Lefty choice

Learning righty has it's advantages.

I tried that for four months!!

No my destiny is to play left handed..

The only advantage to learning righty is a greater selection of guitars, and some cheaper. Try struming with your non-dominant hand, its a lot harder than with your dominant hand. fretting notes however isn't nearly as difficult in comparison. I never got the whole leftys have an advantage learning to play righty. If this were true, righties would be playing left handed.

In New York, I'm sure theres bunches of music stores, so you'll be able to find lefty guitars without too much difficulty, at least the more popular ones.

Adirondak guitars in Upstate New York carries a large supply of Leftie guitars and other stringed instruments. They even carry several models of my favorite acoustic (Tacoma). They also sell online.

http://www.adirondackguitar.com/lefty/LHMenu.htm

Thanks guys - on my next trip I will try those stores.

Hi.
All the way to Texas for a leftie Guitar?
You mean Southpaws? That's where I got mine. Bring some extra $$$ if you go there they got top dollar axes there.
When I bought my guitar from there they had a man come all the way over from the UK to buy one
it's the only place in the world I seen lefthanded hollow bodies
and they got several different brands from Jay turser to Rickenbacher
They are very good service wise too.
hopefully in a year or so, I'll have the $$$ for a lesPaul custom they have in there.
I can go on all day long about that place. LOL they got Righties too, but
thay are off to the side and covered in dust - just like the leftie guitars in normal stores.
I got a brand new D Armond Starfire from them... even though Guild quit making them after Fender bought them out a few years back.
I can go on all day about that guitar too :)
Uhh I don't want to knock New York, but depending on how much you want to spend, it might pay off to spend a little more on a trip
to Texas and buy a guitar there as the cost of living is cheaper
here than in New York, so the overall costs are lower.

Hmmm... I thought about getting back in the music industry... maybe i can get a part time-job there as a floor sweeper to pay for the LP LOL

....just look at local guitars that you know are also available in lefty. You will be able to tell if it fits you and if you will like the fret board and action. You can ask the salesman to play something and you will know if you like the sound....then you can just order a lefty on the spot if they are not too much higher than an internet price. I did this with a Dean acoustic guitar that I really like a lot.

There are advantages to buying local..if you wind up with a buzzing or something and it needs adjustment, they usually jump right on it and take care of it for you.

Just be firm that you are a lefty.....every salesman I ever met in local shops would always first try that 'it is better to play righty BS' to make a sale and all the sales along the way as you trade up. Once I made it clear I was not buying a righty under any circumstances, they dropped the subject and helped to find me a guitar I liked. My first 'lefty' was a Hohner, the only one they had and it was sold by Hohner as a lefty but it had a righty nut and I had problems tuning it and fretting strings and they willingly sent it back to Hohner without giving me grief and Hohner sent them the exact same thing back because that is how hohner makes a lefty. That is when I switched to Dean. I would have been stuck with the Hohner guitar or paid a lot of money back and forth for shipping if I had bought it on the internet. You really need to be happy with a guitar or you will never pick it up.

Yes I will look at local righty guitars to help make my choice - but I don't think the local stores will ship from the USA just for my guitar - worth a try though..

You can buy a conversion kit, I forget the name of the website but they have the nut and bridge setup for left-handed. So, you can buy right-handed, put in the new nut and Bridge on, and change the strings around. For extra money they move the pick guard (I'm assuming a guitar shop will do this for you). If it's electric, forget it, just buy left-handed.

http://www.saddleboy.com/SB_desc.html

BJ

Try struming with your non-dominant hand, its a lot harder than with your dominant hand. fretting notes however isn't nearly as difficult in comparison. I never got the whole leftys have an advantage learning to play righty. If this were true, righties would be playing left handed.
Ironcily enough, I've been learning lefty recently. I figure it has to give some advantages to playing guitar in general...

I wouldn't recommend the conversion kit unless you really know what you are doing...I bought a righty Hondo and had it converted at a local shop and it served me well...learned on it for a year and then upgraded by buying a lefty taylor 310 online...that's my sexy guitar, but the Hondo is the one I take to the beach...do you have any models that you are leaning towards?

If your lefty, you're lefty. End of story.

You have several choices here.....

Schecter makes a wide range of thier guitars left handed. I own one, and I have to say I'm fairly pleased with it (after swapping some Dimarzios in it)

Carvin makes all thier guitars lefty, as far as I know. I have not played one myself, but I've heard good things about them.

You could always go the DIY route (this is my next project), and go to http://www.warmoth.com and order the parts you want, and build your own. Sadly, some of thier really nice things (7 strings, Gecko basses) aren't available lefty.

Duane Allman was a lefty playing a right handed guitar.

Not that it makes it any easier or better, but just saying that playing on the opposite sided guitar doesn't relegate you to sucker status.

Duane thought it gave him a control advantage, that he was more fluent with his vibratos and hammer-on/pull-offs.

Just food for thought.

I bought all my (lefty) guitars online and maybe I've been lucky but I'm happy with each. I bought a Samick lefty electric and a Samick lefty acoustic from Adirondack guitars mentioned above. My third guitar is a Peavy lefty that a got a great deal on from Musician's friend. Buying mail order isn't neccessarily a bad way to go but it may be more pricey or difficult from the Phillipines.
Good luck!