I don't know that much about it, but I heard some guitar players restring the guitar backwards to play lefty.
I can see a couple more advantages of learning to play right-handed, if you could manage it. First, you're not limited to playing your own guitar. You can play any guitar you pick up.
And also, it looks cooler if the guitar army is all facing in the same direction. And we know looking cool meant something to Mr. Frey in the early days.
I can't remember the long list of things my mother and I were told. I'm so non-technical with guitars I'll sound like an idiot, but I seem to remember that the 'things' that tighten the strings needed to be changed as well. And of course, any 'decor' on the guitar, like the 'swoosh'-like thing at the bottom of most guitars would be on the top and look ridiculous.
Considering the mindset back then, I was lucky to grow up with a family and go to a school that encouraged left-handers to be left handed and not force them to do everything right handed. That encouragement stopped at guitars, golf, and arm-wrestling.
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You can't change the world but you can change yourself.
Glenn is one of many left handed guitarist, some play right-handed, but many play lefty;
Who's cooler than Jimi Hendrix?
http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyl...ded-guitarist/
Here are some lefty's that play right handed;
Apparently it's not that uncommon;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ay_left-handed
Didn't know that Glenn was left-handed either. I certainly wouldn't rule out the "cool" factor, when it comes to playing right-handed. It's Glenn after all - the only person on this planet who could perhaps occasionally touch Dean Martin in coolness.
Or maybe he couldn't get the kind of guitar he wanted, got bored with trying and decided to get on with it and learn to play right-handed.
Interesting. I wonder if Glenn has ever been asked about this. Not that it's an important issue, but I certainly think it would be a more interesting question at this point than "Why did the Eagles break up in the early eighties?".
My mother is left-handed and she was forced to learn how to write right-handed in elementary school. She does so to this day. She says she's grateful because it taught her to be ambidextrous, but I'm sure it was hard on her back in the day. Plus, she does everything else left-handed, ambidextrous or not.
While there are a couple exceptions, I think as a rule left-handed guitars were perceived as "less cool" and downright odd-looking by some people. As has been said, at that time, such a thing mattered to Glenn! And back in the day, price was an issue as well. As Topkat pointed out, he is not the only lefty who chose to go this route - so did B.B. King, for example - so there must be good reasons for it. Obviously, it's more difficult, but Glenn seems the type of guy who confronts difficulty head-on.
I think it was probably more about what was available to him at the time, because they had very little when they first started out, as is probably the case with many of these guitar players. I doubt it was the"coolness factor"
Hendrix played lefty & I think he was pretty cool. McCartney also played lefty.
I think these guys picked up guitars that were available & learned to play. I don't think many of them even took lessons, just a natural talent that they had & started playing pretty young. Felder said he played on some crappy thing he bought dirt cheap with no strings on it & he put strings on himself.
There were probably few lefty guitars & were probably more expensive especially back then.