Left-handers have three options on the guitar. None of them is a mistake – there are great guitarists on all three paths. What matters is choosing deliberately at the start, because switching later is hard work.
Option 1: learn the standard way
The left hand frets, the right hand strums or picks – like everyone else. For left-handers this is often less strange than expected, because the fretting hand does a lot of fine work. You can borrow any guitar, lessons and books fit without rethinking, and there is a huge choice of instruments.
Option 2: a left-handed guitar or restringing
Here everything is mirrored: neck to the right, right hand fretting, left hand strumming. The low E string is at the top as usual. The easiest choice is a left-handed guitar, built mirrored from the start. A standard guitar can be converted, but not just by putting the strings on the other way round:
- Nut: its slots are cut precisely for strings of very different thickness. After restringing, the guitar needs a new nut slotted the other way round.
- Saddle: on steel-string acoustic guitars the saddle is slanted, set further back on the bass side. That keeps notes in tune higher up the neck. For left-handers it has to slant the other way – which usually means a new bridge or a newly routed slot.
- Classical guitars (nylon strings) usually have a straight saddle and no pickguard, so they are easier to convert: a new nut, check the saddle, done.
- Pickguard, cutaway and controls end up on the awkward side after flipping. On electric guitars a conversion is therefore rarely worth it.
Have a repair shop do the conversion. A ready-made left-handed guitar often costs hardly more than a good conversion.
Option 3: upside down, without restringing
Some people simply hold a standard guitar mirrored without changing anything. The high E string is then at the top and the low E at the bottom. It works, but every chord has to be reinvented with your own fingerings, and lessons and books only help with a lot of rethinking.
The left-handed view in the app
If you play a left-handed or converted guitar (option 2), switch on the Left-handed setting – under “My Stars” or right below the chord chart on any chord page. All chord charts and the blues neck are then mirrored, just as you see your instrument; string names and numbers stay readable. If you play right-handed, or upside down without converting, leave it off: the normal charts then show which string and fret your fingers go on.
All chords