Why Can't I Play Well With Cold Hands?

It isn’t only difficult to play with cold hands but possibly dangerous!

I spent 14 years of my life living in the north beyond the great ice wall. Wisconsin is brutally cold and the high humidity in the dead of winter only worsens the bone aching cold. Then I spent 4 years in Cleveland at the Cleveland Institute of Music which is also, very cold, and very wet. But why is it so difficult to play and what is it dangerous to play with very cold hands?

Now I live (cue music) in the great state of Texas and I don’t have to worry about the cold as much until I walk into an iceberg concert hall. But even so, I still get cold hands now and again, so what do I do and what can you do to help fix it?

One thing I can recommend not to do is to put them under hot water. I can’t remember why, and this may just be an old wives tale but when I was a kid in Wisconsin and we got back from recess one day, I remember all of us complaining about how cold are hands were. Some of us were the bright ones, and we didn’t wear gloves because we were “strong.” At any rate, we had a sink in the classroom and I remember us lining up one day to put our hands in hot water and our biology teacher freaked out and said: “what are you doing!?!?” “Stop that now, there is a much safer way to warm your hands!” Apparent this can cause nerve damage.

She went on to tell us that some of the dangers which we totally forgot the details. All we remember is “cold hands, hot water, bad.” Our teacher had recommended us to sit on our hands because our natural body heat will warm them up.

Though not all of us are in the cold weather I recommend this article in the New York Up State online news.

https://www.newyorkupstate.com/news/2016/12/frostbite_dont_put_hands_in_hot_water_and_7_other_tips_to_save_your_skin_from_co.html

For me, I take time before practice sessions or performances to get my hands warmed up by stretching. This is a really great way for future hand health and to warm them up.

Do you have a way or method of keeping your hands warm or warming them up for playing? Leave a comment below!

Robuki for 10, Thanks for reading.

with warmest regards,

Shawn Renzoh Head