This question gets asked quite often by my students and I thought I would address it here. Shaping the nail to play the ʻukulele can amount to a bit of trial and error. Hereʻs a few suggestions to set you on your way. First off, let me say that I particularly have odd shaped fingers. On my fingering hand, I have to deal with my middle and ring fingers on which the nails grow upward. For those who are considering acrylic, please be forewarned that the reason for my nails wanting to grow in a different direction is because I used to use acrylic and it has since forced the odd growing pattern. The reason? I wanted my nails thicker so I used a lot of acrylic to give them a thicker sound. So, on to the good stuff…

Why shape your nails? Your nails can drastically change the tone of the instrument. If you think of your nails like a built in pick, you will understand why I say to shape them the way I do.

All you would need to purchase for this is a 4 to 6 way buffer. Emory boards will heat up when used and you normally canʻt get that smooth finish as you would with a buffer. The one i use is made by Revlon called the Shape ‘N’ Buff. You can find these at most drug stores. Obviously you would use these buffers from coarsest grain to the least coarse to get the smoothest possible finish. Always hold the buffer underneath the nail and not head on. Try to create an angle of about 45 degrees when filing and remember you can overdo it, so use your best discretion.

The shape of the nail itself should allow for the nail to run down the string so that you can utilize as much energy of the nail as possible. This would mean that you would need to create a ramp on the left side of the nail (if youʻre right handed, and all ʻukulele players should be.) The left edge of the nail should be pretty much flush with the skin and the ramp should not be too steep. In other words, although itʻs a matter of preference, the longer the nail, the less control you will have over your picking, also the length will affect the tone also. Remember that you will probably want to feel the string as youʻre picking it.

I hope this helps you in your quest for the perfect tone on the ʻukulele, and by all means, if you feel I’ve left anything out, feel free to comment.

Technorati Tags: ukulele, fingernail, shape, shaping, nail file, revlon, Dr. Trey, music, hawaii

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Ukulele. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.