I started playing classical guitar many years ago.  I foget exactly how old I was but it was definitely before I turned 10.  I really started taking it seriously about the time I turned 15.  At that age, most of my friends had nails chewed down to the flesh on their hand and I had to make a decision.  Whether or not I wanted to keep my nails well maintained or to keep them short.

Nails = Tone

For me, the decision came from the tone I could get.  Individual notes ring out like a bell.  A rich smooth tone is so much easier to get with nails.  Without, the tone is just soft.  It feels almost muted, like it is lacking the higher end frequency.  I was playing a lot of Brazilian and Blues arrangements and these often needed a punchier and more direct sound than classical, baroque or some spanish work.  The greater attack that you can get with nails makes playing with them the only way to get this tone consistently.  The comparison of tone between nails and no nails was night and day.  The nails had to stay.

Another plus for the nails is the control that you have as a player.  The range of tones that you can get by varying the dynamics of your playing is simply not possible without nails.  I found the only way to vary the tone without nails was to shift playing position either closer to or further from the bridge.  Even with this change, the tone was still missing the directness that I could get with my nails.  Playing near the bridge gives a very specific, harsh, tone.  Whilst useful in certain situations (Japanese music for example), it isn’t a good substitute to well groomed nails playing in good position.

What Sort of Nail

For me short nails are the way forward.  No more than 1mm over the edge of the flesh of my finger.  The reason for this is simple physics.  Your nails aren’t rigid and flex when you push down.  The further away from the pivot, in this case where the nail starts to grow out of your finger, the more they flex .  The extra flex results in a loss of control.  Control is everything for me when it comes to playing.  The perfect nail length is the smallest amount of nail you can have and still play the guitar without having the string touch the fleshy pads of your finger tips.

The surface of the nail is as important as the length, probably more so.  It must be as smooth as possible.  The nail is the only part of your finger which touches the vibrating part of the string and is absolutely critical to the tone.  If you have rough edges on your nail, you will have rough edges on the tone.  If you’ve spent a good deal of money on a nice instrument, you don’t want to ruin that sound with scruffy nails.  The nail should slip over the string, no catching.  From a physicist’s point of view this means that the attack profile should be as sharp as possible with a single peak.  Rough nails will mess with this giving you a scratchy tone.  You might as well cut the nails off if you are going to do this, the tone will be better.

The best way I have found to maintain them is to use nail clippers and glass paper.  I am right handed and find it next to impossible to cut my right hand nails with scissors.  Nail clippers are perfect for this.  Don’t worry that they don’t make the smoothest cut, that’s what the glass paper is for.  Ideally you will have 2 or 3 different papers, with different abrasive levels.  Use the most abrasive to shape the nail, getting rid of any of the roughness left by the nail clippers.  Use the 2nd most abrasive to smooth the surface of the nail and finally use the least abrasive to polish the surface.  You should be able to run each nail over your thumb and have it feel like glass.  Once they are this smooth you should begin to notice the difference.

When polishing your nails it is important to only rub in one direction.  The reason for this is that you align the fibers in your nail with each other.  By rubbing back and forth the nails get frayed and less smooth.  Imagine smoothing a carpet with your hand.  If you go one way only it will smooth out nicely but if you rub back and forth, you will never get it smooth.

Remember.  You can’t beat well maintained nails when you play classical guitar.  Whilst every guitarist will have their own preference in terms of length and shape, nails are critical to sounding your best.

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