Fingernails

I am a member of a few ukulele groups on Facebook. I find them useful as an aide to communication within those groups. You can't beat going to clubs and speaking with other ukulele players but social media is not a bad addition to communication. One of those groups is called Ukulel-itis and there is a question of the day, you've guessed it, on a daily basis.

Occasionally I will make a comment  and this is my comment from yesterday when a question was asked about fingernails...

I have played classical guitar for years and now I generally use a pick with the ukulele if I am bashing out tunes to save my nails. I was initially taught that the nails should be regularly filed to keep them smooth (and they should be, and the best and cheapest way is to use the finest sandpaper which really gets into both sides of the nail) and have a flat end because I should be playing parallel to the strings. Then I was taught that the nails should have a round end like the living part of the nail because finger position changes in relation to the string - and this is how I have kept them for years. If they are too long then the sound becomes tinny and, as Paul Green says, the nail is more likely to break, so I keep index, middle and anular to 2 or 3mms and the thumb maybe a ml or two more. I save my nails for when I need to use them on the ukulele so I avoid a thrash, and this also means no housework and no manual labour of any kind 

It is a public group so you can take a look at all the comments - and you can join the group too!

Aloha