Left Handed Bass Explained: Features, Types and Tips

A left handed bass is a bass guitar strung in mirror image to a standard right-handed instrument: the low E string sits at the top when held correctly, the player frets with the right hand and the left hand controls plucking, picking or slapping at the bridge. For most left-handed players, this orientation is entirely natural — the dominant hand handles the fretting while the other controls the picking technique.

How the Mirror-Image Layout Works

The physical difference from a right-handed instrument lies in the stringing order and, on most designs, the orientation of the body, cutaway, controls and output jack. A symmetric design — a violin bass or a balanced double-cutaway — can be restrung and flipped without repositioning anything significant. An asymmetric design — the Fender Precision Bass, Jazz Bass or most modern shaped bodies — has a lower cutaway for upper-fret access that faces the wrong direction if simply restrung. Controls and knobs end up under the forearm rather than comfortably accessible. A purpose-built lefty instrument is made correctly from the start.

The Market for Lefty Instruments

Left-handed models represent a small proportion of total production, which means the selection is consistently narrower than for right-handed players. Most major manufacturers — Fender, Gibson, Squier, Epiphone, Yamaha, Ibanez — offer lefty versions of their most popular configurations, but extended colour ranges, specification variants and limited editions are rarely converted to mirrored builds. This is a practical reality of production economics rather than a technical limitation.

Your Main Options as a Left-Handed Player

Three approaches are available. The first is to buy a dedicated left handed bass, which is the most straightforward path. The second is to restring a right-handed model and flip it — this works on symmetric designs (Paul McCartney has played this way on his Hofner violin bass for decades) but creates ergonomic problems on asymmetric bodies. The third is to learn right-handed; many lefties do this successfully, particularly those who start before dominant-hand habits are established.

Body Shapes and Configurations

Left-handed players have access to the full spectrum of configurations — short scale, long scale, four-string, five-string, fretless — but availability in each subcategory is limited. Short-scale lefty models are particularly scarce. If you need a specific combination, confirm availability from a specialist retailer before committing to a purchase and allow time for a potential special order.

The Nut Matters

The nut of a properly built lefty instrument is cut with string slots in reversed order — the wide slot for the low E sits on the right when facing the front of the headstock. On a converted right-handed instrument, this slot is on the left, cut for a different string. A properly manufactured left handed bass has this built in; a restrung conversion requires a new or recut nut to function correctly and stay in tune reliably.

Frequently Asked Questions