my life is over.

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my life is over.

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jrabbani

Posts: 192
Joined: Jun. 28 2006
From: Los Angeles

my life is over.

after 3 years without a break, it finally happened; my thumb nail broke a good 4mm below the tip. it will take months for it to grow back to where it was (i injured it as a child, so the nail growth takes a very long, long time

). i guess this gives me an excuse to study for my test...er. ****.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 17 2007 7:08:18

koella

Posts: 2194
Joined: Sep. 10 2005
From: holland

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

Yes, I know what you feel. You might as well die now.

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sartre: to do is to be
sinatra: do-be-do-be-do

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 17 2007 7:35:46

Guest

[Deleted] (in reply to jrabbani)

[Deleted by Admins]

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 17 2007 7:37:25

duende

Posts: 3053
Joined: Dec. 15 2003
From: Sweden

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

i broke my thumb nail about 2 months ago, its good to re-learn to play with a short nail

....also now you can deal with your picado,arpeggio and tremolo!

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This is hard stuff!
Don't give up...
And don't make it a race.
Enjoy the ray of sunshine that comes with every new step in knowledge.

RON

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 17 2007 12:01:05

veet

Posts: 231
Joined: Nov. 29 2004
From: L.A.

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

One option is to go to a nail shop and have them glue on a tip. I do that (and use acrylics) whenever they smash, which is pretty often, 'cause I do a lot of rough work with my hands.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 17 2007 21:36:04

jrabbani

Posts: 192
Joined: Jun. 28 2006
From: Los Angeles

RE: my life is over. (in reply to veet)

quote:

One option is to go to a nail shop and have them glue on a tip

yea i've done that many times, but all that grinding and shaving off the top nail deters me from going back. it takes a good year for my nail to fully recover all that mess. anyways, as i said, i should be studying to get into grad school,so i guess i dont need any kind of distraction(s) (e.g., guitar or the foro

). back to areas of a circle....

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 17 2007 23:25:57

mrMagenta

Posts: 942
Joined: Oct. 25 2006
From: Sweden

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

if you have the patience you can build a good surrogate nail by gradually gluing on nail-shaped extensions out of silk, saturate using some cyanoacrylate based adhesive (locktite has a few brands). just build on what you have left of the nail. it takes a lot of shaping and filing between layers etc. i've done it a few times when i've completely broken off nails.. my patience has never extended to making it look anything but horrid. but it works for playing. it might come off at the edges after some abuse, but then it's easy to just glue it some more.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 18 2007 2:57:59

TANúñez

Posts: 2559
Joined: Jul. 10 2003
From: TEXAS

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

The good news is that it WILL grow back. In the meantime, like Henrik suggested, you can focus on other techniques.

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Tom Núñez
www.instagram.com/tanunezguitars

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 18 2007 4:32:36

HemeolaMan

Posts: 1514
Joined: Jul. 13 2007
From: Chicago

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

or, you could focus on growing it back. use your mind powers to grow cells faster.......... or buy some of that stuff that makes your nails grow its got that awful mouthful of wierd sounds name..... onymyrrhye which actually will help

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 18 2007 23:17:47

Adam

Posts: 1156
Joined: Dec. 6 2006
From: Hamilton, ON

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

hemeolaman, do you ever make a useful post?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2007 2:44:59

HemeolaMan

Posts: 1514
Joined: Jul. 13 2007
From: Chicago

RE: my life is over. (in reply to Adam)

oh come on! i gave one minutely relevant piece of information in that one! lol

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2007 2:54:50

Taranto

Posts: 213
Joined: Apr. 7 2005

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

I play without nails because it sounds more flamenco, especially thumb with little to no nail produces a click sound, something like percussion.

To make my case stronger I like to add that Manolo Sanlucar, Miguel de la Bastide and probably a few other guitarists play with little to no nail.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2007 9:43:10

gato

Posts: 322
Joined: Jun. 9 2007

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

Nails, nails, nails.....the ongoing saga. My brother who is also a guitarist, nearly cut off a finger using a power tool. I couldn't believe his attitude, and I said to him, 'you've got to do something else for a living'.....But it healed fine and he plays with a fury to this day. You know, it could be a lot worse, and you should consider it a tempory difficulty which you will get over. You know you still 'got your thumb. As for my brother he is still a carpenter and he still uses power tools. I won't go near them and just looking at a circular blade makes me cringe. So much for that. You could read books and study scores for a while, listen to music, you learn a lot that way. What I'm trying to say is you could deal with it and make use of your time, and consider yourself lucky.

Gary

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2007 17:12:24

Ron.M

Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland

RE: my life is over. (in reply to gato)

quote:

cut off a finger using a power tool. I couldn't believe his attitude,

gato,
On first reading, I missed the "nearly" and immediately thought of Monty P and the Holy Grail.... "Nah....it's only a scratch... had worse.."

Seriously though, it makes you think of that old Arab proverb that went something like " I was sad because I had no shoes...until I saw a man with no feet."

However, if someone had to quote me that after I'd just broken a thumbnail right off.....I'd HIT them!!

cheers,

Ron

_____________________________

A good guitar might be a good guitar
But it takes a woman to break your heart

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2007 20:38:33

Ricardo

Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: my life is over. (in reply to Taranto)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Taranto

I play without nails because it sounds more flamenco, especially thumb with little to no nail produces a click sound, something like percussion.

To make my case stronger I like to add that Manolo Sanlucar, Miguel de la Bastide and probably a few other guitarists play with little to no nail.

Are you sure you are not exaggerating? I mean NO nails means you play with only skin. That is a very muddy sound, no flamenco guitarist I know gets that sound. Actually if you hear Chiquitos de Algeciras, there was one piece where Paco has no thumb nail, it is real obvious. Boink boink...It sounds BAD. The rest of the pieces sound nice and bright, so he must have broke it during the session. Tarrega played with NO nails. To do that you must develop thick padded callouses on the tips of the fingers. But there is a big difference between that and SHORT nails. Manolo Sanlucar has a particularily LONG thumb nail. Check some vids on youtube. His other nails are the normal length filed nicely.

Hopefully you mean you play with very short nails, which is just fine IMO. And when accidents happen, pro players have to make do with what they have got until it grows back. I have met guitarists with almost no nails, who on a later occasion had very long nails. It is easy to get used to longer and longer nails if you dont' keep filing them everyday. And guitarists that only accompany cante for example, sometimes get away with only having a thumb nail sticking out.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2007 20:57:42

Georg

Posts: 405
Joined: Feb. 5 2006
From: Germany

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

quote:

Tarrega played with NO nails.

Yes, but only in his later years, as far as I know. Does anybody know why he switched?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2007 21:10:42

Taranto

Posts: 213
Joined: Apr. 7 2005

RE: my life is over. (in reply to Ricardo)

quote:

Manolo Sanlucar has a particularily LONG thumb nail.

Check this video specially at 4:36

Do his nails look particularly long to you? You can clearly see that he is playing with thumb flesh. On the other hand I would call Moraito's nails particularly LONG.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2007 22:04:04

gato

Posts: 322
Joined: Jun. 9 2007

RE: my life is over. (in reply to Ron.M)

Ah well, nobody's hitting me today Ron.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 19 2007 23:43:47

jrabbani

Posts: 192
Joined: Jun. 28 2006
From: Los Angeles

RE: my life is over. (in reply to gato)

quote:

nearly cut off a finger

well as i child, my thumb was smashed beyond recognition and now, well, it looks like the tip was bitten off and was reshaped into an index finger...so i do consider myself lucky

. well thanks for the info guys, i think i'll work on other techniques in the meantime

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 20 2007 2:01:29

Ricardo

Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: my life is over. (in reply to Taranto)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Taranto

quote:

Manolo Sanlucar has a particularily LONG thumb nail.

Check this video specially at 4:36

Do his nails look particularly long to you? You can clearly see that he is playing with thumb flesh. On the other hand I would call Moraito's nails particularly LONG.

Like I said, no his nails are typical length except yes the thumb nail is long. You can see it sticking way out over the tip of his thumb. Playing rest strokes there yeah, the flesh hits FIRST but slides into the edge of the nail. That is the way, and often you can hear the "click" as the string hits the nail. In this piece it is quite noisy with lots of guitars, hard to hear even the bass notes he plays. But nail is used for sure I can see it.

Here check this, notice the close ups of the right hand. And at 6:30 he removes the capo and you can see clear his nail length and shape if you pause it.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 20 2007 8:52:37

Arash

Posts: 4495
Joined: Aug. 9 2006
From: Iran (living in Germany)

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

F...........CK!

Same happened to me few minutes ago

I hate my nails, my thumb, i hate flamencooo

I will play with a pick from now on like Todd

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Nov. 20 2007 16:01:54

Pimientito

Posts: 2481
Joined: Jul. 30 2007
From: Marbella

RE: my life is over. (in reply to Georg)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Georg

quote:

Tarrega played with NO nails.

Yes, but only in his later years, as far as I know. Does anybody know why he switched?

I met a guy who talked about this. Although Tarrega had no nails, he built up over years very hard callouses of skin on the finger tips a bit like corns on your feet. These were plenty hard enough to get a good sound out of the guitar and sound a bit like nails anyway

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Nov. 20 2007 16:32:35

gato

Posts: 322
Joined: Jun. 9 2007

RE: my life is over. (in reply to Pimientito)

Yeah, Pimientito, that's right for sure. I have both callouses and nail. When I break a nail I get by. And my thumb nail has a hard callous on the side. I prefer it that way so I can experiment with different picking techniques. Though I do not prefer to be without nails. I would think that we just have to put up with what we are given, it's basically just survival, I mean, you have a guitar and strings, play it with what you've got and don't worry so much. Over the years you will build the callouses if you play with nail anyway.

How about building callouses on your left hand? I prefer also to have nail to get a good hard press on the strings against the fret board sometimes. What I am saying is that you need both callouses and nail on both hands. I guess the most useless question would be, 'do you need matching thumbnails, or is the right hand thumb nail long and the left short?'

We all know the answer to that one! Don't we?

Gary

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Nov. 20 2007 20:08:49

Adam

Posts: 1156
Joined: Dec. 6 2006
From: Hamilton, ON

RE: my life is over. (in reply to jrabbani)

gato, can you explain how you'd need nail on the left hand? I don't quite understand...i find that if I have even the tiniest bit of nail on my left hand, my nails dig into the fretboard and make it harder to play!!

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Nov. 20 2007 20:18:34

gato

Posts: 322
Joined: Jun. 9 2007

RE: my life is over. (in reply to Adam)

Leverage. My nails don't dig into the fretboard. They are not super long, just long enough to be useful. Sometimes it helps when making, or fingering some chords. Playing on the cuticles can be painful so I protect my fingertips also with the nail when playing on fingertips. It's that sharp angle sometimes that really hurts!

Of course I had to learn to release from the fret board and reseat what ever I am doing to do that in order to moove the hand. I have good callouses with ruts in them and nail. I never feel pain unless I clip the nail way down and go for particular fingerings. Mostly it's leverage and protecting my fingertips.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Nov. 20 2007 20:24:39