So I play a style of guitar known as "Carter scratch," named after Maybelle Carter's picking in the late 1920s and early 1930s on Carter Family records. I play old timey Appalachian ballads mainly, both those that were originally for guitar and I've converted some banjo songs into guitar songs, and I've been told the way I play is very banjo-esque. Basically I pick the melody on the lower strings with my thumb (usually thumbpick), and "scratch" the higher strings to make the chord by flicking my index finger out and kind of scratching it back toward me to get both a down and up rhythm.
I play fairly aggressively, and recently I've started to F my index fingernail up. First the end of the fingernail started pulling away from the fleshy part underneath, so I played less for awhile or used my middle finger (not nearly as easy as index). Then I started back with the index, and now the fingernail has a small tear just behind where it goes from white to pink; it's not all the way through and only hurts when I try to play, but it's a bit worrying to say the least.
Does anyone know of a pick or some way to protect the fingernail that would still allow me to play this way? All other fingerpicks I've seen or tried are made for "one-way" picking, i.e. it would get hung on a string if I tried to do the back and forth scratching (like
these, or
these). I eat quite healthy with quite a bit of calcium, not sure if I can really improve diet-wise. Any ideas??