Left Handed Ukulele

Fizzlesque

Recently my dad gave me a very cheap ukulele he had lying around his house and I'm currently learning (very slowly) how to play it. There are two problems, however.

First problem is it is so cheap (think he bought it in Aldi or Lidl) it's not making the right sounds. My dad did warn me when he gave it to me that it wouldn't tune properly. I've been advised to try get new strings for it. Does anyone know if this makes sense or would I be better off just buying myself a slightly better instrument?

The second issue isn't so much a problem as a query. I'm left handed and a few years ago when I tried (and failed) to learn to play guitar I forced myself to try learn right handedly having been advised to do so. Now that I've abandoned my guitar learning plans and switched to the ukulele, I'm thinking of learning left handedly. There's really only a marginal difference in which way feels better - I can strum easily enough with either hand (slightly easier using my left hand), but fret work feels a lot more comfortable using my right hand (it actually hurts a little to try get my left wrist to wrap sufficiently around the neck, but doesn't at all hurt to wrap my right wrist around the neck) but the overall feel of holding the ukulele is that it's better holding it with my left hand doing the strumming.

I'm concerned about giving myself additional headaches by having to read all music upside down/in reverse. I can't read music anyway so it's taking me ten times as long as it should to figure out what the chord images are telling me to do so it mightn't make much difference to have to teach myself how to read them upside down.

So, two questions:

1. should I buy new strings or a new instrument?
2. should I push myself to learn right-handedly to save having to read music upside down?

Faing

Hi, if you want a good cheap starter Uke with a reasonable sound, invest 25 spondulicks on a Mahalo Soprano (available in loads of colours) and restring it with either Aquila or Martin Fluorocarbon strings (about 8 yoyo a set), a clip on tuner is really handy as all ukes go out of tune very quickly for a while until the strings bed in and then they pretty much stay in tune. No problems stringing them lefty as the nut and bridge are pretty much level. Pretty addictive things as well and theres tons of resources online for learners. THis guy is playing a 25quid Mahalo.

http://youtu.be/D1Azwzs78d4

Fizzlesque

Nice one, Faing. I thought I wasn't going to get any responses. Thanks for your PM too - I'm loving discovering the previously unseen (by me) world of ukulele players. Can't wait to go to the hooley....:)

martinedwards

chances are the intonation is off on your lidl uke.

measure from the inside of the nut to the 12th fret. double it. the distance from the inside of the nut to the inside of the saddle should be a HAIR longer.

as to the lefty/righty question, if you CAN play righty, then try.

the range of left handed instruments available is about 1/10 of the righty ones.

I don't think I've ever seen a lefty uke......

as to left handed people playing righty?

Mark Knopfler and Gary Moore both managed it fairly well!!

-=al=-

I've one of those ukulele's and i just flipped the strings on it and it's grand, had to tighten to machine heads to get it to stay in tune but works fine now

I considered learning it stringed for a righty but played for a lefty since i'll never ever ever have the choice of a lefty uke when im out and about at random places... I just haven't been arsed flipping it back around to a righty since i learned a bit lefty (if that makes sense)

But yeah try and get it in tune flip the strings ot my preference of playing it lefty but stung for a righty... it's not as fiddly as a guitar or diverse but it should be fine