Nail Discussion!

Subject: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From:
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 12:05 PM

Hi Folks. I decided to open this thread after a discussion I had with my wife this weekend.I´m a guitar player for more than 30 years,and have been a fingerpicker for over 26 years.As my nails started to break easily, I had problems in keep on playing so I went to a manicure and put acrilic nails and used a silicon substance in my right hand,which I use ´till today(in the last 5 years).It never bothered me and, sometimes a few patients(I´m a doctor) ask me about my nails, but nothing really important.Then my wife told me she was worried ´cause she heard that some "friends" of her had thought that I was gay for having longer nails in one of my hands.I´m heterosexual and don´t have anything against gays, but for god´s sake, how people can be stupid and have prejudice without even knowing what´s going on.
Shall we ,fingerpickers , be treated like freaks??
Something to think about!

Joe

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: jacqui.c
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 12:29 PM

Depends on how much you care about what other people think.

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: Peace
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 12:30 PM

Hey Joe,

Your political finger (located midway between the thumb and the pinky) likely has the longest nail. Show that nail to these people. Idiots is much too kind a term.

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: Charmion
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 12:33 PM

Sans fakes, I have the same hand configuration -- longish nails on the right hand, clipped short on the left plus heavy calluses on the left fingertips and the edge of the right thumb. I started playing the guitar at about the age of 15, and I'm 50 now. In all that time, the only people who have ever commented on the state of my hands were my husband ("Doesn't that hurt?") and other players of stringed instruments ("Nice calluses!") But then, I'm an editor, a trade with very little hands-on contact with clients.

Rather than worry about what people think of your sex life, try promoting your musical interests. Decorate your waiting area and examining rooms with pictures of guitars and guitarists -- I'll bet your staff and patients would rather look at Segovia, John Renbourne or Eric Clapton than drug company posters any day. Keep a guitar in your office, perhaps hanging tastefully on the wall where it's handy for 15 minutes of Fernando Sor after your snatched sandwich between patients and follow-up phone calls. Then, when people look squiggle-eyed at your falsies, just cock your thumb at ol' Segovia or play a bar or two of air guitar -- and 'nuff said.

Another thing: Anybody who would make a remark like that to your wife has said a hell of a lot more about him/herself than about you! But you knew that.

Best wishes and keep a-pickin'!

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 12:39 PM

I would love a doctor's office like that!

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: Charmion
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 12:39 PM

Sorry -- I just re-read the original post and noted that your patients sometimes ask questions, but it's other people -- "friends" of your wife's -- who raised the troubling speculation.

If your patients who notice have the sense to ask, and the nails don't bother the people you care about, follow brucie's advice with respect to use of your "political" finger.

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: PoppaGator
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 01:02 PM

I long ago gave up trying to maintain my weak thin little nails and took up fingerpicks. They were awkward at first, of course, but after forty years they have become second nature to me.

I can play bare-fingered, of course, and often leave the picks off for an hour or two of quiet practice, late at night at home. But I have a lot more dynamic range wearing my picks ~ they not only enable me to player louder when I want to, they also help me play with greater delicacy when that's the desired effect, and I'm simply able to get more different sounds out of my steel-string acoustic guitar with them than without.

I'm very reluctant to perform (or even to jam) without my picks, and I have been known to carry my picks even when I don't have my guitar with me, whenever there's a chance I might be borrowing someone else's instrument to play a song or two. They've got to be my fingerpicks, custom-fitted to my gnarly fingertips over the years, to be of any use to me at all.

I've been thinking about this topic all weekend, after observing a performer who gets terrific "barehanded" sound out of several different stringed intruments. Of course, this is a guy who has fingernails like horses' hooves; they may be the product of artificial enhancements like silicon or acrylics, but I have a hunch he's "all-natural." Not all of us are so fortunately endowed!

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: open mike
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 01:12 PM

yes, you are a freak!
but it is a good thng!
I have heard that the
enamel or glue from
acrylic nails actually
suffocates your nails
or causes some sort of
damage. A player i heard
recently mentioned a sort
of oil he puts on his finger
nails...each night and they
were wonderful, strong and
natural I will find out what
it is and post it here..He
was a true believer in this
and had tried the artificial
nail thing but preferred this.
the performer was todd green
and i have e-nailed--ha i like
that typo---i mean e-mailed him.

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: JedMarum
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 01:52 PM

I've been using acrylic nails on 3 fingers of my right hand for 5 years now. I love 'em My nails underneath are strong and healthy, and it's been easy enough to maintain 'em (I go to the nail shop every 3 or 4 weeks). I have no idea what people think when they see 'em - but I don;t usually let 'em grow too long.

They've become important to the way I play.

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: jonm
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 02:53 AM

I teach, engineers and construction workers. They are always on the look-out for something to take the rise out of, but are fortunately too quick on the draw to look closely.

In other words, they spot the long nails on my left hand and ask the question (usually just "why have you got long nails?" but occasionally "are you a transvestite, then?") and I show them the other hand and ask what the hell they are talking about!

If I spot people noticing who might be too polite to ask, a little "air Segovia" usually lets them know why. Other musicians tend to twig fastest - some even work out I'm left handed - and I've had a couple of music-related discussions or jam sessions grow out of that, one even at a job interview!

People's perceptions say more about themselves than about you, and pointing that out is far more effective than the middle finger, I have found.

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: open mike
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 03:23 AM

here is the reply i got:

Hi Laurel,


This is Todd's wife Sarolta. I got him started on a
product called ONYMYRRHE 12 years ago on the tip of my
then beautician and it's worked great for him. The
bottle says: "A natural derivative of the myrrh plant.
This product fortifies and strenghtens natural nails
and is also recommended for ex-artificial nail users."
It is distributed by Tetra Pharmaceutical, Inc.,
Woodbridge, VA 22195. Todd gets it through a beauty
supply store.


Good Luck,
Sarolta

here is another product..
i ahve not tried any of these..just passing along th info.

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: GUEST, Hamish
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 03:39 AM

I confess. I went to a new club a few weeks ago. There was a chap there with red nail varnish. It struck me as odd.*

It also struck all the other regular club members who knew him well as odd: it was the first time he'd tried nail strengthening and used his wife's only nail varnish. I rather got the impression he won't be doing it again. Not with the red, anyway.

*I didn't say anything, mind.

p.s. I also have long nails on right hand, short on left. My missus hates it, so if I'm in a long between gigs period, I clip 'em short on both hands.

Subject: RE: NAIL DISCUSSION!
From: GUEST,joseacsilva
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 09:46 AM

Thanks for the replies folks.In fact I already have miniatures of guitars,bongo in my office, Charmion, as pictures of my family and shows that I´ve done.I have a project in our local medical association in which we promote shows of doctors or their relatives that have some artistic ability(painting,poetry,dance or music), opening for the comunity, besides shows that I do sometimes with my friends.I agree with you ,guys , that the people that have this kind of prejudice show more of themselves, and this is terribly ugly.But I think that music compensates it all.I don´t give a damn about what other people might think about me, ´cause I´m not doin´anything wrong , and don´t owe anything to ´em. People can be really mean and false and sometimes we just don´t realize.
I´ll keep on picking anyway...
cheers

Joe

Subject: RE: Nail Discussion!
From: Mudlark
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 10:47 PM

Oh, to find a doc who would humanize his/her office to the extent of keeping their instrument there. Especially guitars, but all stringed instruments, actually, have a very calming effect on me. No white-coat syndrome, I suspect, in a room graced with a guitar.

Subject: RE: Nail Discussion!
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 11:07 PM

I'm proud of my nails... When I walk into the nail joint, people there are always asking me where I'm gonna be playin'....

Fakes work... Who cares?... Ahhhhh, me.... Means no nasty little steel things on my fingers...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Nail Discussion!
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 08:36 AM

Me too. Bobert's right, who cares?
S:0)