What is a Left-Handed Guitar?

Lefties! If you’re looking to start playing the guitar, this blog may prove useful in arming you with some clear facts on just what a left-handed guitar is, compared to a regular right handed guitar. I’ll keep things simple and to-the-point, so you get exactly what you need!

A left-handed guitar is a guitar built especially for left-handed people. In many ways, it's a sort of mirror image of a right handed guitar. A left-handed guitar allows people who are left-handed to play comfortably, with every feature of the instrument - from its shape to its controls - repositioned for left-handed access.

The strings are reversed so that the thickest E string remains at the relative ‘top’ of the fingerboard, just as it would on a right-handed guitar. It’s a left-to-right mirror image, so that if you look at the guitar when it’s standing vertically, it’ll look kind of backwards.

Left handed guitars are held in the opposite manner to right-handed guitars. If you are sitting down, the guitar’s body will rest on your left thigh with the neck pointed right. Your right hand will fret the notes on the neck and your left hand will be playing the strings.

If you prefer standing up to play, then a left-handed guitar will hang similarly to how you’d sit with it, with the neck pointing to the right.

With a left-handed guitar, the player strums with their left hand and frets notes with their right hand. This is opposite to right handed players.

You’ll find that controls and switches are all in their mirror-image positions so that players can make adjustments with their left hand.

This is true for both electric and acoustic guitars, though of course acoustic guitars don’t tend to use as many knobs and switches. Looking at a left-handed guitar, it may seem that everything has been reversed, or is facing the ‘wrong way’. That’s simply how left-handed guitars are, and is perfectly normal. 

A left-handed guitar can be played with the guitar sitting on one's lap, or hanging round the player’s shoulders on a guitar strap.

Here’s a comparison for you. I’ve picked one of the most popular electric guitars ever - the Fender Stratocaster -  to help me illustrate what’s different about lefty guitars. Have a look at the image below…

So, you’ll be able to see that the left-handed model has all of the same design features as the right-handed model. The double cutaway shape is reversed, as is the shape of the headstock. All of the controls are on the left, as is the input control. Calling it a ‘mirror image’ is almost completely true, though things like logos will sit slightly differently upon the headstock in order to fit better, since the same decal needs to be read legibly on a surface that is now effectively upside down. Otherwise, left-handed parts such as the tremolo bridge all mean that the left-handed Strat operates in exactly the same manner as its right-handed sibling.

If you are a lefty, then the way I see it, you have three options:

• Play a left-handed guitar: start off on a left-handed guitar and continue that way.
• Play right-handed: ignore the fact that you are a lefty, and learn to play right handed, as a right handed person would on a right-handed guitar.
• Play a flipped over right-handed guitar: otherwise known as ‘doing a Jimi’, you take a regular right handed guitar, flip it upside down and either play it like that or restring it as a left-handed guitar.

So, which option should you choose? Well, that’s ultimately up to you, but I can offer two pieces of advice here. Firstly, check out this blog I wrote on Playing Guitar Left-Handed, since it goes into much more detail about it all! Secondly, visit your nearest guitarguitar store and talk to the staff about trying each option. One way will almost definitely feel more ‘correct’ to you than others, and I’d suggest that that would be the path for you to take.

Learning on a left-handed guitar might be ideal for you, but it’s also totally fine to play right-handed or a flipped over right-handed guitar. It’s all about what works for you, not what anybody else thinks is correct! Good luck with your journey!

Click to View our Left-Handed Guitars