Easy Guitar Chords for Left Handed Guitarists: Leftie Open Chords, Barred Chords and Sharps

The guitarist who plays left handedly has a multitude of hurdles to overcome, not least to restring a right-handed guitar to make it caggie-handed. Left handed guitars are available on the market, but can be pricy and harder to find. But my biggest bugbear is trying to work out guitar chords in reverse.

Right Handed Guitar Chord Books

Reading Chords Left Handed

So-called easy chords in guitar song books do not possess the term ‘right-handed’ because it is a given But the unsuspecting left hander will be caught out, as I have. It’s hard enough reading guitar chord charts as a beginner, but the leftie guitarist has the extra difficulty of reversing chords. Simple chords like A and EM aren’t too bad, but most other chords like C7 poses a cerebral contortion, as can be seen in the image.

Left Handed Chords for Guitar Playing

I was tempted to try playing the guitar upside down, but on progression to more difficult chords, found it virtually impossible. This meant I had to restring the guitar to make it left handed, and try reading the chords in reverse. Holding a mirror to the chord chart poses several difficulties:

1 The name of the chord is reversed in the mirror and this is off-putting.

2 Positioning the mirror free-standing, so that the guitar chord is visible whilst playing the guitar.

3 Continual referral to the mirror instead of the book when trying to play a chord sequence.

4 The chord sequence and lyrics are in reverse.

Chord books for Left Handed Guitarists

To a point, I have managed to reverse guitar chords in my head after a while. I can then remember the basic chords without actually having to look at the chord chart itself, but there are always new chords to learn.

Sadly, left handed guitar books are not so easy to come by as those for the right-handed, which means that there is a smaller selection of books and therefore songs that will be included within the repertoire of the cack-handed guitarist. This means he/she will have to reverse manually the chords of a song not covered.

Left Handed Guitar Open Chords

Whilst I am unable to provide chord sequences for popular songs (copyright and space issues), find at least charts of guitar chords left-handed. The following image shows open chords (which means no barring is needed). These easy guitar chords will be encountered first off and will be included in most pop songs. Find A, C, E and G. I have included the ‘easy’ version of F chords, where only four strings are sounded out. Countless Dylan and Beatle tunes possess just open chords.

Left Handed Open Chords

Essential Bar Chords for the Left Handed Guitarist

Bar chords will be encountered next. Bar chords are those that require the index finger to ‘fret’ at least two strings of the guitar. (Fretting means pressing the string(s) down). Here I have included bar chords that occur most frequently in pop songs. Barring requires some mastery, as not only is strength is needed, but placement of the finger to prevent that horrid ‘buzzing’ sound. B and F chords are the most commonly encountered bar chords in pop songs, followed by C# (Db) and F# (Gb).

Left Handed Barred Chords

Useful Left Handed Chords to Know for Guitar

These useful chords will be encountered occasionally, and therefore need to be included within the chord dictionary. Find suspended chords, such as Asus2 and Asus4, as well as major sevenths such as Cmaj7 and Emaj7, which occur quite often. As can be seen, a long-winded chord name does not always mean it is difficult chord to fret.

Useful Chords for Leftie Guitarists

Left Handed Guitar Sharp and Flat Chords

Sharp (or flats depending on how you look at it) do not occur quite so frequently as the chords just mentioned, but will crop up now and again within even the simplest pop song. I have taken the ‘sharp’ view on labeling individual chords (as the title becomes too long).

Leftie Sharps and Flats in Guitar

Chords for Leftie Guitarists

Learning the guitar left-handed can present a mire of problems. My initial attempts at playing the guitar upside down proved impossible for certain chords. Restringing the guitar so that it can be played left handedly proved the least of the caggie-hander’s worries as the chords need to be worked out in reverse. Left handed guitar chord books are not so easy to come across. (Mirrors don’t help either). So I have included guitar chords in reverse, to save the cack-handed guitarist a headache. Each chord chart is in order of type: open, ‘simple’ chords, followed by ‘bars’, then ‘sharp/flats’ and finally, ‘less frequent’ but very useful chords.

Related Left-handed Articles

How to restring your right-handed guitar to make it left handed