Are nails necessary for nylon strings?

[sirwhale]

Are nails necessary for nylon strings?

If so, how long must they be to get decent projection and tone.

I currently play steel string and have nails that are about 1.5-2mm long (the part that isn't stuck to the skin.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by sirwhale

Are nails necessary for nylon strings?

If you want to play with classical guitar technique, yes. Otherwise no. Lots of people use bare fingers, others flat picks, but they are not attempting to play with classical technique.

If so, how long must they be to get decent projection and tone.

If playing classical technique, typically so you can see the tips of the nails is you hold your hand in front of your face, palms facing you, fingers vertical. Personal preference plays a large role, particularly in shaping of the nails.

I currently play steel string and have nails that are about 1.5-2mm long (the part that isn't stuck to the skin.

Too short for classical technique. If they work for you on steel string at that length, they'll work for you on nylon, playing the same way/using the same technique as you use on steel strings.

Classical guitar technique uses fingernails, but there is much more to the technique than just that fingernails are used.

[sirwhale]

Thanks for a great response.

[ceciltguitar]

While using fingernails is the norm for "classical guitarists", it is not "required" or "mandatory" to use nails to play "classical guitar".

There are a whole group of players on the Delcamp forum who play "classical guitar WITHOUT nails. You can check out many discussions on the Delcamp forum about playing without nails if you want to.

[Song]

[riffmeister]

Nails are not 100% necessary to play classical guitar repertoire using "proper" technique. I know, I played without nails for 20 years. I was a nail biter and could not grow proper nails. Then, in my mid 40s, I finally outgrew my nail biting habit. I know, it took me a long time to finally grow up. For the last fifteen years I have been playing with nails and I gotta say, it really is much better.....tone, volume/projection, dynamics, timbral variations.....the whole shooting match. For me, the best nail length is such that when I point my finger down at a table top and then touch the table with both nail and flesh of the finger tip, the finger is about mid way between a 45 and 90 degree angle to the table top (and of course angled toward the palm side of the hand).

[cobalt60]

Well, it's certainly possible to play CG well without nails, but there are zero notable professional / touring players without nails (aside from a couple famous players who couldn't maintain nails very late in their lives).

[Beanctr]

Your nails don't have to be very long. Its common to you your nail and flesh when playing. r

[cogito]

Sor played without nails, and remarked in his Method, "Never in my life have I heard a guitarist whose playing was supportable, if he played with the nails. The nails can produce but very few gradations in the quality of the sound: the piano passages can never be singing, nor the fortes sufficiently full. Their performance is, to mine, what the harpsichord was in comparison to pianoforte - the piano passages were always jingling, and, in the fortes, the noise of the keys predominated over the sound of the wires."

[dosland]

Originally Posted by cogito

Sor played without nails, and remarked in his Method, "Never in my life have I heard a guitarist whose playing was supportable, if he played with the nails. The nails can produce but very few gradations in the quality of the sound: the piano passages can never be singing, nor the fortes sufficiently full. Their performance is, to mine, what the harpsichord was in comparison to pianoforte - the piano passages were always jingling, and, in the fortes, the noise of the keys predominated over the sound of the wires."

I wonder what would have happened to Sor's theory (or his mind!) if he had lived to hear someone like Segovia playing on an instrument made to current concert specifications. Personally, I'd tend to avoid following this particular observation very closely- different idea for a very different time. I wonder if his objection to the sound produced by players with nails is due to a taste of the times, or if it's instead linked to an association with the Flamenco style of play. I don't really know anything about him, so I suppose that's just an idle speculation. But his description does kind of remind me of certain qualities now considered stereotypical of Flamenco guitar.

[Bikewer]

I've always followed the advice I learned many years ago from reading the classical guitar column in Guitar Player magazine.
"A combination of flesh and nail sufficient to produce a clear tone".

As noted, the ideal nail length for this method is not long at all..... My right-hand nails are only slightly longer than my left hand.

I recently watched a guy on YouTube who was playing with very long right-hand nails, and as a result he had to use a very odd hand position with the fingers rather oddly extended....
Looked to me like he was cruising for repetitive-use injury at some point.

[cogito]

Originally Posted by dosland

I wonder what would have happened to Sor's theory (or his mind!) if he had lived to hear someone like Segovia playing on an instrument made to current concert specifications. Personally, I'd tend to avoid following this particular observation very closely- different idea for a very different time. I wonder if his objection to the sound produced by players with nails is due to a taste of the times, or if it's instead linked to an association with the Flamenco style of play. I don't really know anything about him, so I suppose that's just an idle speculation. But his description does kind of remind me of certain qualities now considered stereotypical of Flamenco guitar.

I think it is largely a matter of taste and what we are accustomed to hearing (which is almost exclusively with nails). I've played both ways, and I do think that there are some desirable tonal characteristics that flesh-only playing produces, even if the overall range may be diminished.

As far as your speculation about flamenco, my understanding is that guitars were not used in flamenco until the mid-nineteenth century and that guitars specifically produced for flamenco were not developed until a bit later. Since Sor died in 1839, he would not have been referencing flamenco playing in the above quote.

[dkstott]

I suggest you spend some time on Rbo Mackillop's site dedicated to ALL of the classical players that did not play with nails

https://rmclassicalguitar.com/

[PaulHintz]

I second the suggestion to visit Rob MacKillop's informative and fascinating website. Having played classical guitar off and on for over 20 years, and listened to it played by masters (live and on recordings) for over 40 years, I'd agree only that the Segovia-tradition-nails sound is the "norm" but not at all the only way to go. If Virginia Luque, for example, truly plays no-nails (she's one of the artists profiled on MacKillop's site)--well, IMHO, it can get as good as that with nails etc, but it doesn't get any *better* than that---a phenomenal artist. And MacKillop's website has inspired me to get my classical guitar out again. I play no-nails and am strictly a fingerstyle player (archtop, flat-top, etc). Just my 2cents.

[AfterViewer]

I've got nails and take Biotin to keep them hardened but anything long enough to snag while I am playing is pure evil in the Garden of Celestial Sounds.