I was wandering in the cosmetics section of Kinney Drugs looking, if not lost, at least perplexed. The young woman (maybe in her early thirties, half my age) stocking some shelves nearby smiled brightly and asked if she could help me find something. To help explain what I was looking for, and why, I held up my right thumb.
I have written diaries here about how about three years ago I started playing guitar again after not touching a string for nearly 35 years. I play mostly acoustic guitar, sometimes finger-picking with my thumb and three fingers, mostly chicken-picking using only thumb and index finger. Even when I strum I use the nail of my right thumb as a pick.
A nail I had broken off right at the quick on Wednesday, while wrestling my largest drain snake, just used to help get a friend’s plumbing working again, back into its storage ring. There wasn’t enough nail left to pluck the strings.
I have flat and thumb picks, and use them on rare occasion; but my preferred tools for picking are the nails of my thumb and index finger. I use them nightly for at least an hour of practice, quite often two. Those nails are important to me.
Brief anecdote: last summer I was helping my friend Dan work on some something, probably machinery. A wrench slipped or a bolt broke. I let out a yelp and yanked my hand back, blood already starting to flow. Are you all right? Dan asked. I examined the back of my hand, blood coming from a torn flap of skin. Then I saw my index finger, and wailed, Fuck no! I broke a nail!
Generally I can shape what’s left into something usable. Not this time. That evening, my wife hearing me grumbling about the damn thumb pick yet again, asked: Could you use something like a fake nail until your real nail grows back?
This was so simple and obvious that it never occurred to me. So yesterday morning I hit the internet to learn something about the mysterious world of fake fingernails. It was an education, of sorts. I found out that there was at least one company making fake nails specifically for guitarists. I watched part of a video of James Taylor—one serious finger-picker—showing how he makes his own homebrew replacement nails. Another picker talked about--and demonstrated--using cheap acrylic nail kits to keep himself properly clawed for playing. Come to find out a lot of players wear their nails out faster than they can grow back. Fake nails are a thing.
So that’s how I ended up at Kinney Drugs that afternoon, bemusedly scanning the fake nail section after being led there by the nice lady waiting on the odd old hippie.
Bright colors, glitter, faux jewels, tiger stripes, stars, or hearts were not exactly what I was looking for, but if that was what it took, well, I gave up worrying about looking weird several decades ago. Then I spotted a version of what I saw mentioned in a video: a kit with forty acrylic nail tips, both French and ‘natural', plus nail glue and everything else needed to get a hard, pointy part on my thumb again. All for around eight bucks.
So yesterday evening I set up a nail lab in my office, and more or less following the instructions, prepped my nail bed (better a nail bed than a bed of nails) and glued what looked like the proper ersatz nail in place. I trimmed it to length, filed it smooth.
I worked the shit out of that nail last night, and it held up to the abuse. This morning I could see that it had loosened a bit up by the cuticle. I ended up reapplying it this afternoon, and it will get tested tonight. If it fails I’ll try again. One thing I have to watch out for: we heat with a wood stove, and I have the bad habit of rearranging burning logs with my bare hands, and picking up stray hot coals to toss them back inside. That fake nail can’t take the heat the way a natural one can; I’ve already melted a couple bits off the tip, and I suppose it could possibly catch fire. I’ll also have to be wary of my other bad habit of turning things over in the frying pan with my fingers. Melting the nail is a real possibility. Got to be careful. Fake nails don’t grow on trees.
I’m lucky. My nails grow fast, and are very tough. In a couple weeks the fake won’t be necessary. But I’ll keep the kit on standby for the next emergency.
Maybe every string player and sentient human other than me knows about this. If so, I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse of my natural cluelessness. If not, maybe it will be a holy cow! moment for someone else who only thought of fake nails as a somewhat inexplicable fashion accessory.
I play like a hermit, alone and unheard except by my wife, who has no problem ignoring me. Covid has sidelined a lot of folks. If you’re an old, new, or like me a partially reconstructed string player reading this, and think that maybe a loose group or thread here on DK where tips like this, or raves about new favorite strings, admissions as to what guitar porn you’re drooling over, sources for tabs or chord charts, what pieces you are trying to learn (I’m currently wrestling with the first part of Classical Gas and so far mostly producing Lame Miasma) or have just mastered can be discussed, mention it in the comments and who knows? Maybe a League of the Sore Fingered Few can be started.