How to Restring a Left-Handed Guitar Upside Down
Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Albert King all made their mark playing guitar left-handed. Some lefties purchase specially made guitars; many learn how to play right-handed guitar upside down; and a few (Paul Simon, for example) contend that playing in the right-handed method really is playing left-handed because the more dexterous left hand is used on the fretboard. But most restring their right-handed guitars. It's a fairly simple process.
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Instructions
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Look at the bridge of the guitar. (It's where the strings are attached on the body.) Notice that, at the bridge, the lower, fatter, strings ride closer to the body of the guitar than the upper, thinner strings. You will have to adjust this. Remove all of the strings. If you have an acoustic guitar or a classical guitar, the piece that determines the height of the strings (called the "bridge bone") is removable. Lift it out of the bridge, turn it around and fit it back in the slot so that the higher end is on the opposite end from where it was.
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Clean the slots in the nut with a soft cloth. (The "nut" is at the very top of the fretboard where it attaches to the "headstock" where the tuning pegs are mounted.)
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Take your new lowest pitched E string (the thickest one) out of its package and uncoil it. Attach the large low E string to the bridge end of the guitar on the guitar's left (your right if you are facing the hole of the guitar). Feed the string up, over or through the bridge, depending on the type of guitar. (On an electric guitar, if the string doesn't fit through the notch, you may have to take it to a professional shop to have the notch made larger.)
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Press the string into the nut. Because the low E string is so much thicker than the high E string, your biggest challenge will be fitting this string into the groove in the nut that has been made for the smaller high E string. (If it won't go at all, you'll have to get it made bigger or buy smaller-gauge strings.)
Attach the string to the lower right tuning peg if your headstock has tuning pegs on both sides, or to the very top peg if all of the tuning pegs are on the same side.
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String your A string into the bridge and nut slots next to the E string that you just attached. Attach it to the middle right tuning peg on the headstock. Attach the D string next to that, going up to the upper right tuning peg, or the third peg down on a one-sided headstock.
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Attach the other strings in succession: G, B, E. On a divided headstock, the G goes in the upper left peg, the B goes in the middle left and the E goes in the bottom left. On a one-sided headstock, follow the progression you've already established, ending with the high E string on the bottom peg.
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Tips & Warnings
It is a rare occasion that you would remove all of the strings at once, so this is an ideal time for you to clean the fretboard and polish up your guitar.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit pink guitar image by Earl Robbins from Fotolia.com
