Playing in hot weather?

Dutch

Dutch

Fractal Fanatic
Just came back from a trip to Thailand playing a small benefit festival. Thailand is always hot and most time humid.
I found it SO HARD to play. My fingers were slightly sweaty so they were really sticky. Also a bit swollen from the heat.
Particularly hard was fingersliding. There's a lot of sliding in the music we do. I couldn't get my fingers to slide over to different positions, some solo's had slides that I just couldn't get to the next note. That is until my fingers got so sweaty they slipped over everything so when bending the strings slipped from under my fingers.
I had a can of Graph Tech Chops Pre-Play that helped with the stickyness, but was also a bit too slippery, so sliding worked a bit too good just like when I got too sweaty.

I didn't have a great time playing there.

How do you guys deal with that? Touring bands play all over the world in all sorts of conditions. Is there a trick?
 
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If you watch Jeff Beck videos of him playing live you’ll often see a canister of baby powder that he’d use to control the sweat. He’d end up with a cloud of the powder floating in the air.

I used to keep an old athletic sock in a ziplock bag in the gig bag that I’d shaken some baby powder into. I could pat my hands on it and wipe any excess off and it worked well and didn’t make a cloud.

Then I didn’t have that bag with me one night and my hands were sticky, so I sprayed my cleaning microfiber cloth with cleaner, quickly wiped the neck and fingerboard, then sprayed a little more on my left hand and wiped it off. Between the neck and the spray on my hand it was just the right amount of slippery. I do that whenever it’s hot or humid now.
 
Thanks guys.

Will have some testing to do. I think the Graph Tech Chops Preplay (discontinued. 👿) was the most useful I tried over there. I also have the Graph Tech Chops Dry n' Glide, talc powder, but the conditions were too grave for it to succeed. I also have some D'Addario XLR8 and Fast Fret somewhere so I'll try that too but I didn't have it with me so couldn't test it there.

Apparently Finger Ease is hard to get in Europe and Graph Tech stuff is no longer available. Pre-play discontinued and Dry n' Glide just out of any European stores I could find.

AH! Just found another can of Pre-Play and another Dry n' Glide! I'm set for that.
 
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Greg Ferguson said:
If you watch Jeff Beck videos of him playing live you’ll often see a canister of baby powder that he’d use to control the sweat. He’d end up with a cloud of the powder floating in the air.

I used to keep an old athletic sock in a ziplock bag in the gig bag that I’d shaken some baby powder into. I could pat my hands on it and wipe any excess off and it worked well and didn’t make a cloud.

Then I didn’t have that bag with me one night and my hands were sticky, so I sprayed my cleaning microfiber cloth with cleaner, quickly wiped the neck and fingerboard, then sprayed a little more on my left hand and wiped it off. Between the neck and the spray on my hand it was just the right amount of slippery. I do that whenever it’s hot or humid now.
Click to expand...
Steve Gadd would often perform in a cloud of white powder too.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
If you watch Jeff Beck videos of him playing live you’ll often see a canister of baby powder that he’d use to control the sweat. He’d end up with a cloud of the powder floating in the air.

I used to keep an old athletic sock in a ziplock bag in the gig bag that I’d shaken some baby powder into. I could pat my hands on it and wipe any excess off and it worked well and didn’t make a cloud.

…
Click to expand...
I’ve always used baby powder too.
 
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