[Dixielandjazz] My Worst Gig Ever

[Bruce Stangeland]

Katie,

I once played outside at a church gig. My hands often get cold anyway, 
but this was worse.
I had to go into their kitchen and run hot water over my hands for 
several minutes.
That got me warm enough to get started. I never got to the needles of 
pain point.

Cheers,
Bruce Stangeland, U of I (Urbana)
Berkeley banjoist

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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:46:17 -0800 (PST)
From: Katie Cavera <kcavera at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] My Worst Gig Ever
To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Message-ID: <377110.99610.qm at web82506.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
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... snip...
I can not describe in enough detail the extreme pain of playing a stringed instrument in the cold.  Recalling it now makes me shudder!  My right hand wasn't too bad.  I just put a death grip on my pick and flung my whole hand at the strings.  Forget about precision or playing anything with finesse. As long as I kept flinging my hand at the strings I could approximately make my right hand do it's job. The left hand was a different matter. With the first chord I played it felt like a thousand tiny needles were shooting into my fingers.  Every time I changed chords there was a fresh explosion of pain.  Eventually my left hand started to numb (although never completely), and it became hard to even tell if I was making the right chord shapes or not.  By the end of the gig I half expected to look at my hand and see bloody stumps of bones where my fingers once were.  I don't know if IU won the game that day or not because as soon as the gig was over we were
 back in our car with the heater blasting us on high.  
... snip...



- Katie