You are left-handed. You pick up a guitar for the first time. And what do you find in most shops? Forty right-handed models in every colour of the rainbow, and one lonesome black guitar in the corner that nobody seems to have dusted since 2009. Sound familiar? At Henry's Music, we believe that every player deserves a guitar that fits them properly, looks brilliant, and makes them want to practise until the neighbours start leaving notes under the door.
The Wrong-Way-Round World
Being a left-handed guitarist has always meant playing the game on hard mode. Walk into the average music shop and the ratio of right-handed to left-handed guitars is roughly the same as the ratio of guitar solos to silence at a Metallica gig: wildly one-sided. Lefties have historically been handed two options: compromise, or get creative.
Just like Kurt Cobain, who was naturally left-handed but was often pushed to write right-handed as a child. He grew out to be functionally ambidextrous. He signed autographs with his right hand but played guitar left-handed, frequently flipping right-handed models upside down, restringing them, or hunting down a few left-handed models available on the market back then. Paul McCartney took a similar DIY approach early on, flipping and restringing whatever he could get his hands on. He did, however, find a rather charming upside to his southpaw tendencies: standing on stage next to his right-handed bandmate, they naturally mirrored each other when sharing a microphone, giving The Beatles their unmistakable visual symmetry. And let’s not forget about Jimi Hendrix, who played standard right-handed strats flipped upside down, restrung to suit his left hand. He then went on to redefine what a guitar could do. But imagine what he might have achieved if he had started on a properly built left-handed instrument from day one.
Many of these icons grew up in a world where left-handedness was actively discouraged. Times have changed. Nowadays, we know that lefties are alright. More than alright.
Left-Handed Guitar or Right-Handed Guitar?
This is the first question every left-handed beginner faces, and believe it or not, the answer is more individual than you might expect. There is no single correct approach, which is both liberating and mildly infuriating.
The Air Guitar Test. Before you do anything else, do this: stand up, pretend you are about to shred the greatest solo ever, and notice which hand naturally moves towards the strings. If it is your left hand, that is a strong sign you will feel most comfortable on a left-handed guitar.
However, some left-handed players find that learning on a right-handed guitar actually works well for them. The fretting hand, which handles the more technically complex fingerwork, ends up being their dominant left hand. Several notable players (such as Joe Perry or Mark Knopfler) have gone this route and found that their dexterity on the fretboard gave them an advantage. Others find the whole experience deeply unnatural and feel perpetually stuck.
There is also the option of taking a right-handed guitar and flipping it upside down, restrung for left-hand use. This works, but it comes with a cost: all your chord diagrams, tabs, and tutorials are now a mirror image of reality, and you will spend a portion of every practice session doing a mental translation that your right-handed peers simply do not have to deal with.
The best advice? Pick up a guitar in both orientations. Play a few open strings. Try a basic chord shape. The one that feels more natural is almost certainly the right starting point. Your body will tell you.
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The Market Has Changed. We Are Changing With It.
For decades, left-handed guitarists had almost nothing to choose from. The market simply was not set up for them, which is a large part of why so many legends from the 1960s and 70s ended up playing right-handed guitars restrung or flipped. Sometimes it was just the only option available.
Things are meaningfully better now. The range of left-handed guitars available to players is now wider than at any point in history, and the quality across price points has improved considerably. That said, the selection is still not on a one-to-one footing with right-handed models. There are gaps, and they can be frustrating.
At Henry's Music, we are working to close those gaps systematically. Our goal is to have a left-handed alternative for every guitar in our lineup, including our acoustic guitars. We are not there yet, but we are getting closer with each new range we develop, and our current left-handed selection already covers a strong majority of our core models. Check our selection.