Southpaw Learning Guitar

[lure555]

Last weekend I took my 7 year-old boy to GC with me to check out some guitars. He gravitated to a mini-Strat they had on a stand. He'd previously dug out his toy acoustic when I'd be playing around the house, but hadn't really expressed an interest in playing guitar til then. He'd previously lost interest in classes he'd taken for Hip Hop dance and piano, so I said I'd have to discuss with his mom. She's down to see if guitar grabs him, so I was thinking about getting one of those mini-strat packs. The GC sales guys said it was a fallacy that a left-hander needed to play a left hand guitar, that it was a matter of coordination. Not sure I believe that, as I suspected he just wanted me to buy something he had in stock. What are your thoughts? Would Jimi still be Jimi had he bought the "right" guitar?

[melody]

Some of the people at GC give shitty advice hence what you where told. I would buy the kid a lefty. And no Hendrix would not be the same...lol

[lure555]

I think I should bring him back to a GC and hand him a symmetrical acoustic (so it doesn't give away how it "should be" held) and see how he naturally holds the guitar. Perhaps that would give me a clue?

[ch willie]

I'm a lefty, and when I started playing 35 years ago, the choices for lefty models was pretty poor. Now, there are a lot of good lefty guitars out there for us to choose from. I don't think there's any good reason any longer to make a left handed kid learn to play right handed....

[S. Cane]

I've always wondered why left handed people don't learn the guitar the same way as right handed people.

I mean, What's the difference between picking and fretting? Both hands require ability, and they should be done at the same time... BTW fretting is actually harder to do, so why not do it with our stronger hand? I never really stopped to question that, as I'm right handed and all guitars I've come across were stringed that way, so I never considered playing them the other way... But what if I tried?

Interesting.

Edit. Just found this article...

http://leftyfretz.com/should-i-learn...r-left-handed/

[gibsonjunkie]

I'm a lefty, but have always felt totally natural playing righty guitars. I'd go with the "no pre-conceived notions" crowd and let him go with what naturally feels better.