Left-handedness

I am a left-handed guitar player, which is a rare thing. Left-handers account for about 10% of the general population, but left-handed guitarists (defined as those who actually play guitar left-handed, not lefties who play guitar right-handed) constitute a much smaller proportion of the guitar playing population. This is mainly because left-handed guitars are so hard to find, which is of course a self-perpetuating prophecy, as left-handed guitars are even harder to find when so many lefties don't bother learning how to play left-handed. Anyway, the point is, I did learn to play guitar left-handed, and consequently, I have a hell of a time finding guitars. I learned to play left-handed mainly because I'm such a stubborn and prideful southpaw. That is to say, left-handedness is really important to me. I'm not entirely sure why, but I've always been very proud of the fact that I'm left-handed, and I refuse to sell myself short in any left-handed endeavor. My first guitar was actually a right-handed guitar that I re-strung to be left-handed. The funny thing is that although I intended to restring it from the beginning, it was about a month and a half before I finally did. Until then, I started learning to play right-handed, then started over again from scratch and learned to play lefty once I had restrung the guitar. That's how determined I was to be a left-handed guitar player.

And so, almost 9 years later, I am quite proud and happy as a left-handed guitarist, and I'm, ultimately, glad that I chose to learn the way I did. That said, it is such a pain in the ass to find left-handed guitars that I almost wish I learned to play right-handed. Almost. Of course, it's maybe a good thing that I've been prevented from blowing too much money on guitars; who knows how many I would've bought by now if I didn't have to find left-handed ones. But it's not just about buying guitars. Every time I go to a guitar store and want to try out different models, there are only about 3 or 4 I can really play, and that's at a big guitar store. Or whenever I go hang out with someone and they have a guitar, I can't very well borrow theirs to play on, because I can't play it. It's quite frustrating.

What this all adds up to is I recently asked myself what advice I would give to a left-hander who wants to learn to play guitar. Would I suggest they go the easy, conformist way and just learn to play right-handed? Or would I suggest they stick it to the man and learn to play lefty? I decided that it's all about how important left-handedness is to you. If, like me, you consider your handedness to be a tremendously important, defining characteristic, well, clearly you should stick with that. If you don't, then just take the easy way out.