I have always wanted to play guitar, and now that i am an adult with adult money i am finally going to learn. I am a lefty, and i do just about everything lefty and always have. archery is about the only thing i know i do righty and that is because the gear i had access to as a kid was right-handed.
I have access to a right-handed guitar, but not to a left-handed guitar to compare.
Curious what other sinister guitarists think before i shell out cash for a lefty.
I’m a lefty. Learned guitar right handed. Been playing for 30 years.
Reasons to learn right handed: guitars are (generally) cheaper and easier to come by.
Reasons to learn left handed: if someone hands you a guitar at a party and asks you to play ‘Wonderwall’ you can easily decline.
Lefty here. I’ve been playing guitar for almost 30 years. I play “right handed” and always have. It felt way more natural to me to fret with my dominant hand, and my family had a right handed guitar, so that’s what I went with. I never really experimented to figure out if I could be better with a left handed guitar (and now it’s much too late).
I also bat right handed and used a regular (what ever you call not-southpaw) stance when I did martial arts.
On the other hand, my dad is a lefty and started learning guitar about 10 years ago. He found holding a right handed guitar unnatural and got a left handed model.
My 2c - even if you don’t know how to play, go to a guitar shop and see which way feels better to hold. It’ll feel awkward either way, but I’ll bet one way will fell less awkward. And if it doesn’t, I’d lean toward right handed because I know it’s a pain to find left handed instruments (and it’s nice to be able to play/try friends’ guitars).
Edit: here’s another 2c: consider trying a ukulele. They are a lot of fun and much easier to learn and get a lot of the basics down. Then pick up the guitar once you have a little bit of experience with that. I recommend this because a vast majority of people never get over the hump when trying to learn guitar. It’s hard. It’s painful. It’s frustrating. You can make something that sounds like music so much more easily on a uke, which means you’re more likely to keep at it. And you’ll get a lot of the guitar basics from it so when you start learning that it’ll be an easier process to once again feel like you’re making music.
… if you do get a uke, make sure you aren’t buying a toy, though. There are a lot of unplayable toy Ike’s out there. People buy them from places like Walmart for their kids all the time thinking that it is a beginner instrument. It isn’t. It won’t stay in tune for more than a few seconds of playing and is nothing more than a noise maker. You can get a real-but-cheap beginner uke for well under $100.
I play left-handed. Been playing for 30 years. I also taught my right-handed sister to play left-handed.
I play guitar and bass right handed. Especially for bass, it feels more natural to fret with my dominant hand and use the index and pluck with my right hand. That being said, I play fingerstyle most of the time and I’m not good with a pick, so playing leftie might be better for picking hand dexterity.
I’m left handed and play right handed. 99% of the guitars out there are right handed. It’s so much easier to find gear for righties. I also like the idea of being able to be at a party or a beach or a jam or a whatever and get handed a guitar and be able to play it, rather than have to say “sorry, I’m a leftie.” Playing right handed hasn’t felt weird or anything, it’s been fine.
Now, that being said, I know of several lefties who play right handed guitars… literally just learned how to play it upside down. They still can get handed a right handed guitar and they can just deal with it. It’s pretty wild to watch them play, but they manage. I also know a left handed fiddle player who similarly plays right handed fiddles but just does it backwards. Wild stuff.