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Taking Care of your Hands
Can anyone give me some advice on how they take care of their finger tips. On the picking hand, how long do you let your nails grow and what do you do to care for them for best picking performance. On the fret hand, I have calloused finger tips which I used to think was good until Tony started teaching all these pull offs. Now the strings catch in my callouses and my pull off sound more like twangs. Thank you for any advice,
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5 Replies
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Moisture softens the callouses on my fretting hand, so I’m careful to let them dry before I play. If they become rough and catch the strings, I sometimes use fine sandpaper to smooth them a little.
I can’t seem to keep nails on my picking hand; there are just so many hazards encountered in a day that I seems to break them often. I try to keep them shaped with a coarse file, followed by a finer one. Sometimes I can use my nails when I play, but I tend to play music that does not require a classical touch and I rely more on the meat of my fingertip. I’ve tried a lot of fingerpicks, but I haven’t found any that gave me the tone I want and didn’t bother my playing. I’m giving the Pro-Pick F-tone picks a try now.
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Thanks William, that’s good advice. I got a little too enthusiastic last week and tried to smooth out my callouses all in one shot. Not a good idea as my fingers were too sensitive to play. I’m going try slowing it down with the fine sandpaper as you have suggested.
<font face=”inherit”>As for nails, I’m hoping as winter ends that my nails will become less brittle with less </font>tendency<font face=”inherit”> to crack and break. Like you, my nails are an issue. Fortunately I love to flat pick so functioning nails are a luxury rather than a </font>necessity<font face=”inherit”>.</font>
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Picking hand nails are a constant challenge. Easy to bust in real life. I file mine really carefully with a “pick” just beyond the meat of the fingers. I’ve heard that eating jell-o helps harden the nails. Also use a black mountain thumb pick for many but not all of my finger style playing.
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There was a great discussion on this in the past. I had an issue with my calluses drying out and pealing off (guess I heal well) and it was like starting all over every 2-3 weeks. Plus my nails are very thin and brittle and would not grow out.
I learned that I do have to moisturize, and I also have to file any rough callus edges. I saw a video where some guy talked about using Baby Oil (basically mineral oil). So I used that for a while and it helped. But the best advice was from another TACer who recommended a product called Hard As Hoof. It moisturizes without softening my calluses, and it helps harden the nails on my picking hand. It doesn’t smell too “girly” and might be worth a try.
@Derrick also had good advice on filing nails to use for picking.
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Thanks Michelle and Mark. Great advice – but Hard As Hoof takes the cake. I’m keeping that one LOL. Apparently after a life time of taking my hands for granted I’m discovering that if you take better care of them, they will take better care of you.
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