Playing nylon string without nails

[guitpl4evr]

Originally Posted by NateFreezy

Hi all,

I'm interested in playing nylon string guitar, which would likely be a mix of acoustic fingerstyle and classical pieces, but less so in growing/ maintaining/ learning to play with nails.

Do many people play nylon just with flesh? Although it can be done my understanding is it's fairly rare with classical at least, but am curious about the experiences of people here...

Cheers!

Because my nails have a bad habbit of shortening, and I am not the elite of players, I have always liked the sound of flesh on the strings. Besides, I do it for fun.

Cheers!

[LadyPicker]

I also had problems maintaining my right hand nails for playing on nylon. I finally came up with a solution using a thumb-pick and in combination with using the fleshy parts of my fingers. I do get control over the tone of the guitar. In someways it does sound better than if I was using just nails for playing. I do find however that I use the thumb-pick more for picking out the individual notes and the other fingers for the back strums and the subtle notes.

Unless your a neo-classical player, there is no right or wrong way to play.

[mtnman]

Originally Posted by DeathEvil

I could not grow nails because I'm doing a lot of 8 hand tapping and need my nails very short...

So that's the secret to mastery, I guess I need some gene therapy to grow a couple more hands...

[Pedro Navaja]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

...Except the ladies. They always notice...

If you are old school military and male, especially Army of Marines, you will notice whether another man has long/dirty nails and if his shoes are polished.

My nails are relatively short. I use a nail hardener because even with short nails, they will chip when doing rasgueos if I do not have a hardener on them. I am also taking Biotin (a vitamin) that has really shown a marked improvement in my nail strength.