Big mouth, little mouth, left or right...

Chosing a good instrument;

Starting to play the guitar logicaly starts by getting one. And the logic following the logic is wich one to get...

Luckaly the choices in Gypsy Jazz style guitars are basically narrowed down to two major types build by french instrument building company Henri Selmer in cooperation with the Italian luthier Mario Maccaferri since 1932. Django Reinhardt immortalized the Selmer Maccaferi guitars and they became the trademark for generations of Gypsy Jazz guitarists to come.


Django Reinhardt by M.Signier

But besides the choice between a "Grande Bouche" (Big mouth or D-Hole type) or a "Petite Bouche" (Small mouth or oval hole type) I had to choose between a left or right handed version since I'm lefthanded. An easy choice you might think, but I refused to see why there would be a difference since the instrument is played with both hands. The left hand (on a right handed guitar) runs down the neck at a dazzling speed so it seemed an advantage to me playing a right handed guitar. On the other hand (literaly) the right hand needs enormous precision and speed to hit the strings at the right time so that might become a problem in the future. So now, what to do?
And then it occured to me that it would be very frustrating to have to bring your own left-handed instrument everywhere just in case you might find yourself in a spontanious jamsession. Month maybe years of practice would suddenly become useless in a place with only the much more common right handed guitars.

So stubern as I am I chose this relatively cheap righthanded Richwood "Petite Bouche" replica to help me along my first babysteps into the wonderful world of Gypsy Jazz.



Sure hope it was the right choice for now, later i'll try to find out what makes a good guitar a good guitar.

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