How to play guitar with long nails

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Decorated and artificial nails, however, are a different story. Very few players have nails that extend beyond the length of their fingers. Dolly Parton is perhaps the only guitarist in history to regularly play while wearing acrylic nail extensions.

Generally, any nail that is longer than the actual flesh on your finger will be considered a “long nail” for guitar playing. While it’s not impossible to play with these, you may need to make some serious changes to your playing style or only keep long nails on one hand.

To better understand how you can work with long nails spain business leads when playing guitar, let's take a look at the effects of long nails for guitarists.

Effects of long nails
The effects of long nails change as the nails grow and can vary if the nails are acrylic rather than natural. However, some results are fairly consistent across all varieties of long nails.

Playing notes with your fingernails is incredibly difficult – the fingernail simply doesn't have enough surface area or strength to apply the necessary pressure on the string. In fact, pressing a note down on the fretboard with your fingernail can damage your hands and wrist.

This effect applies to both single notes and larger chord structures. The only exception is barre techniques, which use the fleshy underside of the finger to press down multiple strings at once. However, soloing is essentially out of the question if you have long nails on your hand that make you uneasy.