I promised »stranger strings« on my homepage, and here they are: The string instruments I use to accompany my songs. I can’t play any wind instruments apart from the kazoo, but my guitars and co. aren’t sad about that. And like any decent collection, this one wants to grow …
»Blondie«
Ortega RCE159MN
For years, my left-handed concert guitar Ruby was my pride and joy – until a strange noise woke me up one night in early 2022 and I found Ruby the next morning with a disfiguring crack in the top. I still hope that Ruby can be repaired, but because her sound will probably never be the same, I bought a new electro-acoustic concert guitar. After a lot of research – the selection of left-handed instruments is no longer that small – I found what I was looking for at Ortega. Blondie has a solid cedar top, which gives it a wonderfully warm sound, and from day one she played as if I had owned her all my life. She works well with my voice and also suits my playing technique, a folky picking that benefits from five years of classical guitar lessons in my youth, but is thwarted by my latent sausage-fingeredness.
»Blue«
Ovation Celebrity LCSE 24
Since 2007, my left-handed Ovation guitar has been my instrument of choice when I want to play with steel strings. She is dark blue in colour (she looks more like black in the photo) and has a great, clear sound. She was my first dedicated left-handed guitar after years of playing only on retuned right-handed instruments. Of course, I rarely play in such high registers that I would have to rely on the cutaway, but she is also set up mirror-inverted under the top, and the built-in tuner doesn’t disappear under the guitar when I play, but is within reach, even if I have to live with the fact that Ovation has gone one step too far with the mirroring and I have to rethink tuning – higher is left, lower is right… But above all, I love the sound, and that’s the most important thing. Even though my fingertips prefer to play nylon strings, I’m happy to have a steel alternative.
»The Mandolarian«
Thomann Europe Mandola M1088-P/LH
The latest addition to the house is my left-handed mandola. Previously I played a retuned Walthari Mittenwald, which must be more than sixty years old, but I had to admit that it was more for the eye than the ear – beyond the third fret it was no longer fretless, and the lowest string could never be tuned properly. Unlike guitars, however, the selection of left-handed mandolas is tiny – I found exactly this one instrument, made by the Hora company in Romania, and it has been mine since October 2024. Despite the »eat or die« choice (I didn’t want to have to retune another right-handed instrument), I’m very happy with her loud, bright sound and I’m pleased to be able to counteract my rather soft guitar picking with it.
Not only is there no picture of my voice, because I can think of more appetising things than a close-up of my uvula, but also of the instruments that hang beautifully on my wall but are never played: My ukulele; the beautiful tiny little mandolin where my fingers are too big for the fingerboard; the tenor banjo that I can’t play yet; and the Harley Benton acoustic bass that I treated myself to over ten years ago, but then never played. And if that’s not enough instruments – I’ve seen that there are also left-handed resonator guitars, and now I’m waiting for a sudden windfall or a Black Friday offer or a combination of both …