Cut your fingernails into picks?

Harry Klippton

Harry Klippton

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If you're into hybrid picking or finger picking, do you cut your fingernails into picks, use finger picks, get acrylics, or something else? What's your strategy?

I've been cutting my nails on my middle and ring fingers into pick shapes for the last couple years. I find it more convenient than needing a pair of finger picks, and the nails are less annoying on those two fingers
 
Started maybe a year ago, trimming my pickin’ hand middle finger nail into a pick shape. I like it, though Im not a fan of the more constant upkeep required.
 
I do use these on index and middle finger and they totally work for me:
https://fredkellypicks.com/product/delrin-freedom-finger
and a thumbpick on thumb.
I do modify the tip a bit with a nail file to have the right shape for me and I dig them. My finger nails are too weak for my quite punchy picking style especially on acoustic, so these are the best I have found for my way of doing things. After years of using a standard pick on electric I finally switched to using these on electric as well and it works great for what I'm doing (mostly classic Blues and Rock styles, a bit of soul and jazzy influences).
 
cooder said:
I do use these on index and middle finger and they totally work for me:
https://fredkellypicks.com/product/delrin-freedom-finger
and a thumbpick on thumb.
I do modify the tip a bit with a nail file to have the right shape for me and I dig them. My finger nails are too weak for my quite punchy picking style especially on acoustic, so these are the best I have found for my way of doing things. After years of using a standard pick on electric I finally switched to using these on electric as well and it works great for what I'm doing (mostly classic Blues and Rock styles, a bit of soul and jazzy influences).
Click to expand...
Those look interesting and I might wanna try em
 
Harry Klippton said:
If you're into hybrid picking or finger picking, do you cut your fingernails into picks, use finger picks, get acrylics, or something else? What's your strategy?

I've been cutting my nails on my middle and ring fingers into pick shapes for the last couple years. I find it more convenient than needing a pair of finger picks, and the nails are less annoying on those two fingers
Click to expand...
I used to play a lot more acoustic. mostly fingerstyle Celtic stuff. I went through a phase of trying to strengthen/shape the nails of my picking hand and man it was a lot of work. I tried, synthetics, I tried the little super glue nail stiffeners. Finally gave up on it all and settled on just the callouses on my picking hand. I use a thumb pick playing acoustic and learned to dial back the attack and volume so it gels with the rest of my fingers. It was super liberating after many years of just saying "F... it" and clipping my nails like a normal person. :)

 
I used to play classical guitar so I had to keep my nails long and manicured and I still do that for hybrid picking on the electric. Not really pick shaped, just round shape but most importantly they have to be the right length to allow both nail and flesh attack.
 
MichaelW said:
I used to play a lot more acoustic. mostly fingerstyle Celtic stuff. I went through a phase of trying to strengthen/shape the nails of my picking hand and man it was a lot of work. I tried, synthetics, I tried the little super glue nail stiffeners. Finally gave up on it all and settled on just the callouses on my picking hand. I use a thumb pick playing acoustic and learned to dial back the attack and volume so it gels with the rest of my fingers. It was super liberating after many years of just saying "F... it" and clipping my nails like a normal person. :)

Click to expand...
Lovely playing! Your fingers and thumb pick sound really balanced
 
Harry Klippton said:
Lovely playing! Your fingers and thumb pick sound really balanced
Click to expand...
It takes a bit of practice to moderate the attack of the thumb pick, also the material of the thumbpick matters. I like the John Pearse celluloid thumb picks, they're my go to for acoustic fingerstyle stuff. Also kinda depends on how much I'm playing, if I have any callouses. I have a tendency to not touch any of my guitars for a year or more at a time. Then I pick one up and wonder why I sound like crap....:)
 
MichaelW said:
It takes a bit of practice to moderate the attack of the thumb pick, also the material of the thumbpick matters. I like the John Pearse celluloid thumb picks, they're my go to for acoustic fingerstyle stuff. Also kinda depends on how much I'm playing, if I have any callouses. I have a tendency to not touch any of my guitars for a year or more at a time. Then I pick one up and wonder why I sound like crap....:)
Click to expand...
I've tried thumbpicks in the past, they just don't work for me, they dig into my cuticle and I can't stand the feel
 
Barry said:
I've tried thumbpicks in the past, they just don't work for me, they dig into my cuticle and I can't stand the feel
Click to expand...
Yah, not for everybody. For me I've never been able to use fingerpicks of any style. I tried the metals ones and my playing sounds like "shhhhhhh-ting.......shhhhhh-ting", it was horrible. I remember reading an interview with Livingston Taylor and how he made the move to fingerpicks because his more famous brother, James, used to spend so much time and effort keeping his nails in perfect condition for playing guitar. I'm just not that motivated......heh.
 
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I just use the pads of my fingers, but I don't get much volume this way, especially on acoustic. It's just fine when I'm the only audience which is most of the time.

I've tried to use fingerpicks, but not often enough to become good with them, so they usually trip me up.
 
I started out on classical guitar so it actually took me a while to be able to use a pick. These days I use a pick and middle and ring finger. I play a bit of Scotty Moore style rockabilly picking which is so much fun. It means keeping your nails in shape which for me is not pick shape but the shape of your finger. And it is a fair bit of work. And just when your nails are perfect something happens to break one.

Earlier this year I had an accident where some timber fell onto my left big toe and I wound up losing the nail - it kinda hurt at the time! The new nail is still only just less than halfway grown. But I have the old nail (haha! gross, I know!) and it's not quite big enough to be anything other than a jazz pick.
 
Really I'm just a hack trying to learn to play like some of my current favorite players, who happened to use finger picks. I just don't want to have to find extra picks when I get 5 minutes to practice
 
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I remember reading about Leo Kottke, the fabulous fingerstyle acoustic guitarist. He used to use finger pinger picks but the exaggerated movements he had to make to play with them led to him getting serious hand problems and pain. So he relearnt how to play using just fingernails and the problems went away. Having tried fingerpicks I can see why.
 
I used to use the back of my pointer nail as a pick for strumming (coming from bass to guitar it just felt more natural plus it had the attack but I could smooth it with the pad easy enough) and then more recently I've realized that the nail has stopped growing as fast in the area I primarily used and it now is softer and more stranded. So hot tip... Do this for years with each finger and you won't have to clip the things eventually.
 
GizzWizzKing said:
I used to use the back of my pointer nail as a pick for strumming (coming from bass to guitar it just felt more natural plus it had the attack but I could smooth it with the pad easy enough) and then more recently I've realized that the nail has stopped growing as fast in the area I primarily used and it now is softer and more stranded. So hot tip... Do this for years with each finger and you won't have to clip the things eventually.
Click to expand...
My classical guitar teacher told me that almond oil is supposed to strengthen your nails. I don’t know if it’s true, I was never able to test it and my nails have always been relatively hard. But it may be worth a shot?
 
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