Ok...i love my violin

Whne i first took lessons i was always told to have short nails :-(

But i fgave up (i was mad - dont hate me)

so i reently decided as an aspiring music teacher, that i was gonna take it up again, but since stopping, my fingernails are long(ish) like 1cm, and i like them,

but is this in anyway affecting my playing? and can i keep them long, or do they simply have to go?

xx

How can it possibly work with long LH finger nails?

Sorry, that's not particularly helpful, but it sounds physically impossible if they're a centimetre long.

Afraid I have to concur with Sarah here. There's just no way you can get anywhere near the needed hand/finger posture and pressure needed to play properly with nails. My teacher often has people think she bites hers, they're so short and, yes, I keep mine trimmed low as well, (although not as low as hers).

Sorry we can't make the response any more like what you'd like to hear, but it's nails OR playing strings.

Short tidy nails can look very nice Trim them - it doesn't have to be into non-existance, it'll look fine i'm sure
I couldn't grow my nails if i tried... can't stop biting them, and when i do stop biting them, they just break. So i don't have that problem

I used to bite them and managed to stop

my thumb nails are 1cm , the rest are about 2mm... im rubbish with lengthss. :s


x

Nails that aren't short are going to leave half-moon dents in your fingerboard.....

Is that something you want your future pupils to see?

haha most likely not...looks like its long fingernails RIP for me *crying inside*

x

if i let my nails grow too much, i find i can still play, but i start flattening my fingers on the strings, which isn't a very good technique - and it's also impossible to play double stops like that, because your finger is leaning so far over, you can't stop one string without touching the adjacent string with your finger.

You can keep your left thumbnail long and you can keep the first, second and third fingernails long on the right hand, but yes you'd look a bit strange...

Come on, well kept short and nicely varnished nails can look just as good enough better than scary-looking talons - it's a small price to pay for a lifetime of lovely music-making, surely?

I am always having this problem with my piano students - sometimes it feels as though its yet one more thing to be nagging them about. And the nails grow so quickly..

I mentioned this in a (hopefully) light hearted way to a new adult student - who was quite delighted. She's been a life long nail biter who had only recently managed to grow her nails, and was extremely proud of them. But she said she couldn't wait to tell her friends and family what I'd said.

So - do any string teachers have a useful solution for persuading their students to keep the nails short?

Yes! I keep a pair of scary-looking nail-clippers in my violin case and get them out in a mock threatening-looking way if I see too-long nails. They scream and promise to have them shorter by the following week, or they cut them themselves there and then. I give them a biscuit or a chocolate to cheer them up and all is well.

A combination of looking after horses, general work and playing strings for more than two decades means my nails have always been kept short. Long nails with dirt stuck under them not only looks horrid, it is also a really inviting place for bacteria to harbour and get into your food. (Long nail girlys beware!)

To be honest, if I was going off to some posh do, or an event where a set of nails on my fingers might look more appropriate than the short stumps I've got, I'd contact a friend of mine whose sister does beauty treatments, including the application of false nails. She uses good quality ones that if looked after and removed carefully, you can have them re-applied again at a later date. In my mind far easier and for me I simply could not cope day to day with clicky-clacky tappy nails

try biting them.
its addictive and comforting.

Oh no - i can't - thats disgusing

I figure that the long nail thing has about run its course, so if you move to shorter nails now, you'll be in the vanguard!

It's become trendy to diss the french manicure, but I think it was originally meant for shorter nails. If you use a chalk pencil (the sewing ones for marking fabric are fine) under the nails or at least a cream rather than a white color, and a warm beige rather than "spam pink" transparent polish, it does look understated but well groomed.

Nothing to stop you decorating short nails anyway, your stick-on figurines, your decals, your rhinestones and what have you may be a menace at the piano, but the worst that can happen on violin is that they simply fall off...

Have fun dreaming up a new look!

I'm glad it's not just me who finds longer finger nails affect playing! I could never really grow my nails until I started violin but now they seem to grow super quick and I have to file them all the time. I have been away over new year and haven't played for about 10 days and really noticed how hard it is to play with longer nails. Plus, it feels and sounds awful when you catch a string!


Spark