It seems that there’s often little thought given to the effect of fingernail length on sound quality when it comes to finger style guitar players (the classical guitar players are a little more conscious of this). Many of us just grow out our nails until they break and start over again. If you’re guilty of not maintaining your nails you know what I mean. I’m guilty myself of slacking on maintenance from time to time, but I have some tips below for nipping this problem.
First, while I don’t want to dictate to anyone what is the absolute length for fingernails and stifle your ultimate creativity, I am going to suggest there’s a best length; sort of a perfect balance.
The good news is IN REALITY your nails don’t need to be very long at all for the best effect. So if you’re someone who has poor nails, there’s hope for you making this work without having to resort to finger picks. More about exactly how long in a moment, but first let’s take a quick look at the problems you’ll have with nails that are too long or too short.
If Your Nails are Too Long for Playing Guitar:
Your sound will be brittle, and weak. And your nails will break more easily.
If Your Nails are Too Short for Playing Guitar:
You’ll have too much flesh which will hit the strings and cause poor or inconsistent contact between your nails and the strings, this will give you a weaker softer sound.
Just the Right Nail Length for Playing Guitar:
With the right length you’ll have a strong sound that projects easily. The tone will be smooth and mellow (depending on your attack) and full. You’ll also be less likely to break a nail.
So What’s The Right Length?
You’ll want to clip and or file your nails down so that when you hold your hand in front of your face with your palm facing you, you can just barely see the top tips of your nails over the top of your finger tips. Yeah, it’s that easy, and there’s no need to go longer. You need just enough nail to make consistent contact with the string without the strike being all flesh.
A Few Maintenance Tips
- Buy a few nail clippers and keep them around. Put one on your key chain, put one in the car, leave one at work, and leave one in your shower or bathroom. The point of this is that anywhere you are that you realize you need to clip your nails (I mean who sits around and watches them grow) you’ll have some clippers right on hand and you can take care of it immediately. Don’t let your nails grow too long, they will break!
- Use new or sharpened nail clippers so you don’t crack or stress a nail.
- Once you clip your nails the edges will be rough and this will make the sound of your nail hitting the string scratchy and more brittle then it needs to be. To fix this just take a few moments to rub the newly clipped or filed edge of your nails on your pants, jeans or whatever fabric you have around to polish the edges and smooth them out. If you have a nail product made for polishing, more power to you.
Taking these steps will produce a great sound and a manageable nail length.
I hope you found these tips handy. So what do you think? In your experience what length or tips have you found works? Please let me know below in the comments if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer. Thanks for reading.
You know used to worry about keeping nails on my right hand for finger picking but I also noticed as I played and the more I played the skin at the tip of my fingers on my right hand hardened and that often that was enough for good sound and brightness..
Now I also heard Clapton after and around the time of his unplugged session and other acoustic blues and finger picking sessions also, when asked how he got his sound and did not use finger picks or banjo picks said that the skin on his finger tips also grows harder and stronger and they being enough..
It is good to have some not to much of a nail on your thumb I believe for getting the best most prominent bass or Travis style sound still I think..
hi i enjoyed the read
I personally use a flatpick and fingers, so I let my nails grow a little, but not too much. I also cut them so they are short at the ends, but longer in the middle, otherwise the edge of the nail can get caught on the strings. But everyone is different of course!
Have to agree with charlie, although I tend not to use a pick at all. Increase your calcium intake and your nails will toughen up.
This is really pretty bogus. Many great players PREFER the sound of flesh on strings and therefore have no nails in play. There is no “proper” length. Do what works for YOU
Well, I enjoyed the article. I’m new to guitar playing and learning classical accoustic guitar where fingernail length is mentioned. Through personal experimenting I found there is a clear and distinct sound difference between nail and flesh on the string. That being said, personal preference and doing what works for you take priority but to dismiss the article entirely is plain ignorance to other styles of guitar, some elements of which might help your particular playing.