Left handed troubles.

I seem to have stumbled upon some problems. I am a left handed musician who plays the ukulele left handed, but on a right handed ukulele. I am a decent player, but I've come to some trouble and I have found it almost impossible to finger some chords (due to the fact that it is upside down). Now that I've gotten so use to it I do not want to start over and play a left handed ukulele. If there is anyone else out there who plays like I do and has gotten past this rut I would like to hear it.


P.S. The whole (just play right handed!) suggestion is kinda out of the picture because I have been playing guitar left handed for 7 years and it would just feel silly playing a ukulele right handed.


Tack för din tid! Ha en bra dag.

play left handed ukulele.
i don't wish to be unsympathetic but it is the only viable answer. I say this as a left handed player. i also can play right handed, in fact of my 6 ukes i keep 2 as right handed. but when you are attempting those 4 fingered chords up the neck there really is no other way than 'natural' also you are limiting yourself with things like electric and electric acoustic ukes cos you will wither foul the tone and volume knobs or you will have the EQ on the wrong side of the body. if you have played leftie guitar for so long you will not have any trouble at all adjusting to leftie uke so there is nothing to relearn that wont take a pleasurable afternoon or two.

It's definitely not an ideal solution but you could try transposing the songs to different keys to see if they eliminate the chords you can't finger. I did that quite a bit when I first started when I had troubles playing certain chords.

What exactly do you mean by "own a right handed ukulele"? Does it have a cut away? If not, then most ukes will present no problems when stringing them up lefty. There are some that have compensated saddles, but if you haven't got one of those, then there should be nothing stopping you. Even when I had a uke with the preamp built in, it was of little concern. I may have adjusted the volume accidentally maybe a few times, but other than that, no problems. That's what I love about the uke, no discrimination of dexterity.

We have a guitar builder in town who plays upside down left on six strings and does so beautifully. I will see if I can raise him and get him to post here. He builds this way because more people can play what he has made.

Aloha Colele,
I was born a leftie, and when I was 3years old my mother used to hit my left hand everytime I used my left hand....so now I do some things left and some thing right handed....play uke right...buy..
I'd say use your dominant hand...and work out the finger positions...and practice will give your fingers flexability and memory...if not transpose....like you would do your dominant way.. Good Luck!!
Happy Strummings...MM Stan

I guess my observation is that if you have been playing a left handed guitar left handed for a number of years, I would set your ukulele up left handed. If you have been playing a right handed guitar left handed, just cominue on the same path you are on.

In my experince anything you can do on the top 4 stings of a guitar you can do on a ukulele. Since you know how to play guitar chord shapes, all you really need to learn are what to call them when you play them on a ukulele.

Set your guitar and ukulele up the same way.

John