French Manicure & Piano...

[dinulip]

One of my new pupils, a 12-year old girl, seems to be quite keen to learn.  However, she refuses to give up on the idea of having long and pretty finger nails...  Actually, three months ago when she started studying with me, they were not so long -- although not as short as I would have liked.  I told her and her mom at least a couple of times that piano and long finger nails don't really go along well...  But the message never really got through.  I was willing to live with the situation, at least for a while, until last week when she showed up with finger nails that looked like this :

https://www.inspa.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/somethingpolishedblogspot.jpg

I was a little shocked, to say the least  .  However, as she is a very shy and anxious child, I decided to make no comment and give myself a little time to think about what to do next. 

If anyone of you has been in this situation before, please let me know how you handled it!

[birba]

For a 12-year old girl, that seems quite the norm to me.  Even when i was that age, i remember my piano teacher complaining about some of her female students not wanting to clip their nails.  I think she gave them some easy dances by albeniz or some other spanish composer so they would sound like they were playing with castanets!

[iansinclair]

The first time she gets one of those lovely fingernails caught between a sharp and a natural and tears it... she will either give up piano or fingernails!

[slobone]

After your description, I was expecting much longer nails than the ones shown in the picture. Not ideal, but I've certainly let my nails grow nearly that long & still been able to play.

[chopin2015]

have you told her that most commercial nail polish gets tested on animals? How about the bloody hangnail story?