Fingernails

For electric guitar I will on occasion use my fingernails on a few notes or a riff for a certain effect but mostly use a pick.Now on acoustic I sometimes will play with my nails for slide guitar( You can get some nice tone that way) , but again I mostly just use a pick for that ( mostly because I'm a slacker :lol: ) --the dog

kaki king and possibly others recommend acrylic nails.

I've been using my fingernails ever since I bought my acoustic (is phospher bronze that different from steel?). I've been playing my electric with my fingers too, and though sometimes my fingernails get bits torn out with both of them (I file regularly to keep them smooth), they hardly get 'torn to shreds'.

Most of the time my teacher plays steel string with fingernails a thumb pick.

I've found that if I keep them trimmed and filed I can keep my right hand nails in pretty good shape. I've also taken the plunge into ladies nail care products and am now painting the nails on my right hand with a clear coat that contains kevlar. This seems to help a lot, as my job involves tasks that have had a tendency to chip my nails. It was getting frustrating, I'd get them grown out and start being able to hear and feel the difference, it'd sound great, then I'd chip a nail, have to trim 'em back, fingerpicking my guitar would be like dancing with a wooden leg.

The stuff I'm using claims that it will make my nails "bullet proof". Presumably if my fingers get shot off the nails will survive. I'm not sure what advantage this is supposed to offer.

now you can flick off a sharpshooter.

I use nails on steel strings but I find it better to keep them a little shorter (around 1mm past the finger tip at most)
then with a slight angle adjustment you can play using the finger tips too. I use 800 grade wet and dry paper to
keep the nails smooth too. Saves on a few funny looks at the chemists.

G.B.

i also play my phosphor bronze strung acoustic with nails. Not particularlly long though. 1, 2mm max from the flesh. If i have them any longer they tend to get snagged on the strings which is irritating but i find using just flesh to pick has a dull lifeless sound and becomes very bassy as the thumb picks louder than the higher notes.

The finger nails on my picking hand is max as long as the finger tip, never above.
When finger picking I just tuch the strings with the nails.

I've always used my fingernails to play my acoustic guitars, whether playing the classic nylon strings or the phosphor bronzed strings of the electro-acoustic, and tend to let them grow until they break (they get quite long these days!)

But I agree that often my nails have chips and bits missing from them, especially after a good long playing session. For a good while now I've taken to wearing clear-coloured nail hardener, you can hardly tell that it's there from looking, and it really helps prevent my nails from breaking.

Now, if I could only find a way to stop chipping of my nail varnish I'd be ok ;)

Pete

USing fingernails on a guitar is the same to me as scraping them down a blackboard - I cringe just thinking about it :?

Nails on steel is pretty common in the fingerstyle world. In addition to the nail reinforcement noted above, use of extra light (lower tension) strings is a big help. "Silk and steel" strings are popular.

Chet Atkins was a steel string nail player, but changed over to nylon in later years, when his nails couldn't hack it anymore.

I'm a pick/pad/nail guy -- anything that works on any guitar. Not surprisingly, my nails often look like s**t.

I keep just my thumbnail grown out so because I like the sound of plucking a bass string with a nail when fingerpicking. That goes for accoustic and electric. I once tried to grow out the other nails, but I didn't like the sound of a nail plucking treble strings. I keep that thumbnail painted up with clear nail polish and rarely have a break or a chip, even with steel strings. I also file it down every couple of days so that the strings have nothing to "catch" on. It helps. It does take a certain commitment to keep the dirt out from under there, but it IS only one nail in my case so it's not such a big deal.

-Jon

One tip is to use one of these Revlon nail files http://www.revlon.com/product.asp?ProductID=5189&Mode=catalog

The kind that comes with nail clippers - with that crosshatch cut - tears the nails and shreds them rather than cutting cleanly, which weakens the structure. The way to get the right length is to hold your hand up with the palm facing you and finger tips extended and at eye level. You should just be able to barely see the curve of the nails above the curve of your finger tip. Sometimes too-long nails catch on the string and break more easily. You just need enough nail to slip over the string, not enough to actually catch it.

The other thing is the roughness of the nail edge. If you file it and it's still rough, the roughness will create more friction against the string, thereby wearing it out, thereby creating more roughness, and on and on. After filing to shape with the above type file, it's recommended to use 3m Tri-M-Ite 415N sandpaper; the whitish looking stuff. The other sandpaper mentioned is also fine, but I find that it leaves a little stickiness (I guess) because of the adhesive that keeps the grit to the paper. This other stuff is more like polishing powder stuck to the paper, but it comes off real easy and leaves the nail edge almost feeling like glass. And when it's slick like that, there's less friction, thereby less wear, etc. Like a guitar pick whose edge has gotten a little scuffed up; it'll start to catch there more and more and wear a concave in there. Same with the nails.

Anyhow, that's just some stuff I got from my teacher long ago, and I always have at least one sheet of the stuff (available at any hardware store) at home. I cut it into little 1"x2" pieces and keep a piece in every guitar case storage area.

USing fingernails on a guitar is the same to me as scraping them down a blackboard - I cringe just thinking about it :?

Just reading this makes me wince........