Nylon-string guitars produce an intimate, delicate sound that entices listeners with subtle sweetness unmatched by any instrument. If you've been seduced by the sound of nylon strings and are thinking of making the switch from steel strings, here are some tips to help your nylon-string experience live up to your expectations.
(1) You’ll need fingernails
There are a lot of ways to get a strong and pleasing sound from a steel-string guitar. Some players use fingernails, but many get a great sound using their fingers alone (no nails), a flatpick, thumbpick, and/or fingerpicks. Nylon strings, however, take a lot more effort to coax volume and quality sound from. Playing nylon strings with no nails, using just the flesh of the finger, results in a muffled tone with little clarity and volume. If you’re serious about giving nylon strings a try, you’ll need to let your right hand nails grow.
Once you’ve grown out your nails, you’ll need to shape them so that they strike the strings smoothly, and buff them so that they get a clear tone without any gritty or raspy noise. You can find more details about nail shape in this earlier post.
There are some classical guitar schools of thought that insist you can play the instrument without nails. That approach is certainly not for me, but I’d be curious to hear from students or teachers who have experience. Do any teachers or students play nylon string guitars without nails? Why did you make the choice? How have you developed a strong tone?
(2) It takes time to develop your sound
Even when you have grown out your nails and carefully shaped and buffed them, you’ll still have to work to develop your sound. This takes time, patience, and a calm, methodical approach.
Beginning exercises for developing tone are easy to explain and memorize, but you have to be alert and analytical while doing them. The sound we get from the guitar depends on the precise angle at which the finger contacts the string. We usually want this contact point to be where the nail meets the flesh, although we can vary this to get different sounds.
The first step to developing your sound is to learn to get a consistent tone and volume from one finger at a time. Start with, for example, the index finger doing free stroke on string 3. Control the angle of the attack in order to get a consistent tone quality and volume every time. Learn to play 10 consecutive notes that sound exactly the same, of uniform tone and volume. Then concentrate on the middle finger, on the same string, also for 10 times. Then the ring finger.
This exercise works great as a 10-minute warm-up, every single day you practice. Once you can control your tone and volume with one finger at a time (that may take weeks, and that’s fine!), try the following variations to develop your ‘voice’ further.
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Get the same volume and tone using different fingers on the same string (alternating two fingers, then using all three).
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Learn to control your volume on one note at a time. Practice a steady crescendo over 10 notes, followed by a steady decrescendo. First learn to control the volume with one finger at a time, then two fingers, then all three.
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Apply steps one and two to some simple scales. That is, work on consistency of tone and volume as you play a 2-octave scale, for example. Then learn to crescendo steadily as you ascend in pitch, and decrescendo as you descend.
This list could continue on for a while, but it gives you an idea of the patience you’ll need to get the sound you want. I made my sound production my main focus during my second year in music school. Day-to-day progress was difficult to hear, but over the course of a year the improvement in my guitar’s ‘voice’ was pretty dramatic.
(3) You’ll probably need to change your sitting position.
Classical guitar demands more of the left hand than many other styles of guitar. We often have to form complicated chords, and the wider neck obligates our fingers to stretch farther. Most classical guitarists sit with a footstool under their left leg. The arc of the guitar guitar rests on the left leg and the neck is angled upwards, which puts your left arm in the most advantageous position for position shifts and stretches. Many players (myself included) find guitar supports to be more comfortable, but the general position of the guitar is the same. You can find more details on the subject of footstools and supports in this conversation.
Have any students or teachers started on nylon strings and switched to steel strings? What other advice would be helpful to offer? Has anyone had a bad experience with nylon strings, and switched in the opposite direction, from nylon to steel strings? Does anyone regularly play both instruments? Do you find it complicated to switch back and forth?
Hello Leah!
Although I agree with you that in general, most people studying classical guitar or flamenco are going to want nails, I thought I might talk a little about playing without nails.
I perform on regularly on the baroque guitar and theorbo. Having the typical classical guitarist nails would hinder my ability to play on those instruments as the action of the strings is quite low and relatively loose. As a result, I have had to alter my nails to be much short enough that if I lay my hand down on the table, you can see my finger tips above my finger nails. I've had to adjust my playing on the classical guitar, but I actually like my sound better! It is much warmer and I can still get a rich powerful sound.
From my own experience with very short fingernails and from my friend and colleagues in the lute world who play without nails, I can tell you that the main difference is in the point of contact with the strings. Without nails, the strings are slightly more forgiving because you have larger area from which to initiate the stroke. You can begin the stroke slightly further back on the fingertip because you don't have to worry about the sound of nail hitting the string.
If you're curious, take a look at Fernando Sor's method (1832 edition published in English) under the section titled "Quality of Tone." Sor describes some very cool orchestral effects he could get playing without fingernails.
Hi Warner, thanks so much for sharing. That's really interesting. It's been a while since I last had very short nails, I'm curious to try again and experiment a bit more.
Also, I occasionally have classical guitar students for whom growing nails is an issue -- either because their profession doesn't permit nails or because they simply can't grow the (or bite them). It's great to be able to direct them a little better towards your advice and to the Sor method chapter.