GUITAR TIP: How to play classical guitar without nails

hey everyone so this has been a really interesting week uh because for the first time in like 14 years of playing classical guitar i am playing without nails and for me this is a radical change um basically what happened was i was finding my nails shorter and shorter and discovering that by mixing a bit of nail and a bit of flesh into my sound on each pluck i could get this warmer tone and i kind of realized as i was filing at some point that when i was plucking i was getting this nice warm sound but actually i wasn't even touching the nail anymore so that's no nail playing uh and so anyway i've been spending a week it's only been about a week messing around with no nail playing and figuring out how it works and what are the advantages and disadvantages so today i thought it'd be really fun to share with you how i think no nail playing sort of works from what i can tell so far as well as a bit of the history of no nail playing on classical guitar and at the end i'm even going to try to do a bit of a comparison when i play some pieces with nails and some pieces without and we can we can hear the difference so while it's true that today most classical guitarists sense segovia and maybe even partially due to segovia's influence play the classical guitar with nails this wasn't always the case before segovia and maybe you could say before world war ii um when gut strings were the standard string we know of a long history of guitar playing where some guitarists played with nails and some guitarists didn't even into the 19th century when you get the sixth single string guitar some players like sore karkaze targa famously didn't play with nails in fact soar even has this really interesting quote he says never in my life have i heard a guitarist whose playing was supportable if he played with the nails their performance is to mine what the harpsichord was in comparison to a piano forte and in karkaze's method book he says something similar to obtain a full and mellow tone apply some force at the top of the fingers but avoid touching the strings with the nails except for special effects but of course at the same time you have guitarists like aguado who prefer the nails although it's worth pointing out that apparently later in life sore actually convinced aguado to cut off his thumbnail so he played just with the flesh and the thumb and apparently he even says that if he was to go back and do it all again he'd play with flesh all right now before we start playing i just want to read you one more quote to get us started by emilio pejol who actually was a student of targas who at the end of his life started playing without nails and so did therefore so did pujol he says that since the fingernail is hard and varied in its surface thickness and consistency it imparts to the string a penetrating brilliance quick and rather metallic without nails however the string is struck by a smooth subtle and sensitive object both thicker and wider than the nail and which gives a sound of greater softness fullness and purity and i have to say that after a week of playing without nails that quote summed up my experience perfectly so let's finally play and let's see what we're talking about here on my thumb i still have a normal nail and that's because when i play with flesh i actually play uh lower on the thumb and the nail doesn't get in the way so i can have both so this is actually the perfect way to demonstrate i think let's hear some nail playing on the first string [Music] so the string starts in the pocket which is the space in between the flesh and the nail the little v shaped pocket down there but it's definitely making contact with the nail when i'm touching the string and then when i release the string the the string takes a ride on the on the ramp of the nail you could say and i think pujol is right i mean it has a penetrating brilliance to it and i really think that's the sound that i've come to love about the classical guitar okay now let's hear the flesh of the thumb [Music] a much more dark mellow tone but still resonant and it's so resonant because i'm making a point of pushing the string down to the top of the guitar towards the top if i was to just pluck the string horizontally like i do kind of by nail it's a very thin sound so i think with flesh you have to sort of push the string down more but if you do you get a very resonant beautiful tone and i think what i figured out is that that's exactly what you have to do with all the fingers is you grab on the flesh first and then you push the string down towards the top of the guitar and let go and then wow a beautiful resonant warm [Music] [Music] tone for me it also really helps to touch the string on the flesh push down and let the the tip joint collapse um if you do that and then release letting the finger follow towards the palm follow through towards the palm kind of like sore says a pluck is just closing your hand one finger at a time right [Music] so i took all those principles of pushing the string down and grabbing on the flesh not the nail and i applied them to some guitar repertoire and it sounded like this [Music] it's a super warm intimate sound which i really am growing to love and then i made a really interesting discovery i realized when i was teaching a guitar lesson that i could still play on my nails because my nails actually grow really close to the tip so even though it looks like i don't really have any nail i can still play with it if i want to so if i angle correctly that's nailed of course the thumbnail is easy because i still have a long thumbnail but with the fingers if i just careful about making contact with the nails no problem it's a little bit tricky for me obviously with a slightly longer nail i think i don't have to work as hard so maybe this isn't my best nail tone but i can do both which then led me to think let's make a video where i show you a and b flesh and nail let's see how it sounds and to do this test i'm going to use this really lovely guitar by sayrs guitars this is a torres copy flame maple back inside spruce top tourist guitars are what targa played and so i thought this would be appropriate to use currently i have it strong in nile gut but i have just ordered some gut strings so stay tuned for another video about that so speaking of targa let's try a little bit of lagrama with nail and then on the repeat without [Music] [Music] do [Music] so it's definitely darker and more mellow with flesh i think i'm really noticing in the base especially i mean that's nail and then [Music] the flesh so there's just more high partials you could say high overtones with the nail let's try a piece by fernando soare who is a big proponent of no nail playing [Music] oh i really like it on that one that darker sound seems to really complement that now they call it key of b minor let's try another piece by soar this is the introduction to his variations on a theme by [Music] mozart [Music] [Music] wow that one's really interesting because i know this piece really well i've played it for a long time with nails and there are some aspects that i'm loving about the flesh with it and others which i kind of you know prefer the nails for example one of my favorite effects is playing super super quiet like a choir from a mile away where you play very quiet [Music] but because of the nail it's still very clear [Music] with flesh it's a little bit less focused but really resonant so i like the resonance but i don't like the lack of focus i think but okay there's one more piece i want to try i'm a little afraid of this one people are always commenting on my tremolo videos can i do this without nails and um well let's find out [Music] okay so it's possible i find it a bit difficult um i think i actually might need even less snail than i have now to really pull that one off so i already have a lot of takeaways here from this experiment the first one is i'm definitely not experienced enough with no nail playing um i think there are things that i'm slowly realizing about this technique which i need a lot of hours put in to really develop this technique to its full potential and always have a full tone for example the one thing that i think is the hardest for me so far is remembering to always push the string down manually because i think with nails especially with a ramp shape nail which i usually have when i have long nails i think what's happening is that the nail really does a lot of the work pushing the string down towards the top of the instrument which is what gives you a lot of resonance but when you take the nail off if you don't push the string down you don't get the resonance so you have to make up for it by actively pushing it down with the weight of the the arm so that's some homework for me but in short i'll say that in terms of the pros and the cons here the pros of playing with flesh to me as i can tell so far are that the tone is so resonant and warm and rewarding that i i just love the sound i think the tone is absolutely beautiful then i'm really loving the fact that i can make contact with the string on a bigger surface on a soft surface where i can really feel and caress the string i feel like i'm more in touch with making the sound whereas when i play with nail i thought i was feeling that but it's definitely compared to the flesh less or so so i definitely feel more in contact with the string another big pro is of course i don't have to worry about breaking a nail this was a serious daily fear of mine is breaking a nail right before a concert that's it's no fun uh so no nail maintenance uh no files no sandpaper any nothing like that and then i have to say that something i'm missing about playing with nails um is sort of the ease of playing right um i know i'm new to the no nail thing and i have some time to put in here but it seems to me that when you play fast things like uh quick arpeggios or tremolo that something about playing with nail allows you to move faster and still get that resonant sound whereas i find myself a bit uh sluggish with no nail playing and the last thing i was thinking about with playing without nails is that you know in terms of the full spectrum of timbre that's possible on a guitar from super dark sounds to super bright sounds um when you play with nails i think you get access to those very very bright super high overtones but with flesh you kind of max out you know even if you play on the bridge with [Music] flesh it doesn't sound that bright i mean listen to nails it's super super brassy you know of course it's taste of when you want to use that color but the fact that it's hard to make that color without using the nail maybe is a disadvantage but then again maybe that's what soar and karkaze are talking about in terms of special effects they say they can use nails by curling the finger more and imitating an oboe i believe it is uh and i mean i can do it right now play with flesh and then with nail so maybe that's the special effect that soar is talking about okay that is it for today but stay tuned because when my gut strings arrive i'm going to throw those on and we're going to try no nail playing with gut strings with some music by soar for example and we'll we'll see how that how that sounds if you're interested in going deeper with the whole no-nail classical guitar thing i strongly suggest you check out rob mckillip on youtube i'll throw a link in the description to his channel he's got some fantastic videos which really helped me understand to a greater extent this technique and he's got such a good channel playing all things that go pluck so check that out and i hope you found this [Music] useful you

Channel: Brandon Acker

Views: 270,116

Keywords: nails, guitar nails, fingerpicking, fingerstyle, no nail, guitar lesson, brandon acker, rob scallon, segovia, john williams, julian bream, classical guitar, tutorial, bream, carcassi, fernando sor, tarrega, pujol, lagrima, mozart, etude in b minor, guitar etude, jared dines, history, guitar, electric guitar, rick beato, adam neely, andrew huang, ukulele, nail shape, guitar tango, fado, relaxing, asmr

Id: GjNFvtRU4Jc

Length: 17min 45sec (1065 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Garcia109]

I think both have merits, what he doesn’t take into account is how modern guitarists work for clear projection to large halls and nails are definitely the answer for that. He also brings up the increased speed and agility that comes with nails, again Something modern concert guitarists are looking for. All in all no nails can sound great playing for a small intimate audience or even mic’d for a recording but nails are the way of modern performers

[u/grackle1997]

I’d consider it if I had a louder guitar.

[u/Bamboozaler_]

Everything he describes about flesh is correct. But the sound doesn't project at all. That's why everyone says the sound is more intimate. Because the sound isn't getting pushed out at all, it's staying close to you. So if you have no need to play for others and want to simply record the warm mellow tone, it might be to your liking. But in nearly every other case, with ramped nails the sound is strong, resonant, and clear.

If you play with no nails out in a large hall and compared it to nails you would hear quite a difference.

[u/Sneezyowl]

It depends on string compliance, or what I call implied tension. The stiffer the string the more you can do with the clauses on your finger tips. Going back and forth from classical to steel string destroyed my nails so I often had no choice but to figure out how to make it work. Luckily I also played bass and developed clauses on my right hand which gave me more tonal control.

[u/Dave-1066]

I’ve always found the process of checking my nails and filing them a complete chore. I stopped doing it months ago and I wish I’d stopped sooner. Thanks for uploading this; just demonstrates how things guitarists accept as “gospel” turn out to be just a fad.

[u/luisbdaraujo]

I've had long fingernails since I was 11, but I've been considering trying this out and maybe writing and recording pieces specifically for that "warm" sound. Not like I'll be playing in large halls any time soon, anyway, so it might be fun to try.