My Dilemma

[Patek23]

I decided to pull out an old guitar we had sitting the attic and give it a try, problem is It's a right handed guitar and I'm a Southpaw, secondly I don't know how to play the guitar for the life of me. I thought about it for a while and decided that since the guitar has been in the family for a while including our not too long ago trek across the Atlantic that there was no way I'm going to buy a new one and I'll have to play it upside down and/or strengthen my right hand and play properly. The largest problem is that due to a busy schedule I have no time to take lessons for a very long time and likely long enough that by then I won't want too proceed anymore.

So due to these choices I have to learn to play a guitar upside down on my own. This is quite the uphill battle and I was wondering if any of you have learned a guitar on your own, or if you have any tips on how to make it a bit easier?

[Reaper]

First of all, get the guitar restrung, set up and intonated for left hand use. This should make learning things much easier as string references will correspond appropriately in any teaching guides you may use.

[Patek23]

Originally Posted by Reaper

First of all, get the guitar restrung, set up and intonated for left hand use. This should make learning things much easier as string references will correspond appropriately in any teaching guides you may use.

whoops, Goes to show how little I know about guitars I was under the assumption that there were left and right handed guitars


My chances aren't looking good but I'm not going to give up anytime soon, learning to play the guitar has been a goal of mine since I was a wee little lad.

[KevanGuy]

There are left and right handed guitars. Depending on the guitar you might be able to get away with strining it backwards just to learn how to play. But, once you get the coordination down playing right handed wont be too tough.

[Patek23]

So after I get it restrung, do any of you guys know a good method to self teach?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Flaming Homer

I decided to pull out an old guitar we had sitting the attic and give it a try, problem is It's a right handed guitar and I'm a Southpaw, secondly I don't know how to play the guitar for the life of me. I thought about it for a while and decided that since the guitar has been in the family for a while including our not too long ago trek across the Atlantic that there was no way I'm going to buy a new one and I'll have to play it upside down and/or strengthen my right hand and play properly. The largest problem is that due to a busy schedule I have no time to take lessons for a very long time and likely long enough that by then I won't want too proceed anymore.

So due to these choices I have to learn to play a guitar upside down on my own. This is quite the uphill battle and I was wondering if any of you have learned a guitar on your own, or if you have any tips on how to make it a bit easier?

YOU HAVE A NATURAL ADVANTAGE over regular guitar players because it's really your left hand that does the much harder and skilled portion of the work. Being more dextrous in your left hand will enable you to be a better guitar player along the fretboard. The other hand can just pluck or strum. Before you try to get it re-strung (Jimi Hendrix played left with a right handed guitar), try learning it normally. This will also make learning easier as most references, videos, and even some tabs are referring to right-hand playing. You'll also be able to try out more instruments in guitar shops

Learning the guitar at first seems hard to EVERYBODY. Everybody's hands seem weak, slow, inflexible, and painful at first. This is natural until you build your finger muscles, speed, flexibility, calouses, and most importantly muscle memory and knowledge. You have an advantage others don't being left-handed. I would suggest trying it right handed at first - I remember picking up a guitar and not knowing at all what to do, it felt like a completely alien lump of wood and strings to me that was impossible to do anything with. That's all natural. Sometimes I wish I could play the fretboard with my right hand because it's dominant and could make better finger shapes and play faster with better rythm and coordination.

You have an advantage being a lefty on a right-handed guitar if you decide to learn that way.

[KevanGuy]

Originally Posted by Flaming Homer

So after I get it restrung, do any of you guys know a good method to self teach?

Well..it basically breaks down like this...there are 7 basic chord shapes. A,B,C etc... Im sure there are a million places to find them online.

Once you learn the shapes and how to move from one to another you can start playing along with easy songs. There are a million songs with just 3 chords in them. A very basic (but popular) pattern is called the 1 - 4 - 5. So, if 1 is A then 4 is D and 5 is E. If you play those 3 chords in order (1 - 4 -5 ) they will always work (or sound good, you get the point).

Another thing to learn that will enable to you play a million songs is a power chord. Search it on the net for the shape. The great thing is that the same basic shape can be played on any note (space between the frets) and the thicker three strings. The toughest thing about learning to play power chords is the pattern of the notes on the fret baord. And, again, the 1-4-5 will work with power chords.

Memorizing the notes on the fretboard isnt too tough. Its all patterns and math. So if you are good at that stuff its a snap. If you arent you can easily look at TAB to figure it out. TAB is a type of sheet music that represents the fretboard like this:

___________________________
___________________________
___________________________
___________________________
___________________________
___________________________

so each one of those lines is a string on the guitar. When you look up TAB of songs you like on the net it will look like:

INTRO
E|--------------------------|
B|--------------------------|
G|--------------------------|
D|-7-7--7---5-5--5----3--7--|
A|-7-7--7---5-5--5----3--7--|
E|-5-5--5---3-3--3--2-1--5--|

The thicker string is on the bottom of the chart.

And, I guess that is basic guitar. Good luck.

[Superfraggle]

I learned to play upside down on my own. It's really not all that hard if you start out that way. I mean...chords and tabs initially have to be translated in your mind into which strings to push down and such, no matter which hand you use, so once you start learning upside down, it just seems normal (although it can really freak some other folks out ).

The main reason I play upside down, instead of restringing and learning that way, is that it means I can play other peoples' guitars as well, and vice-versa, which is a big benefit for me, since I'm often in a place with more guitar players than guitars.

As for learning...I dunno...I figure you've just gotta giv'er; the more you play the better you get. I'm sure there's lots of little tips and strategies I've missed along the way, but the main one is simple: play.