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Ramzi... Please tell me you don't have hair on your fingertips bro. I've heard there are certain hand exercises that can lead to that if overused That must be how you get your silky tone
Personally I shape my thumbnail about 6-7 mm longer on the right side, angled down to almost nil on the playing edge. The rest of your nails look pretty similar to mine.
Andy: I knew you were going to pull my leg on that. It's just fuzz from the crappy quality PJs I'm wearing. I guess I got such a close-up that things that were NOT supposed to show, did.
Hand exercises, eh? Care to demonstrate with a video?
Yeah, as I was thinking they are rounded or "contoured", and short, so you are getting a thinner sound then you would if you let the edges grow out and file flat across from underneath, so at that angle of filing you would see a straight line edge. Basically you need to see more white material on the edges to achieve this. You can ramp at an angle if you need to, dependings on your angle of attack. When you do this you will have much less resitance in your playing. It won't make you faster necessarily, but you will have a crisper, fatter tone when doing both picado and arps tremolo etc.
I mainly refer here to your index, middle and ring fingers.
Frankly, I DID try to do what you said (and elaborated on in the thread whose link you posted), but I found nail shaping became more time-consuming, and a hassle. Plus, I found that my nails were catching onto the strings. I changed back to my current rounded shape, but I'm guessing I was a bit impatient and didn't work on the ramping issue long enough to get it to work properly.
I'll give it another shot and see how that goes. You definitely have more experience than I do on the matter...
PS: Do you file your nails DAILY, sort of fine-tuning them as you go along? Do you find they differ or need minor adjustments day-in, day-out?
I just file them once a week ( basically on Sundays ).
PS: Do you file your nails DAILY, sort of fine-tuning them as you go along? Do you find they differ or need minor adjustments day-in, day-out?
Yes. In fact if I play a lot I may need to file more then once a day. It really makes a difference though. Like you, I used to only file once a week or so when I had round nail shape. I could hear it in your picado that you had the same shape I used to have, and I think it was what JG was hearing too. After I filed flat I notice almost immediate changes of tone and feel. Takes about 2 weeks to get it right in terms of length. The only draw backs are that you have to keep on top of your filing everyday, and you have to be careful of your hand position more then before. But the benefits for me out weigh those minor difficulties.
The playing is very nice and I was surprised that the rasgueados and alzapua come through fine without distortion. So the sound quality is definitely more than adequate for my needs, it is quite good, and the video is excellent, so I will be getting one. Thanks for the clips.
The playing is very nice and I was surprised that the rasgueados and alzapua come through fine without distortion. So the sound quality is definitely more than adequate for my needs, it is quite good, and the video is excellent, so I will be getting one. Thanks for the clips.
I dont mean to be a downer, but the majority of people who have this camera have distortion/clipping issues with the built in mic, including myself.
Romb is the first person ive seen that is getting clear sound out of the Logitech 9000.
I second what Ricardo's saying in terms of shape and care.
"Straight" nail does allow me to play faster with better control and variations on the tone. But in my personal experience, I found it difficult to file them straight when I used to have shorter nails - like yours. They would catch and be weak around the edges.
Now I have them a bit longer - about 1.5mm from the tips of the fingers - I find that straight edges work well.
I do file them EVERYDAY. I just carry little bits of sandpaper and sometimes Micromesh - they're gift from Nail God - and just rub on nails when I'm bored, at office, when I'm having dinner with my wife, sitting on a dunny etc.
Once a week is not enough!!!
By the way great playing - your alzapua is good stuff! Now I must practice it too...
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