Quitting My Oldest Habit

I’ve bitten my nails for my entire life, at least since I was 4 or 5. Over the years it caused me numerous problems, though I never thought they were a big deal: my fingers would often be sore from removing too much of the nail, I’m certain I got sick more often than I needed to from sticking my hands in my mouth constantly, and I got a serious infection on one of my fingers. I just never cared, though; trying not to bite my nails was too annoying to bother with. My mom also bites her nails, and we made some attempts to quit by putting on nasty-tasting fingernail polish. What can I say? You get used to the taste. She told me it was poison, but I guess I didn’t believe her 😂.

The year I turned 30, I stopped biting my nails. I’m 33 now, and this fact still amazes me. Sometimes I look at my nails in disbelief and proudly show them to my wife (she’s been pretty patient with my obsession!). The reason I stopped: classical guitar. I started taking lessons when I was 28, and at some point my teacher asked me to grow nails to improve my tone. He didn’t know that I had a nail-biting problem at the time, and what he was asking was actually a pretty big deal to me.

For a few months I tried to not bite my nails so that I could learn to pluck the strings with them. Every time a nail grew out a tiny bit, though, I would absent-mindedly tear it off, or shave it off bit by bit in an attempt to get it perfectly smooth. At this point I got curious about methods of quitting, and, following online advice, I decided to use the obsession to my advantage. I put off growing them long for a while, opting instead to keep them short via more respectable methods.

I took a pair of nail clippers and some cheap nail files to work and kept them on my desk. Anytime I noticed some little nick, imperfection, or temptingly-bitable corner, I would take the file to it. (To my co-workers, I’m sorry if this was disgusting! No one said anything about it, so either you didn’t notice or you were very patient with me.) I continually obsessed over my nails, inspecting them with my eyes and fingertips for any part that could be shaved down, but I mostly stopped putting them in my mouth. I still made mistakes sometimes, but I considered that okay, as long as I was biting them less often over time.

Eventually I felt I could withstand the temptation of having longer nails, and here the obsession continued. Classical guitarists only need 4 nails: the thumb, index, middle and ring fingers of the right hand. The left-hand fingers need very short nails, and the right-hand pinky and left-hand thumb are never used. The advice on how to properly shape guitar nails varies widely, and learning to shape my nails has been one of the most frustrating experiences of my entire life.

Every time you shape your nails incorrectly, they end up acting like little hooks that catch on the guitar strings, making it impossible to play. So then you have to wait 1-2 weeks for them to grow out and give you another try at shaping them, or longer if you need long nails. In addition to playing issues, I also encountered practical issues: shaping my nails following the pictures in guitar method books led to them being weak and brittle. It is very frustrating to grow out your nails and work hard to shape them correctly, only to them have them tear off on a piece of clothing or crack while doing some basic house work.

I figured out at some point that the nail ends need to be polished to a perfectly smooth finish to 1) get the most beautiful tone, 2) prevent the nail from holding onto the string when it is plucked, and 3) prevent increased damage to the nail (e.g. by catching on things or by my obsessively feeling the rough ends). I purchased a nail buffer and obsessively buffed all my nails, including the ones I technically didn’t need to; I allowed myself to continue needlessly obsessing over all of my nails, just to give my desire to bite them an outlet.

Meanwhile, I decided to become a nail expert, and spent hours online reading about what nails are made of, how they grow, their anatomy, how they differ from person to person and over time, and most of all how to care for and shape them. For a while I thought mine were too weak, and I found articles about strengthening them through special glue, acryllic powder, tissue paper and supplements. Because messing up during nail shaping meant waiting 1-2 weeks, I also researched methods of making nails longer: glue-ons, clip-ons, and UV gel. I would regularly repair torn nails using glue and tea bag paper.

After about a year, my obsession died down and I settled on a simple, short, strong nail shape. They’re fairly low maintenance and never break, though I do have to buff them before playing and file them down once a week. I still bite a nail once in a while, but never one that I need for playing. I always regret doing so immediately because it hurts my teeth and fingers and looks raggedy.

Most nail advice out there is pretty bad, so let me save you some time if you’re also trying to grow guitar nails:

I don’t currently need to strengthen or lengthen my nails in any way, but these appear to be the best methods for folks that need to do this:

And how are my guitar skills now? Meh, I’m okay 😄 I still enjoy it as a hobby, and someday I’ll be able to breeze through Andrew York’s Yamour or Thomas Fellow’s Medusa. One can dream 🙂.

Obligatory nail picture:

Beauty shot of my right-hand nails; the thumb is longer on the left side than the right; the index finger has a clear slant to the right; the middle and ring fingers are rounded with no obvious slant.

Keep in mind that if you are shaping your nails for guitar you should NOT just copy the shape you see another guitarist use. The nail shape you use will depend on the natural shape of your nails and on your most comfortable playing position (see the William Kanengiser video above).