Article by John B.
It's only logical that you'd want left handed guitar lessons. After all, you do everything else with your left hand. And so many of the guitar's greatest practitioners have been left handed. From Jimi Hendrix to Tony Iommi, left handed players have occupied some of the biggest guitar spots in music.
But that doesn't mean that things are always easy for the left hander. While there are certainly left handed guitars on offer, limited runs mean that the range is usually smaller and the guitars are often more expensive. Hendrix even had to restring a right handed stratocaster upside down to find an instrument.
And when it comes to instructional materials, things can initially seem pretty daunting. The chord diagrams in standard books never quite correspond to what you're doing. Scale diagrams feel like they're the wrong way round. Even on instructional DVDs, you feel like you need a mirror to make sense of what's going on up on the screen. If you just wade into the usual instructional materials, you can even find yourself tempted to give up and play right handed, even though that means your weaker hand is having to do the fiddly job of picking.
Of course, there's no reason why you can't use instructional materials aimed at the right hander. Something like Guthrie Govan's Creative Guitar series is inspiring and informative no matter what hand you use to play it. But it doesn't have to be like that. There are left handed guitar lessons out there. Many of the major publishers have put out work specifically aimed at left handed guitarists. You just have to know where to look.
Hal Leonard has been particularly good in that regard. The famous Hal Leonard Guitar Method is available in a left handed edition otherwise identical to the right handed edition. There's also the Left Handed Guitar Book/CD, which was written specifically for southpaw guitarists, and so deals with any particular problems they might encounter. The Picture Chord Encyclopedia for Left Handed Guitarists, meanwhile, does away with all those awful moments when you're tempted to turn other chord books upside down to try and get something close to the correct angle.
To draw inspiration from a few left handed greats, why not get hold of music for work by the likes of Paul McCartney, Hendrix and Kurt Cobain? Or, if more technically demanding metal is your preference, why not go for an Avenged Sevenfold tab book, since guitarist Zacky Vengeance is another famous lefty.
So, if you're looking for left handed guitar lessons, there's certainly enough stuff out there to keep you going. All you've got to do is practise.