In 1992, on my way to a family Thanksgiving in the hinterlands, I bought a copy of Guitar Player magazine. The theme was "How to Play Slide." Ry Cooder was on the cover. In the interview with Cooder, he made a strong case against flatpicks, thumbpicks, fingerpicks -- any kind of utensil for plucking the strings. "Consider the beauty of the hands, for Christ's sake," he said. I considered the beauty of the hands, and soon I resolved to put the pick down. Anything you can do with a pick, I reasoned, you can do with bare fingers and properly maintained nails.
I still think barehanded guitar is the ideal. The part about the nails, however, has been an 18-year struggle. My nails are thin and fragile. I have tried everything I can think of, every tip I've encountered, every nail product that has looked useful, and as of this writing I am no closer to a solution. My fingernails are not built for fingerstyle guitar, and I don't know how to build them up in a way that doesn't create more problems than it solves.
I started with clear top-coat enamel. Moved on to cyanoacrilyc glue. Started adding reinforcements to the Super Glue -- tissue, then ordinary paper of various kinds, then a cool packing paper used by Lehman's which seems to dissolve in Super Glue to form a tough, resilient coating... then baking soda and ethyl cyanoacrylate... then the little acrylic-nail kits from Walgreen's. The acrylic goo seemed the most promising, but it seems impossible to get consistently usable results. (My acrylic thumbnail lasted more than a month before it went to pieces this monning.)
I'm at my wit's end. Presently I'm using baking soda and Super Glue. It's fragile, but it's much easier (and less toxic) to repair than acrylic. I have some Alaska picks, and eventually I'm probably going to resort to them -- not because they are good, but because they are better than any of the other alternatives I have found, and at least with the Alaskas I won't wind up spending more time d*cking around with my nails than playing the guitar.
:x
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
Life's too short to play guitars with fingernails. Get some good fingerpicks.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Life's too short to play guitars with fingernails. Get some good fingerpicks.
Agree 100%. I've got some metal fingerpicks that I bent to fold over the fingernals.They also make a version that slides over the finger without the aid of bending.
I'm not surprised your nails are weak, given all the product you've been putting on them. My advice (as a fellow bare fingers on steel strings player):
Cut your nails short and leave them like that for 6 months. They're too weak right now, so give it six months kept short if you want to give them a chance to improve (this means they'll get stressed as little as possible during this time)
After doing the above, never cut your nails again. Use an emery board, and have a little patience when using it. Cutting your nails puts them under considerable tension (torque???) and only weakens them.
Try to avoid hot water, esp just before playing. Use artistic requirements as an argument to SO that you should never be forced to do the washing up. Or at the very least an argument for getting a dishwasher.
If you smoke, quit. If you drink, consider drinking less. How much these two affect you depend on how much you do them, your genes, plus how healthy you eat and how much you exercise. Stuff like that is all intertwined. So, if you don't want to be an angel in one area, try being an angel elsewhere to counterbalance. Failing that, add supplements to your diet. Cant recall which ones specifically, but the local store will no doubt have a "good hair and nails" combo that will have the necessary in it.
And stay away from nail varnish, varnish remover, and acrylic add ons and their glues. Tho getting and using a decent nail oil and/or hand moisturiser on a daily/twice daily basis will help also.
Hi Scrybe --
Thank you! That's a good sensible program of nail rehabilitation.
You mentioned genes, and that is a big part of my problem. I have my mother's nails & hair. We can mitigate genetic problems to a degree with environment, diet etc., but only to a degree. I can only do so much with Mom's nails.
I will look into hair-and-nails supplements. And I will put away the nail clippers as soon as possible , at least for my picking hand.
Anything is better than fingerpicks, although the Alaskas are not too bad.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
I keep meaning to do another six-months short nails thing since quitting smoking, but I did the short nails thing a few years ago and quit cutting my nails too, just use an emery board (I find keeping a small one with you to give nails a quick file after playing prevents them snagging and pulling later) and now my right hand thumb nail is solid. Found giving up the scissors/clippers made a massive improvement, so I'd do that first. My other nails are slightly less solid, but that's cos I've not been doing any supplements or nail oil, or other care, and I've been buggering them up by tapping on my acoustic, too. But they're still strong enough to play acoustic with. You'll find after playing they will be a little coarse at the tips, but a quick smooth down after playing keeps them in good shape. And fwiw, I play steel strings pretty hard, but using classical position, so my playing is nearly alway all nail.
But my left hand nails are always kept short as possible, for fretting, and they'd like bricks, lmaoo. So the keep 'em short for a bit tip seriously works. If you can't manage a full six months, just do it for as long as possible, though six months was the advice given to me by a nail specialist way back when I first found out about it.
Hope this helps. At the very least, it's a lot less faff than having to apply acrylics!
Bugger - meant to say, when first switching to just using an emery board, it might take a while for you to notice an improvement in strength, so go easy on your nails in that time (one reason why I was told to cut them short then use a file to keep em that way for months). Every time you cut or clip your nails (or snag them badly), it sends stress right down the nail, so the bit of nail that is on top of flesh at the moment will still be very weak. The nail is constructed of sheets of nail, if that makes sense, so each stress on them will be weakening how those sheets are connected. You need to let as much of that grow out while also nourishing them in order to develop strong healthy nails.So, if you can't manage 6 months, I'd say do a month of serious nail-protection to get them back in shape as much as possible before goin all out on them.
Update: I have removed all the acrylic/Super Glue fortifications from my picking hand, for ever and ever. My index fingernail is paper-thin, and thum and middle nails are not much better. Have sorted out several emery boards and small strips of wet-or-dry sandpaper for daily nail maintenance. Am moisturizing cuticles multiple times a day. Practicing with the Alaska picks -- they aren't great, but they are better than anything else I've tried.
And I'm also looking at my flatpicks longingly....
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
It's hard to beat the original National style fingerpicks. I've gone back to using the Dunlop version, .025" nickel silver. They take getting used to, but so does playing guitar.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
It's hard to beat the original National style fingerpicks. I've gone back to using the Dunlop version, .025" nickel silver. They take getting used to, but so does playing guitar.
Been there, done that. I did a multi-year intensive on the square-neck Dobro, but I could never get used to the feel or the sound of my Dunlop .020s and a plastic National thumbpick. That was a big reason why I put the square-neck aside altogether. Flatpick feels more natural than metal fingerpicks, and that ain't saying much.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
Each to his own.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
My advice would be to sidle down to your nearest beauty parlourand get the nice wee blondy there to attach some of those acrylic nails like those city girls and porno stars use.
They grow our natuarally with your own nails so should last a couple of months.
They are really strong (I've got the scratches to prove it :lol: :arrow: :idea: :note2: :roll: :oops: )
Update: I have removed all the acrylic/Super Glue fortifications from my picking hand, for ever and ever. My index fingernail is paper-thin, and thum and middle nails are not much better. Have sorted out several emery boards and small strips of wet-or-dry sandpaper for daily nail maintenance. Am moisturizing cuticles multiple times a day. Practicing with the Alaska picks -- they aren't great, but they are better than anything else I've tried.
And I'm also looking at my flatpicks longingly....
My advice would be to sidle down to your nearest beauty parlourand get the nice wee blondy there to attach some of those acrylic nails like those city girls and porno stars use.
OK, now I won't ever look at my guitar in quite the same way. :)
Presently I'm trying to get my own nails healthy -- moisturizing, sanding off small nicks -- & trying to work with the Alaska picks, which are tools of the devil. I understand why so many players hate them -- you have to work on them pretty hard to get a decent fit. A badly fitted Alaska pick cut a wicked groove in my middle fingernail, which was already weak to begin with.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
I tried to make the Laska Piks work, and never could. But I've come to a comfortable accommodation with my metal Dunlop picks and extra heavy Golden Gate thumbpick. Long nails? That'll never happen.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
...I've come to a comfortable accommodation with my metal Dunlop picks and extra heavy Golden Gate thumbpick.
They sound great with your reso. I can't get metal picks to sound good on acoustic guitars. How do you attack the strings? Any kind of special hand angle/finger motion/metal polish you can recommend? Seriously -- the tone from the guitar w/metal picks is sterile -- might as well drop ball bearings on the strings.
Long nails? That'll never happen.
Leo Kottke gave up fingerpicks (metal) about 30 years ago because he claimed they caused tendinitis. In general, I don't argue with Leo Kottke -- but I'm curious if you have heard about that, & if you have found any info to the contrary.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
