Warming Up

[Zed]

We some time ago played a gig where the venue was fairly cool the entire hour after we arrived to set up, but 5 minutes after taking the stage they kicked the heat up about 15 degrees. There were also a few stage lights on that were not earlier. You can imagine what this did to our tuning. It was distastrous to say the least.

My question is, how can you combat this? Are there times you just flat out have to stop the show and retune? I'm also wondering how bands like Del McCoury et al deal with horrifically hot stage lights? You walk out on stage, the lights come up and whaam.. you're waaay outta whack.

[mandopete]

I like to follow Frank Wakefield's advice and stick the mandolin in the oven (you can use a microwave if you're pressed for time). http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

But on a slightly more serious note (B-Flat), I've often noticed that the mandolin sounds better after it's warmed up a bit. I attribute this phenomenon to having cold air in the instrument chamber. I've taken to blowing (some of my hot-air) into the instrument before hitting the stage if the instrument has not had chance to warm up.

I'm not totally sure if this really helps or not, but it's a great conversation starter!