Some of the most common questions we encounter at Northville Guitar Lessons relates to a person being left-handed. Can we teach people to play a left-handed guitar? Of course. Can a person learning to play guitar left-handed expect the same results we achieve with right-handed students? Absolutely. Should you spend your hard-earned money on a left-handed guitar? We don’t think you should.
In this blog post we want to take some time to address the some of the issues facing left-handed players. Before you read any further, we want to assure you there’s nothing wrong with playing on a left-handed guitar. However, at Northville Guitar Lessons, we have several success stories of “left-handed students” learning to play right-handed guitars.
When it comes to learning how to play the guitar, it doesn’t matter if you are right or left-handed. Playing the guitar requires the use of both hands. The techniques you learn to form a barre chord or strum an upbeat country song don’t care which hand does what.
Consider this: have you ever seen a left-handed laptop, tablet, or cell phone? These devices are used by billions of people everyday and yet they work the same whether you are left-handed or right-handed. Likewise, you won’t find pianos, violins, trumpets, flutes, saxophones, cellos or most other instruments custom built for southpaws.
Why We Don’t Recommend Purchasing a Left-handed Guitar.
We are so confident in our approach at Northville Guitar Lessons that we could start off ten right-handed people on left-handed guitars and have the same success as if we started them on right-handed guitars. Beyond our abilities to teach students there are a few practical disadvantages associated with purchasing a left-handed guitar.
1. The availability
Because the demand for guitars that are left-handed is low, many small music stores simply don’t have any in stock. Even the large stores will only have one or two for every hundred right-handed guitars.
2. The cost
The left-handed guitar, you find, will always be more expensive than the right-handed counterpart. When you consider the population of left-handed people (10%) and the fact that many learn to play on a standard guitar, you begin to get a picture of what the market is like for lefties. For the manufactures, the demand doesn’t outweigh the cost of resetting their machines to produce an alternate version of the same guitar. Therefore, they will charge the customer more.
3. The inconvenience
Finally (and possibly the biggest frustration for lefty guitar players), if you’re at a party and someone hands you a guitar it will most likely be right-handed. Sadly, you won’t even be able to plunk out Mary Had a Little Lamb, let alone the Free Bird solo you’ve spent months working on.
But I Already Started Learning Left-handed!
Don’t worry if you’ve already started learning guitar left-handed. The techniques are identical and you are not in a disadvantage when it comes to developing your skill as a musician. But, if you are sick of not being able to play your friends guitar or any guitar hanging on the store wall think about this: in a matter of weeks, we could have you playing standard guitars with ease.
Still unsure, sign up for a free lesson and we will help you figure it out.