The Steel Guitar Forum

I had it again yesterday: Sittin on a open-air stage, a rather boomy monitor sound in the ears, and havin' no chance to warm up on the instrument. A classical cold boot and a rather common situation i guess.
What really bothers me, is a sufficient loss of control of my right hand's precision at that time. The hand's trembling, and the fingers won't find the right grip and are even unable finding the right strings.
On the visual side, even the well known chord grips, you practised over and over and which you can see and feel at the normal home-practice situation remain vague...In other words, i'm loosing my visual anchor points as well.
All the right hand sensivity remains lost for a 4 to 5 tunes. Gradually the feeling of assurance comes back.
I have a daily right hand practicing routine, where a practice rolls and blocking REALLY slowly. My picking feels quite stable at home, but in on-stage situations like that, you feel like a complete picking novice...I hate that.
I know even the pros might know that, but maybe they have different strategies to manage that feeling of clumsiness...
Fellow players what's your strategy besides playing over and over, practicing harder and gaining tons of routine to handle that?

I think the secret is in your last sentence.
If the "lost at sea" feeling happens often, I'd get a headphone practice amp and show up half an hour early to warm up in silence.

it's common even with the 6 string...sometimes you just need a few minutes to get settled in, I know I do.

Plus, my right hand is not like it was 20, 15 or even 10 years ago either.

I notice when my blood sugar is low that my picking suffers... I am type 2 diabetic.

Loss of fine motor skills, especially if this is a recent occurrence is good reason to go see your Dr. for a chat as many things could be causing it (from Diabetes, "old age", to other more serious ailments..) Always a good idea to have them check you out and be safe than to hear "if you had only seen me a year ago!"

this is stage fright; imho not more and not less. Anything that helps against it will cure the right hand.

Breath deep thru nose.
Exhale thru mouth.

you just need more time on stage. go play with people every chance you get. it'll get better fast.

I see you've been with the forum a year and a half.
IIf you're fairly new to the steel, I concur. There's nothing for it but time.
It WILL go away.

I used to have a similar problem where it took me a long time to warm up, missing strings, no chops at all, etc.
It took me a year to do it but what I did was completely change my right hand technique to resemble what most of the pros look like when playing. I more or less copied Tommy White's style. I swapped to using my thumb and second finger for single note runs, and keep my hand closer to strings. I can now be warmed up in 10 seconds to play. Saturday night, we did Hwy 40 Blues first song and was able to nail it. Five years ago, I would have blown the whole thing because my fingers wouldn't work right off.
I have a little exercise that I do when first sitting down and takes about 10 seconds, after that, I'm 95% ready.
I worked on the changes a year with out learning anything else, I just focused on technique and it really helped my playing.

Sound like anxiety......drink two beers

If I improvise my parts I do better than if I am trying to play a prescribed part. Maybe that is the game. Like golf. Just hit the ball from where it lands. ...haha

I have experienced similar things when there hasnt been time to do a proper sound check and monitoring have been way different than what Im used to hearing. I think it might be because my mind expects to hear a certain sound when I strike the strings and then the sound from the monitor does not replicate what I put into the strings. Then I try to compensate somehow with my picking hand in order to fix it and thats when the trouble starts. To me it feels like, omg, I didnt play that or I didnt strike the strings in a way that should produce that kind of sound. After a while, the surprised feeling after each note seem to go away tho and I can play normally.

B.Erlandsen

Thanks for your inputs and your encouraging words. I'm glad to be a part of a collegial community like that!
Lane you're right, i'm playing for 2 years and a few months now, and patience and a diligent way of practice despite after frustrating moments at stage for shure are the key. Maybe a practice-pad would be an option for venues without an opportunity or back stage area for warming up properly...
Drinking a few beers is not an option for now cause then i'm simply mixing up all trained pedal and lever movements but i'm working on that too!
Tom i'm with you, improvising in a situation like that is easier for me too!

I have to say that I experienced this recently. I was so nervous my fingers got stiff and didn't want to move. Didn't know if my sound was to soft or to loud. It was the first time playing out at a Jam. Can't wait for the next one.

The one thing that has helped my right hand the most is practicing other instruments which use the fingers but in a different motion than in picking.

The one that helps the most is the English concertina and also the button and piano accordions.

Doing this has been an experiment and it seems to work pretty well.