Hey Everyone,
In the wayback machine as a 15-year old who finally decided to take up the bass, I had no access to left-handed instruments. So, grudgingly, my first lessons were right-handed. It was beyond awkward; it went across the grain of my own wiring. It was so frustrating I nearly quit altogether. Finally, for my birthday, I got my first left-handed bass and things almost instantly fell in line.
Although there is now greater access to left-handed basses, I've found several local kids' music schools that don't have lefty basses or guitars and tell me they simply have lefty kids try to learn right-handed. Maybe that works for some, but for obvious reasons, it's cringe-worthy to me.
So, I found and bought a very basic used Ibanez lefty bass being sold locally -- cleaned it up and set the intonation. It's light weight, plays easily and consistent up and down the neck -- a good solid bass for kids to learn on. I just donated it to the local Bach to Rock franchise. They were incredibly grateful and said they would make sure to include this in their marketing outreach. They are intent on it getting plenty of use.
If you have a local music school of any kind -- commercial or institutional, that caters to kids, I encourage you to consider engaging with them to see what provisions they have for incoming left-handed students. If you have the wherewithal to make any difference of any kind -- and I'm sure you may have better ideas than this, the affect on someone could be far greater than you think.
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