Should a left handed person use a left handed Guitar ?

This is a subject which is one that a lot of people have an opinion on and to be honest there is no right or wrong answer. 

As any serious guitar player will tell you, the hand that does most of the work is the left hand (the hand pressing down on the frets), but for all us right handed players we are using our weaker hand to do the hard work and our stronger hand to strum. Now if you are fingerpicking you might be using your "other hand" more. 

So this strikes me as something a little odd, for a right handed guitar player (which is what I am) I am using my weakest hand to do the hardest part. Mind you, if I'm playing a left handed guitar I feel incredibly awkward (but is that just the result of being used to one way for 30 years?)

Now if you are a left-handed player and are considering your first guitar there are a few things to consider

1. Left handed guitars are very hard to find, as generally in the population about 10% of people are left handed a lot of these people will pay a right handed guitar, so the actual market for left-hand guitars is about 6-7%. We do stock a broad range of left handed guitars 

2. All music books, video's, DVD's and tuning guides are all written on the basis of a right-hander. Now, it is pretty easy to convert these in your head once you know how, but for the average beginner, this can be an extra burden. 

3. If your friend has a guitar you want to borrow or play it's probably a right handed model

If you can already play or have even started to learn left hand then you probably need to continue with the way you are going, but if not I would strongly recommend you have a think about the choice of guitar. A lot of left handed beginners find strumming difficult but after a while, you will realise that this is actually quite easy to do (compared to the hand that presses down on the strings.

While I was researching this subject I found a great blog post by Michael Murray on the subject, and he has similar views to me, it's well worth a read for more information and another point of view.
 

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