Do I need long fingernails to do fingerstyle/finger picking? I've avoided learning this technique because I play piano and need to keep my nails short. This is why I'm on CGO, where flatpicking is the norm.
I don’t keep my nails long at all and do just fine.
You would certainly get a cleaner sound with a longer finger nail, I tend to keep my pinkie on my picking hand longer than the rest.
@wjssavhotmail-co-uk Thanks John. I'm kind of new to this guitar game so I'm not familiar with a lot of the accessories that guitarists use. I've seen thumb picks, but it wasn't until yesterday when I saw a video of Townes Van Zandt playing Poncho and Lefty in a YouTube video surrounded by a bunch of his friends. He jokes that he's going to play a medley of his greatest hit. Singular. Anyways, he's picking his guitar strings with metal picks on each and every one of his strumming hand fingers, along with a thumb pick. I hadn't seen these types of finger picks before so now I'll have to mosey on down to my local guitar store a acquire me a bunch of those metal picks and I won't have any more excuses for not learning to finger pick.
@jambongris Using finger picks is not as easy as it looks Michael.
@wjssavhotmail-co-uk Thanks for the tip John. I won't acquire finger picks at this point in time then. I imagine what you're saying is these picking accessories are for people who have a lot of prior experience with figerpicking/fingerstyle playing au natural.
I'm trying to get into picking... without the nails, if I have to wait for them, I'll start in 2043...
@thib You probably get a cleaner (as John pointed out), more articulate sound from nail picking as opposed to a softer, warmer tone from no nails. I envy you having to wait years to grow out your nails because I need to be constantly clipping my overly zealous growing fingernails.
@jambongris I cut them with my teeth too often (nervosity?) 😀 😀
@thib Well that explains it. I can think of much worse habits to overcome nervousness. Smoking and drinking to name a couple.
