The Steel Guitar Forum

Watching TV and all the hype about the Football games in Pa today, Makes me wonder how many STEEL fans would watch or participate in a Show under the conditions these Ball games are played. For one thing the Bar would probably freeze to the strings. Maybe I am old and cranky, but this to me is rediculous. Ed Naylor Steel Guitar Works.

Ed, I have played outdoors when I got so cold I couldn't stop shaking. This can bring on the leg cramps also. All that shaking produced a stange vibrato that I don't care to try and reproduce on purpose.
I suggest the use of thermal underwear for anyone who plans to play under these conditions. I might also suggest professional help from a psychiatrist.....JD

How in blazes would one go about keeping a steel guitar in tune under those conditions?

Mind you, with 50,000 fans shivering their butts off , I doubt if they would notice anyone being a few octives off no matter what was being played.

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(I am not right all of the time but I sure like to think I am!)

I played a gig outdoors this new year's eve when it was four above zero.It was a guitar gig standing on a ice,and snow,I couldn't feel my fingers after four songs.I don't think that playing my steel guitar would have been possible.

I played an outdoor festival once some years ago, and it was "spitting" snow. It only took one of those and I got my cure of that! Jimmie

well i hate the cold weather! i am not going to go watch any kind of ball game or nothing when it is cold and snowing i don't care if its king kong i an't watching! forget about playing a psg under those conditions or any insturment as far as that goes. and i would say anyone who does must really need the money badly. well moving on to warmer things.

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zum SD10 peavy vegas 400 peavy session 400
if its not a zum steel it isn't real

I did a gig on 6 string in 5 degrees F.

I left the guitar in it's case overnight in my trunk to slowly acclimate to the new temperature. Once it was cold, the tuning held up pretty well. The only thing that really caused problems is having your fingers directly contact freezing cold metal (unavoidable with the guitar).

With the steel you might be able to wear a glove on the bar hand, or keep the bar at room temperature (stick it in your pocket to warm it up when you're not playing). You might be able stick the finger picks through a glove (and warm them up when not playing). Palm blocking is probably fine with leather gloves.

I'd say it's do-able, but I don't think I'll be the one to try it out. Maybe with someone elses steel (our bass player had to take his axe to the shop for a setup after the show).

Here's some pics of one cold jazz/funk group... http://tinyurl.com/3r7jt

Just a couple of weeks back some friends and I did the music for a local Cowboy church. 3 six string acoustic guitars and one fiddle. We set our stuff up in the barn at 7:30 am on Sunday morning. Church started at 8 and we all had to keep on tuning up for that 30 minutes. When we started playing it was 31 degrees in that barn and even at that temp my fingers were cold and very slow. I can't imagine trying to tune up a steel for that kind of gig.

Rick