I, like most of you have known many guitarists in my day some good and some not so good. all (Right handed players). I have only known a comparative hand full of lefties and ALL OF THEM "GOOD" has that been your experience to or is it just my experience
----Danny,

I'm with Nevin.

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I believe it is within your experience, Danny

There are plenty of great lefty players out there and I'm sure plenty of mediocre ones as well (like myself ).

I don't like you when you say it . I started out playing guitar right handed and was terrrible. After a couple of years of trying to play the "right way" I switched over to playing lefty and within about 6 weeks was playing better than I ever had on a right handed guitar.

I believe there are degrees of left-handedness. Some people (like my father) are a bit more ambidextrous, doing some things right handed and other things left handed. Others, like myself, do virtually everything left-handed -- writing, throwing, golf, tennis, you name it.

It's true that there are many left-handed people who learn how to play guitar right-handed. I believe most of these folks are somewhat more ambidextrous and have enough coordination in their right hands to manage the intricacies of speed picking, string skipping, hybrid picking, etc.

Then there are those lefties who have such little coordination in their right hands they are probaly always going to struggle a bit trying to play a right-handed guitar. For these people, left-handed guitars are a sensible and practical option.

I'm sure that if I had worked at it long and hard enough I could've developed enough dexterity in my right hand to get by. But I'm not sure if I would have gotten to that point before giving up on the instrument in frustration. Let's just say I'm thankful that Fender and most of the major guitar companies carry selections of instruments that cater to us unrepentant southpaws.

Me too. I'm very strongly left handed - can't do much with my right. For me, the revelation wasn't switching the guitar around, it was fingerpicking instead of flatpicking. Now, I pretty much never pick up a pick, except for chord strumming (and even then, I sometimes just use my fingernails).

Now here's an irony: I am left handed. I started out playing left handed. After a very brief period, it didn't seem to be working out. I switched to playing right handed, began to excel and have played this way ever since then. Frankly, I think lefties who play righty have an edge in the sense that the bulk of our precision is in our left (fretting) hand which surely involves more intricacies than with the picking/strumming hand.

As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV.

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You dig?

You would think so. I'm right handed for absolutely everything, my left hand ia only there so I have something to do with a left give. However when I try and play a left ia.fed guitar I am all over the place, seriously its like I'm worse than an absolute beginner. I've always found it funny that the majority of people use their "opposite hand" for the most complicated part of playing a guitar..

Truly enigmatic.

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You dig?

This is something my guitar teacher mentioned: that the part of the guitar that requires the most precision and dexterity (at least as far as classical guitar goes) is the left hand. He mentioned a few years ago that I'd have trouble initially with my right hand, and then progress quickly once I got the rudiments down. He was right.

This was the case for me, as well. My right-handed fingerpicking actually wasn't all that bad. My problems came primarily from playing with a flatpick; I couldn't really do anything well other than strumming chords.

I am as left handed as you can get but was told at an early age that when it comes to guitar left is definitely wrong. so they stuck the thing in my hands the "correct" way and thats the way I learned I've often wondered that had I been introduced to a lefty if I may have evolved differently. I was always afraid to try for fear that it might mess me all up.
----Danny,

Or else really good at playing things in a pianos bass register. Maybe Bach was left handed.

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Rated "M" for meaty.

I would argue that, depending upon the playing style, your picking hand is often doing at least as much work as your fretting hand. Bluegrass players, for example, perform crosspicking and single string runs which require a great deal of dexterity.

Again, I think it's all up to the individual player. Some lefties will be better served playing a left-handed guitar while others will feel more comfortable with a standard guitar. I'm just glad that the choice is available.

At this point, it's probably best to stick with what works! Having a dominant fretting hand certainly does help in some areas -- I bet you have some killer vibrato!