Guitar Nails 101: How to Shape Them for a Beautiful Tone!
In this video, Brandon Acker shares how he shapes his nails to make a beautiful sound on the classical guitar. This video is just a short clip from his 6 hour beginner classical guitar course which you can watch here: https://classicalguitar-pro.com/
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Timestamps:
0:00 Everyone’s nails are different
1:02 Different shapes
2:41 My online guitar course
3:13 How I shape my nails
5:32 Important tip
6:37 Using a file
9:34 Sandpaper
11:13 Preference
11:40 Classical Guitar Pro
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Originally posted by UC-GiI_5U-WkPIKqsq056wvg at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVIqSHCQTog
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amazing 🙂 thank you Brandon 🙂 my nails are super long in comparison to yours but I like them this way. I recently lost one as well, which was a tragedy of course but the nail specialist glued the artificial one for me and it works ok too 🙂
Bro if this video was released in 1955 it would get a million views
What guitar are you playing here?
Thanks so much for this Brandon!
The difference in timbre and amplitude when playing with nails vs without nails, is that playing with healthy nail & flesh will project crisp and resonant sound, and positive valence that leads to feeling happy as a Clam at high tide. Playing without nails and only flesh is like having a one way ticket to Palookaville where the feeling is static ambivalence, which can be as welcoming as outhouse breeze. No nails is Nicky Nacky Noo????
I've been struggling with my thumb nail for quite some time. I was very pleased after having applied the suggested things in this video because I could use my thumb nail nicely afterwards. The first shape shown works for me and the "7th string" approach is nice but I let I,M,A sit on strings A,D,G. Since my thumb nail has a lot of curvature, I use a hot spoon to bring it into desired shape (saw it on another big channel).
Best way is to polish the nails is to use 600 + grit waterpapers
What amplification do you use to create such a beautiful sound for your videos?
Shaping all three nails at once for the ramp is actually such a useful tip. I've used rounded nails simply because I always shaped my nails one by one.. when shaping the ramp I would always spend forever shaping my nails to get the angle right, but this becomes obsolete when shaping them all at once. Definitely trying this out
I’m a rounder. Everything you say is valuable. I play steel string with a pick and have many types of picks. My favorite ones tend to be those made for jazz which have a slightly rounded tip. The pointed more flexible ones give a brighter sound which is great for folk songs and strumming. Alas. We can’t change our nails as readily. Otherwise, I might try the ramp but it would take me another three to six months if I preferred the rounded. One caveat about nails is that I find them inconvenient for a 12 string steel and have to modify my angle to use flesh only. Work in progress. Thanks.
Fucking bunch of dorks
What?! You’ve gone to the dark side ????
Although I’m not particularly experienced in playing classical guitar, I find my use of nails to be most prominent in playing electric bass. Particularly with more abrasive styles of music (Punk, Metal, etc) they tend to benefit from the more aggressive sonic character of nails compared to flesh. The rounded shape nail works fine as my fingers are more or less perpendicular to the strings. I’m kinda surprised at that slanted nail but I can see how it works with how your fingers are positioned near the strings as well.
Brillant ! Thank you 🙂
You made a video on how no nails made a great sound and made a big deal of it telling us how some of the greatest guitar players/ composers used the no-nail method. Why nails now??? It wasn't such a great idea after all?
Look almost exactly like mine, apart from thumb as I didn't keep on top of the length and caught it on my chest playing a snooker shot, snapped it good.
Brandon Nailing It.
But, alas, there are many ways to attack a poor, defenseless widdle string….
I’ve been playing for 50 years. Nightmare nails (guess I chose the wrong instrument but I’m hooked). They’re bent, hooked and curved and all are different. The only solution for me is to keep them really short, barely beyond the flesh. But it’s import then to use a lubricant so the flesh slides across the strings and doesn’t catch. Short nails also ensure a nail/flesh initial contact which is so important for a good tone. But I have always had problems with the angle of attack of the "a" finger. It wasn’t ramping cleanly , more of a scrape. Then I realised what had gradually been happening. I was changing the angle of my thumb (often due to thumb nail problems). If the thumb is at say 50 degrees to the strings, the back of the right hand moves away from the strings on the pinky side radically changing the angle of all fingers and therefore the way their ramps interact with the strings, especially "a". If the thumb is at a more normal 25-30 degrees the ami fingers becomes nearer 90 degrees. In this flatter position the nail problem with "a" disappears. So it could be argued that the thumb nail determines the ramp angle on the other nails and should be settled on first. Just a thought. Love the stuff you put out there Brandon. So calm. Even the background music (so often a major irritant elsewhere) is soothing. Good ol’ Chopin.
I find that washing and drying my hands (and thus nails) right after filing helps show your new nail shape and softens the nails slightly so it's easier to make the careful adjustments with fine sandpaper/a nail file. Great vid as always!
Brandon, what do you use to make nails stronger? Thank you.
Feels a bit like peeping through a hole here. I mean, we regular pluckers all know you pros are all obsessed about nails and files, but there also seems to be an odd taboo shrouding the topic. Googling details seemed hard to me when I tried once. Now that hidden guitarist knowledge, like it happens regularly, finds me through your channel.
I work with my hands. It's very difficult for me to keep from breaking nails. What do you do when you break a nail? Do you ever use fake nails?
WOW all i can say is, i've been needing this for a long time. This is by far the best. Thank you thank you!!!!!!!
I thought i was the only one doing this lmao
Thanks for sharing how to shape your right hand thumb (P) and fingernails (i m a ) to a 45 degree slanted shape when you decided to play classical guitar fingerstyle using your nails as a pick to get a better brighter plucked string sounds. I do normally file my fingernails to an "oval shape" using a file and sand paper to smoothen the rounded nails. The reason as a guitar fingerstyle player (playing without using guitar pick) I do a lot of percussive strumming with the tips of my fingernails and sometime switching to fingerstyle picking patterns (P i m a) when playing guitar chord melody pieces. I guessed playing with some fingernail tips still sounds better than playing with the fleshy part of our fingers and it all depends on which styles of guitar playing techniques you choose to play. I have seen some schools of classical guitar emphasizing playing without nails and the playing techniques is much harder pressing down the strings to get the right sounds. Anyway, thanks for sharing an interesting topic of playing with fingernails how to shape your nails correctly for the purpose of classical guitar playing techniques.
This has me intrigued.
I play the harp, and keep my nails very short. The reason being that while plucking with my nails gave a sharper sound, I would actually lose that length very quickly as my nails would catch on the strings infrequently. I might start playing around with nail shape to see if I can reduce the chance of nail catching
I like mine somewhere between ramp and rounded. You don't have to go 0-1 binary in this case in my experience. My nails tend to hook slighty tho so I hav to keep them around 1,5 mm max. This way I can get to play picado and rasgueados without bigger issues.
I cant Really decide how i want my nails, sometimes it feels better to shorten them and sometime its more comfortable having longer nails….is there any solid answer about the nails?