Hey there fellow guitar people. For years I've been telling my students that they have to cut
their nails if they wanna play guitar. But then I thought, is that really true?
Sure, I get a little uncomfortable if my nails get a little long and they hit the fretboard
of my guitar but that does that mean you can't play guitar? I decided to put it to the test.
You're gonna like this. Let's do this.
Now just to be clear were talking the left hand. The right hand is a whole another issue
and maybe a subject for another video. I trim my nails on the left hand regularly and I keep
them pretty short but I have seen artists who seemed to have very long nails and play guitar
but I am still skeptical. I've decided to test it out. Take a trip with me to the local 99
cents store where I'm gonna pick up a set of fake nails. We're gonna see how well this really works.
Okay, we're ready. We've got Design Nails pretty fancy for playing guitar but this
is an experiment and so let's go with it. Okay, let's see how easy these are to put on. Let’s see,
okay. We've got a little bag and Oh my GOD too fancy and were going to stick this on one at a
time. Okay, let's see what we got. Okay so take the tab off here and let's put it on the nail.
Other way around. Yeah! Easier said than done. Okay so I've got the sticky thing in there..
that didn't work. Let's try it another way around. Put on the nails first
and then pull the paper off. Hmm that's so easy. Maybe rub the nails to put on nails.
Okay , we did it. I got long nails. Can you see those? Some pretty fancy nails. You know,
I don't see how you can do a lot with these nails. I guess I could scratch it
but other than that. Anyway, I'm sure you get used to it if you are wearing nails all
the time but that's not something I normally do. So let's see how this works on the guitar.
So we’re gonna try and make the G chord. Nope, not a chance. You know what? I can make a G base note.
The nail just fell off. But I can’t really press down and hit the other fingers. Okay,
these are pretty long. I’ve gotta go ahead and trim up a bit and see
if I can cut them down a little bit if they’re gonna work.
Okay I got my trusted nail cutters. Okay, we've got what I'll call medium nails. Can you see that?
Quite a bit shorter than I started out. Let's see how they work with the guitar..
Okay so we're gonna try that G chord again. Try the basic G chord.
Okay, I can do the sixth string.
With the medium nails, I can do the fifth string and I can't ...
okay, I made a G chord. Hard but I can do it.
Okay, so I will say let's try an A chord. I can do an A chord. Almost do a D. I can't quite
...and let's try the C chord.
I can't get the fifth string but I can't get the angle of the first finger. Okay.
So it seems that I could play guitar with nails for about this long. You see that? Now
I think you'd call this short for fake nails but maybe a medium for regular nails but it
was difficult and more difficult than I wanted to be. Now I have realized that a few years to using
fake nails or long nails that you might be better at tip moving around and doing things with the
nails cause you are used to it. I'm not and let's face it. Learning to play guitar is not easy even
with short nails. It takes practice, patience and doing the same thing over and over to just right
so I don't know. It seems like not that you can’t play with nails but it might be a good choice
to short them at least for a period of time to start getting a hand in guitar and see how long
your nails can grow again if that's something you really like.
Thanks for joining me. I'm Tomas Michaud from Real Guitar Success.
I look forward to seeing you again hopefully very soon. Bye for now.