Nails

I know this Covid 19 virus is driving us all a little nuts. I’ve found myself thinking about things I never considered before the beginning of March. Some of these thoughts are leading in productive directions and others range from frivolous to just plain weird.  I can’t say I haven’t thought about today’s topic, but I can say that I never considered writing about it until now. 

            I assume that most of you who read this know me. You will recognize that I’m hardly a fashion maven. If the clothes are comfy, I love them. If they’re not, I don’t. I always have resisted getting dressed up. I know that a lot of people feel special when they get dressed up. I don’t. Along with that goes a general lack of interest in make-up and fingernails. I probably had nail polish put on my fingers once or twice when I was a kid, but I’ve never bought any except to paint over the scratches on our tandem bike. On my most recent “BIG” birthday, I decided to step out of my comfort zone. I rode on the Mountain Coaster in Revelstoke BC and I had a pedicure and got my toenails painted blue. I thought that was pretty adventurous and while, blue toenails amused me, I don’t think I’ll bother doing that again.  Fingernails, however, are a different story.

            For a number of years, I took classical guitar lessons and many classical players grow the nails on the thumb, index, middle, and ring fingers of their right hands. I don’t think I ever talked to my teacher about it.  I just grew four nails. I didn’t quite know what I was trying to accomplish by growing the nails but the big kids in the classical guitar world had nails, so I was going to have nails. The problem was that my nails tended to peel, split and break. When I quit playing classical guitar, I was happy to clip the nails and be done with it.

            Fast forward to the re-entrance of the ukulele in my life. I played ukulele before I learned to play guitar. It was a cheaper instrument but as soon as I could, I ditched the uke and bought a guitar. In 2015 I became interested in the uke again and bought myself one for my birthday. I played chords and then enrolled in an online course that involved some finger picking (plucking the strings with the thumb and three fingers of the right hand rather than using only the thumb or a pick). For me finger picking goes better with nails, so I started to grow the four of them again. They still split and peeled and broke but this time I paid more attention.

            With my increased diet of YouTube these last months I decided one day to look up guitarist’s fingernails. Classical guitar technique can, I’m pretty sure, be transferred to ukulele so why not take a look at what the guitarists do with their nails? I found out all sorts of interesting things. One guy, whose playing I really admire, has a video on how to reshape a nail by using a spoon and a cigarette lighter. No, he’s not snorting or preparing to inject anything. He also warns to use the technique at your own risk. Since I’m not going to be giving concerts anytime soon, I don’t feel the need to experiment with that one. One other guy goes to a salon to have acrylic nails applied. He’s been doing it for long enough that the person he goes to knows exactly what he wants. No muss, no fuss, and no broken nails. If you depend on your nails to leave the string in a particular way, a broken nail has the sonic effect of someone limping.

            I found videos on how to shape ‘the ramp’: that part of the nail that actually drags along the string before letting it go. I didn’t know there was such a thing and seeing the diagrams helped me to understand a bit more of what I wanted to do with my nails and why it works. I find it more than a little ironic that I’ve not only spent hours looking at info on fingernails but that I now have a whole kit to take care of the Fracture-less Four.  I’ve discovered that if I file or sand them a little each day, I can pretty much manage to keep them from breaking. Also, I can feel the nails catch the strings in a way I don’t like if I don’t keep them to a comfortable length and keep the edges smooth. So, most days I spend some time filing and buffing and I’ve accumulated more tools than I thought possible for the job.      

         At first, I used a diamond nail file and that seemed to work well enough. Then I came across a ceramic file that I could take on airplanes without having it confiscated. I started reading what the uke pros had to say about nail care and some of them used a beam-like contraption that has two rough surfaces for shaping nails and 4 other surfaces of decreasing coarseness to refine and polish the nails. I don’t mind that beam-like implement too much, but I feel like it’s hard to get at the underside where the string actually leaves the nail when you pluck it. I like the thinner files for that.

To complete the kit, I raided the shop for various grits of sandpaper.  I don’t bother with the really coarse stuff. The metal files and the coarse side of the beam take care of that. I start with 220 grit to remove any nicks; then I go to either the ceramic file or 320 grit paper. To take the burrs off the underside I use the polishing surfaces on the beam (I should really call it the Buff Pro because that’s what it says on it.) Or, I can use 400, 600, and 1200 grit sandpaper folded over one of the metal files. There are a number of permutations and combinations. To clean out any dust from under the nails I lightly scrape the underside with the point of the ceramic file. I don’t like the feel of dust trapped under my nails. So, with the ramps carefully shaped and the under-edges of the nails nice and smooth I’m ready to pick up the ukulele.

            You might be wondering how babying fingernails exists along with working in a wood shop. There have been nail casualties in the shop but luckily, I’m right-handed so, most of the time, I have the sharp, pointy tools held in my right hand. If fingernails are going to get hit with sharp, pointy objects it’s usually left-hand ones that get it. I have sanded down a fingernail or two on the belt sander, but the left-hand nails need to be short anyway so as not to get in the way when pressing down strings on the fretboard. If a right fingernail gets sanded I either cut the rest and begin shaping again when they grow out, or I limp along with uneven nails for a while until the short guy catches up. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter because Richard and Odie are about the only ones who have to listen to me play anyway.

            I’m anticipating another question ‘Why don’t you grow the nail on the pinky finger the same length as the others on the right hand?’ I don’t know if real guitarists do that or not. Maybe I should look that up too. I don’t do it because I find it fussy enough to pay attention to four fingernails. I don’t want to take on another one I can clip and forget.

            There now, if you’ve come this far, good for you. You can say, along with me, that Covid 19 have caused you to think about things that never would have crossed your mind two months ago. Productive? Frivolous? Weird? Your call.