A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

I've never bought a Vintage (brand) guitar, but was interested in a new model they put out in righty only. I reached out to ask about lefties, and for the first time ever, I was told:

"80% of left handed guitar players play right handed"

I had to quote it from the email because yikes, who believes that? It might have been kinda true 85 years ago, but today it's ridiculous.

Response:
"If you think 80% of lefties identify as righties then you can also identify us lefties as permanently not your customers".

I have no idea what the percentage is but seriously doubt that 80% figure. I do know some labels do not or no longer stock lefty guitars because they don't sell nearly as quickly as right-handed ones...

80% of companies will lie in order to justify the shortcomings of their business model.

I write lefty and eat lefty but throw a baseball right handed. I guess when my dad bought me a acoustic rightys were about all you could get. So I consider myself 15%. If that makes any sense.

Me trying to play a lead riff on a lefty guitar would sound like a cross between Kurt Cobain and Joe Perry falling down seven flights of stairs while holding on to the guitar but landing on my feet at the bottom. COVID symptoms, please ignore my ramblings.

I've read that Paul McCartney is actually righthanded but plays bass/guitar lefthanded

I do hear a lot of lefties simply learned to play righty because righties were available when they wanted to learn. I understand that. I tried that too but it didn't take for me. I played a few instruments in my 20s but hadn't picked up guitar yet because I never ran into a lefty yet. Keyboard was my main instrument despite it being righty-ish (lead parts are right-hand). I ended up buying a righty guitar from a pawn shop and tried to learn on it. Out of frustration, I ended up flipping the nut and trying it lefty which let me go farther and felt more natural despite the controls being in the wrong place. But it was a horrible guitar anyway, and my other instruments took my attention back so I could write and produce. It was years before I got ahold of a well made lefty, and that made all the difference in the world to my guitar progress.

So maybe there are many factors. Is it the only instrument you want to play? Are you at an age that you have a lot of time to dedicate to learning (instead of having to do)? Is that first instrument good enough to support your advancement? Is there already a (wrong-handed) instrument around for you to mess with? Are you hearing bad things about learning as a lefty? Are you swayed by the big difference in availability between lefties and righties?

I think all those things and more weigh into the decision. And to be honest, I think the challenges I experienced in getting lefty guitars I wanted is a leading cause of my GAS in acquiring too many guitars (but not setting any records). Bottom line, I just wish every lefty kid could walk into any music store and try out well made guitars in both orientations. I think it would eventually stop being common to hear of lefties who play righty. Availability is better today. If you're lucky, it's whichever orientation feels better. Otherwise, it's the orientation you have access to when you really want to learn. And I think a lot of people who start the latter way eventually talk themselves out of feeling like they settled, because nobody wants to think they settled. Once they play that way, it's harder to change later. Once trained, most of us don't switch-hit. Just ask Tony Iommi.