subject: Play Left Handed Acoustic Guitar [print this page] If you want to learn to play the acoustic guitar and you're left handed you no longer have to compromise and learn to play right handed. There were some instances of very famous guitarists that had to learn to play right handed. In days gone by you really had no choice. Left handed guitars were few and far between and they were quiet expensive to have made. So unless you were a professional guitarist, you had to play right handed. Now days however the story is a lot different. All the major guitar manufactures have plenty of left handed models to choose from.
Find Out What's Comfortable
So you are left handed, you do everything, with your left hand, eat, write, golf whatever, this doesn't mean you will be comfortable playing the guitar left handed. You may very well be better off playing right handed. You need to see which is more comfortable left or right. There are plenty of lefties that do everything left handed except strum their guitar. Then again there are lefties that started to learn to play right-handed only to find out that playing as a southpaw was more suited to them. Arguably the most famous guitarist of all time Paul McCartney began playing the guitar as a right hander. He started to play as a righty but made very little progress and it was only when he made the switch to southpaw that his brilliance shone through and history was made. Choose the playing style that best suits you.
Make Sure You Start With The Right Instrument
Your first order of businees is to purchase the right guitar. Different types of guitars are better suited for different types of music. A Spanish guitar is certainly not the one you would buy if you were into heavy metal rock. You might think that I'm over stating this but you would be surprised at how often this very mistake is made. First decide on the type of music you want to play and then go out a buy a guitar that is suited to that style of music.
Reading Music
It used to be that if you were a left handed guitarist you had no choice but use guitar music that was written for right handed guitarists. Mentally you had to reverse everything so that it made sense for the lefty. This is no longer an issue, there are plenty of music books dedicated to the left handed guitarist.
It's not easy to become an accomplished guitarist, you have to be dedicated to learning and practise. The tips I've given you today are just a starting point. Remember great guitarist aren't born they are made, devote yourself to learning the fundamentals and practise. It's that kind of commitment that will make you the guitar player you want to be.
