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I have been playing guitar for about a year now right handed and I would say that I am fairly good at it. Today I thought I would get a little crazy and after one of my strings broke on my strat, I thought why not just reverse the nut and try learning left handed guitar (my inner Hendrix wannabe), so I did!

Of course, it's like trying to learn the guitar all over again but my question to you is should I continue to entertain this idea and become proficient in both left and right handed guitar? Or should I just stick to getting better with my right hand?

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    What is your motivation for such ability? Show-off-iness wears thin pretty quickly. A quick search of youtube finds youtube.com/watch?v=T6lEFbfwBgE – Nick Aug 2 '15 at 18:52
  • yeah since this is totally experimental i will be brutally honest.. I would just like to wow somebody with the simple fact that i could play the guitar both ways.. I play very well right handed and can go back any time but i just thought, why not try left – davedno Aug 2 '15 at 18:56
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    @DaveDiienno Thanks for your honesty. I think you'd impress folks more if you quietly learned another instrument, and that would be time better spent. It sounds like you're a talented person -- I bet you could pick up another instrument pretty quickly. – aparente001 Aug 2 '15 at 19:15
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    As a guitarist who has tried playing "left handed", I would be impressed by someone who was ambidextrous on guitar. But folks who don't play guitar, (most of the population) would not appreciate the skill it takes to re-learn guitar left handed. I know the only reason I would ever attempt to learn left handed is if an injury to a hand or arm made it impossible to play right handed. I prefer to spend my time getting better and improving my skills playing the guitars I have. I know that there is always vast room for improvement no matter how much I practice. – Rockin Cowboy Aug 3 '15 at 22:02
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It worked for Hendrix! Why not, though, learn hammering and pulling left handed - after all, your r.h. should be stronger (as a r.h. person). Then you could try two guitars simultaneously. The job would be more successful, as hinted at by leftaroundabout, to use a standard r.h. guitar.

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  • Good point - I imagine hammering/pulloff techniques for both hands would be good practice for someone who later wanted to get into two-handed material, like fancy tapping techniques or the Chapman stick. – Andy Aug 3 '15 at 13:26
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Well – why not? It can hardly hurt to try unusual new stuff.

But frankly if you just learn to play left-handed guitar left-handed, as well as the same stuff right-handed on right-handed guitar, I don't see the point either. This “can play anything with either hand” boasting is, well... IMO it's ridiculous.

What would be rather more interesting if you learned completely different techniques with both settings. In particular, you could just leave the strings the right-handed way, but learn to play them the other way around nevertheless. Quite a few left-handed guitarists play this way, and it certainly opens some unique options you don't have in ordinary strung guitar (the distinction is particular relevant for finger picking styles), but definitely also makes many standard techniques more difficult. It would be quite interesting to be able to play one style with one hand, and the other style with the other hand.

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