I hear it from friends and professionals all the time: You should cut your nails to play piano. You need to cut your nails to play guitar. You need to cut your nails as a musician!
I completely understand the sentiment behind this. In the case of piano, long nails can cause that annoying clickety clack sound on the keys. For guitar, you can’t reach the strings properly. I most definitely do not dispute this.
I even cut my nails once just because I was feeling extremely motivated when learning guitar. I’ll say it wasn’t a horrible experience.
The point of this post is to express that despite it not being a bad experience, I still consistently choose not to cut my nails as a musician. Here are a few reasons why:
Why I Don’t Cut my Nails as a Musician
My nails elongate my fingers.
Okay, so this is purely a cosmetic reason. I think long nails make my fingers look longer and more elegant. In other words, I like how they look.
They look better painted.
This one is another cosmetic reason. I do like painting my nails. Although I could totally do this with shorter nails, I think it’s much more fun on longer nails. In other words, again, I like how they look.
They’re useful for when I’m itching.
Without nails I can’t scratch properly. My body itches a lot, and if I cut my nails for piano, then it would make it much more difficult for me to scratch.
This is especially true in the summer. Mosquitos love me.
I like the clickety-clack sound of my nails when I’m typing on a computer.
I work in an office setting, which means that I’m typing pretty much the entire time. There’s something about the clickety-clack of a computer keyboard specifically, that makes it sound more professional and satisfying.
Basically, long nails make the clickety-clacks louder.
I use my nails to open things.
This is probably the most useful reason that I choose to keep my nails long. I open soda cans with my index fingernail, and peel off tape specifically with my thumb fingernails. These are just a couple examples.
I’ve found that when my nails are short, it takes extra effort to open packages and containers. I may even need to ask someone else to do it, when I could be totally capable of doing it myself.
Conclusion
So, you can see I have a bunch of reasons why I don’t cut my nails as a keyboard player. You may argue that these are absolutely horrible reasons for keeping my nails long as a musician, but nevertheless, have no regrets.
Do you secretly keep your nails long as a musician? If so, why?
Want to check out another post? Here’s one about with my thoughts about taking piano lessons again as an adult.