Cool climate affects technique?

[satch_master]

Seeing that its get into winter over here, well it already is, the weather is getting really cold. Nothing like snow, but cold enough to intefere with my shredding.

I can play riffs, chords ok, but when i start on the satch or YJM my fngers can't be frozen.

Before i play guitar on a cold day, i gotta get the blood pumping in my hands and the most effective way is by putting them in a bucket of warm/hot water for a few minutes(i got the idea from satch!). with a little bit of warming up before i play it allows me to play normally, otherwise id be atleast 30% slower and less able to shred and play fast.

Sometimes, i wear gloves when im playing with the finger tips cut off, but it gets in the way of my playing and is mainly just a fashion thing i suppose more than anything. You can get away with gloves on your picking hand, but dont even try it on your fretting hand!






Do you guys experience the same problems with cold weather on your hands and guitar playing?

It might sound basic, but really do try it and i have even recommended it to people. It doesnt do wonders or make you faster guitarist, it just gets the blood pumping in your fingers and allows you to play at your optimum performace, especially on a cold day. It saves me playing mindless scale runs over and over to warm up each time before i play 2. :D

[Bande]

I also experience this on cold days.

Now its the middle of summer here, so the weather is always hot, but I can remember the same things when there was winter here.

I did almost the same things: I let hot water on my hands from the tap and it really helped! Then I strectched and massaged my hands and everything was OK then!

The only problem came up when we wanted to sit out with our acoustics on the street with my friend (we usually grab our guitars, sit out on a bench and start playing songs). This is really intimate, but it works only in the summer! We tried everything: we started to exhale some warmth on our hands, put them under our coats for a few minutes, rub them, but nothing really worked, because we were out in the srteets in -15 degrees! We couldn't even CHANGE CHORDS!!!

I remember there was a concert of the band of my friend's father a few years ago. It was winter, and the concert was held in a big tent. And then, something went wrong with the heating and it got really cold even inside the tent. The concert had to be cancelled, because the guitarists couldn't play anything!

So, cold weather suxx

[Caffeinated Cat]

I used to have the same problem. For a couple of years I lived with my grandparents, in a really old farmhouse with steam radiators that didn't work. This is in Minnesota, the weather is about like Moscow (well, that's perhaps a slight exaggeration :D ). It was so cold I could never get warmed up.



I did the same thing with putting my hands in a bucket of hot water, but first I'd put on a pair of rubber gloves like people wear for washing dishes. The heat gets through just fine, but they keep your hands dry.

[gersdal]

The shredd master of all shredd masters, YJM, was not exactly born in a well tempered place. Don't seem to effect his playing :D

I haven't experienced problems with winter-playing, exept if my fingers are frozen stiff. I'm not a exactly a shredder, though.

[Bande]

My fingers are sometimes LITERALLY frozen, and if I try clench my fist and then stretch my fingers out again as fast as I can, sometimes I think i am watching a slow motion picture!!! VERY strange feeling, i can say! And If I am just not able to BEND my fingers, how could I be able to fret a note??

[mattblack850]

Being a Cold-blooded reptile, I obviously don't find the Winters a problem!!!!:D :D

[satch_master]

Bande - minus 15 degress! godam, no wonder you couldnt play guitar!
Over here its just like maybe 10C on the cold days and im inside my house!
i guess im just a whinger about the cold. we never get snow here, its not that bloody cold. heheh.

[gersdal]

I'm lucky if I have more than 10°C in the summer... I guess that's why we are cold-blooded :D

[Bande]

Cooooool.

Satch: -15°C in winter here in Hungary (The cold record here was broken 2yrs ago with -23°C)

AND: 35°C in summer!!!!

[gersdal]

Stavanger is a bit like ... ehh Hawaii. More or less the same temperature the whole year, except 20 degrees less than Hawaii :D
Funny, though, here we are discussing problems with cold climate, and in most of the threads at the moment it seems like we are experiencing the effect of hot climate.

[ashc]

The thing about the Nordic countries is that you have proper heating in your houses. Much of the more temperate world (in particular the UK) has an approach that says if your not shivering when you are wearing three layers of clothers there is no need to turn the heating up!

[gersdal]

The thing about the Nordic countries is that you have proper heating in your houses. Much of the more temperate world (in particular the UK) has an approach that says if your not shivering when you are wearing three layers of clothers there is no need to turn the heating up!
:D And since we're mostly playing inside, we in the Nordic countries are better off ... Maybe that explains the YJM paradox I mentioned earlier :D

[oRg]

Damn, I know how most of you feel. I live in Michigan (it's the place in the U.S. shaped like a glove and it's almost surrounded by lakes) and two years ago I went up north to this place in the Upper Pennisula (there's two parts to Michigan the Lower Peninsula which is shaped like a glove and the Upper Pennisula) called Marquette for deer hunting and it was about -10 degrees Fahrenheit which is about -24 degrees Celsius I believe, and the problem with us is we gets LOADS of snow, I wouldn't say as much as Canada but we get our fair share. The snow drifts were literally taller that I was. Not to mention the wind chill factor even made it colder and it was in the woods. Now from my experience its always colder in the woods than what meteorologists say it is. A friend of mine actually got frost bite with his clothes on...lol.

I'm not complaining though becuz I know it gets colder in Canada, the Scandinavian countries, and places with high altitudes.

About the cold guitar practice. I find its actually better. In the winter though if I were to play outside I don't think I'd soak my hands in warm/hot water. I'd practice with cold hands, for one when you warm up your hands and you touch the cold steel of your guitar strings...well I find that's more distracting than anything else. I say play until your fingers go numb and then play some more...lol. By then your fingers are so numb that you won't be able to feel the cold.

[Bande]

Oh of course oRg.

Believe me, we tried EVERYTHING when we were trying to play the simplest chord progression out in the minus 15. Then when nothing worked we just started to play (Knocking on heaven's door at half speed!!!! - we weren't capable of more) but then my fingers started hurting, because they were frozen so I had to use great strength to only MOVE my finger - almost so much srength when you try to break a beer bottle by squeezing it! So because I used so much strength they started hurting so I had to put the guitar back to the case...

[MattW]

I've been led to believe that putting your hands in hot water before hand isn't ideal, although it does increase the blood flow to the surface it actually reduces it deeper down, so your hands feel warm afterwards but get cold quicker due to the majority of the heat being at the surface. Putting your hands in cold water has the opposite effect, it increases the blood flow to the core but reduces it at the surface, this makes your hands feel cold but they warm up quicker afterwards. I find that putting my hands in the coldest water I can stand for a minute followed by the hottest water I can stand gives the best result, it seems to provide a longer lasting warmth rather than the more short term benifit of just using hot water. Try it and see, it may or may not work for you though.:)

*edit* Buy some (more than one pair!) of fingerless gloves to wear when playing outside!:D

[satch_master]

I've been led to believe that putting your hands in hot water before hand isn't ideal, although it does increase the blood flow to the surface it actually reduces it deeper down, so your hands feel warm afterwards but get cold quicker due to the majority of the heat being at the surface. Putting your hands in cold water has the opposite effect, it increases the blood flow to the core but reduces it at the surface, this makes your hands feel cold but they warm up quicker afterwards. I find that putting my hands in the coldest water I can stand for a minute followed by the hottest water I can stand gives the best result, it seems to provide a longer lasting warmth rather than the more short term benifit of just using hot water. Try it and see, it may or may not work for you though.:)

*edit* Buy some (more than one pair!) of fingerless gloves to wear when playing outside!:D


HMMM, interesting, i might try that next time. and yes, i have a pair of fingerless gloves ;) .

I hope the moderators don't get the ****s for this thread becoming off topic.

and yeah it never snows in Australia, infact the climate is getting warmer due to global warming and all that other environmental crap. but i still have a low tolerance to the cold. Cold weather brings coughing to runny noses, to ill health..i really dont think i could survive in the negative celcius snow covered environments, unless i had like 10 leather jackets on and some vodka to warm me up. hehehe.

[Len H]

Oh yes, cold weather is a problem for me too. If I try to "get up to speed" too quickly with cold hands everything goes downhill, so I try to take my time warming up. My left hand actually warms up quicker than the right hand for some reason, I guess picking doesn't create the same amount of bloodflow as fretting. Also, if I become nervous or tense my hands get cold and "clammy", so if I am playing in a cold room and trying too hard to impress somebody, it makes for some less than spectacular playing. So I have been focusing on relaxing while playing, it makes a big difference.

[allabouto]

I saw Bela Fleck play outside in Texas. It was freezing. It was so cold people didn't show. I don't know how he did it. He never lost any speed. I had gloves on and my hands were kind of cold. I think he did have some gloves on without fingers.

[satch_master]

never heard of Bela fleck. Im guessing hes some jazz guy? but the man sounds like he has guts to play in that cold!

[allabouto]

Check him out. He plays a mean banjo.
To add to his post. High humidity negatively affects playing too. I was sitting outside playing and could barely get my fingers up the fretboard things were so wet.