can only buy right-handed phones, calculators, pianos and PCs, us lefties get used to automatically reversing 90% of the instructions we get about anything to make them work for left-handed people.

Best,

A :-)
He doesnt find the layout that big a problem either, but using the flip thing just helps if he gets stuck. Making sure he's doing right is important so he can refer to lefty chart.

I think he'll adjust to reading stuff backward (translating righty to lefty playing). In our band, we have one guitar player who plays righty but is a lefty. The other is one who plays lefty but is a righty! Very, very odd...