Guitar Nails: How Long?

One of the Worship Guitar Class students recently asked how to get a clear sound when holding down guitar chords. I decided to make a video for everyone about guitar nails and what's a good length for guitar fingernails. If your guitar nails are too long, it's near impossible to get a clear clean chord.

On the hand that holds down chords, your fingernails should be very short. Only the pads of your fingers should be touching the strings. You want to come directly down on the strings so no other string is damped.

The guitar nails of the hand plucking the strings are best, in my opinion, when they are quite short. Watch the short video below for closeup shots of my favorite lengths for guitar nails. You can hear the difference when tapping your fingers on an object, like the music stand in the video. You should not hear the  nail sound on the hand that holds down strings.

Big Screen Video Of The Guitar Nails

To see a super large picture, you can click the expand button on the bottom right corner and this video about guitar nails will fill the screen. It's located between the 'HD' and 'vimeo' at the bottom of the video. I hope this video will help those of you who may be having problems getting a clean sound. Let me know if this was helpful.

(For learning worship songs, try our Worship Guitar Class video lessons.)