Now to you non-guitarists the topic of nails might sound either boring or slightly gay but to most fingerstyle players they are the essential interface between our musical good intentions and those steel or nylon strings. Nylon strings are not too hard on the nails, in fact when I only played my old Kohno my natural nails served me fine, but playing hard on thin, tightly stretched steel wire for hours on end wears away most peoples nail quite quickly. I counted the number of notes that need plucking in one four-part reel: 600, and that lasts about two minutes!
The solution is either to pluck the strings with the fingertips, and some players such as Laurence Juber swear by that technique, or to reinforce the nails somehow.
Picks
Finger and thumb picks are one very temporary answer and I’ve heard some amazing picking using them, particularly from American 5-string banjo or banjo-style guitar players but they (the picks!) are pretty unstable unless you tape them on which makes them very bulky around the fingertips. I’ve tried several types and I found the best of the genre to be Alaskapiks, available from Elderly Instruments in the US http://www.elderly.com/brand/ALASKA%20PIK.html (I haven’t been able to find them in the UK). Alaskapiks are the only “clip-on-nails” that work on upstroke and downstroke which is essential for Flamenco rasgueados (strumming) and hitting harmonics.
Strengthening
The next approach is to strengthen the natural nails. Dietary supplements (such as trace element silica salts) will have some effect but I’ve found the ProStrong fluoride nail care products really do what they say. Have a look at http://www.qvcuk.com/ go into products > Brands A-Z > Prostrong > 215625 “ProStrong Max3 Flouride Nail Pen” for example. This has kept my nails growing quicker, stronger, and healthier than I’ve ever known before.
Artificial Nails
BUT scraping even these super-fit nails across wire several hours each day still gave me a score of: Nails Rangers: 0, Strings United: 5, so in my search for artificial strengthening that didn’t rot my nails I came across Neways http://www.neways.co.uk Their approach is to use an ultra-violet lamp to harden the fairly non-toxic nail gel.
“Ultra High Gloss Gel is strong, flexible and bonds to natural nails. The gel is a gas-permeable, high viscosity polymer and will not seal off the natural nail. The nail bed breathes normally to maintain a natural environment and healthy nail.”(Neways)
I certainly agree that my nails stay much healthier under this stuff than regular acrylic gel but the set-up cost is pretty steep plus you have to get into the Neways multi-level marketing machinery which, even as a simple end-user, is not to everyone’s taste.
Still, my current solution is: Neways nail gel over glue-on nail tips (to take the direct abrasion) with a coat of Neways’ Nail Kapping to stop the gel from over-curing in sunlight. Finally I use the ProStrong fluoride pen each day to keep my natural nails strong enough to take all that abuse!
Nail Length
The most important point is not to keep the plucking hand’s nails too long, whether you have them natural or artificially strengthened. My choice is to see no more than 1mm of nail above my fingertips when I look at my hand straight on from the palm side. This lets me play on nail or flesh for a wide variety of tones and it keeps my playing accurate. Long nails may seem easier to play with for a while but all too often they hit the wrong string and/or lose timing.
All this may sound like a great deal of trouble for not much gain but each of us must decide what’s good enough or not for ourselves. Remember the 600 note of that one reel!
