Joaquín Panadés has a particularly wonderful new video out. He’s playing Llobet’s famous transcription of Granados’s La Maja de Goya. Without nails, of course. And on a Torres guitar once owned by Llobet:
I made a video on the various ways one can alternate between flesh and nail. Not only is this very possible, but it has in fact been practised among guitarists for over two centuries!
Finally, I was recently in Lleida (Spain), visiting the Emilio Pujol archive — an immense treasure of letters, notes, scores, photographs etc. Much of this will find its way into the thesis, when I finally come to write it. They also had Pujol’s desk, which probably interests very few, but for me this sort of thing is ridiculously thrilling! It make this history seem so much more tangible and vivid.
Fortuitously, Carles Trepat was also in Lleida at the same time, and so I met up with Carles and his wife, Carmen Jimenez, who is a wonderful guitarist and banduirra player; she also plays without nails. It was enormous privilege to finally meet both in person. I have admired Carles for so long; it’s no exaggeration to say he is one of my favourite musicians alive. His story — that is, his return to no-nail playing in recent years — will also, I hope, be a part of the thesis.
No-Nail Guitar 
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