VIDEO: A History of Playing Guitar Without Nails
I made a short video on the history of no-nail guitar. It’s a sort of teaser for the thesis. There is much that I hope will be surprising and interesting — it’s replete with recordings, data and obscure history.
Giuliani, Abbreviated Trousers and Phonographs
First, some sad news. Sandro Volta died last month. He was a fine guitarist and lutenist, who played without nails, and recorded many albums. We emailed back-and-forth a year back — he was interesting and generous. I particularly remember amicably disagreeing about whether Giuliani used nails (Sandro thought he did…
News from No-Nails & A Letter from America
Extra points to whoever gets the references in the title of this newsletter. I was trying to think of some puns, and I’m afraid this is the best I could do. Unlike the protagonist of William Morris’s novel, we have not awoken into a guitar-utopia where none use fingernails or…
Interview on Emilio Pujol
Ian Watt invited me on his podcast to discuss the life of Emilio Pujol, who was, among many other things, the most important advocate for no-nail playing in the twentieth century. Many interesting points were discussed; Ian is always a wonderful interlocutor:
News Roundup
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…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Leave a Reply