Picking Better/Looser after watching Hee Haw

[Rheatown]

I have always had a problem with playing kind of stiff. So tonight I was watching a re-run of Hee Haw and they showed the two guys that slapped a rhythm on their legs up to their chests while they made funny noise with their mouths. I got to thinking that maybe if I slapped my legs like they did it might help loosen my wrists (I did both hands like they did) and wow, what a difference.

Does anyone else have any dumb things you do to loosen up, or to make a big difference in your playing?

[JeffD]

I do what I call "grab chords" which is just heavy chopping while my left hand mutes all the strings by grabbing the neck like a beer bottle. I just practice all kinds of strumming and chopping and stuff. Mandolin sounds like a washboard.

I don't know why, but it greally gets me "loosened" up.

[journeybear]

This is more mental than physical, but I do a lot of practicing in my mind - thinking out chords, chord progressions, leads, riffs and hooks, harmonies. A lot of readiness comes from being mentally as well as physically prepared. This helps me in many ways, mostly in that somehow the grooves are already laid out in my mind when these parts come up in performance.

I do crack my knuckles a lot - more by pulling my fingers out than curling and crunching them. They do get tight in the middle of gigs and this at least seems to help undo that (and feels good anyway). I'll shake my hands out, too, pretty hard - again, to undo whatever tightness has built up during the course of playing.

BTW, there wws a time, back in the 1980s, I used to watch Hee-Haw regularly. It was one of the few shows at the time that was recorded live. SNL, too, of course. The musicians in the cast were really good, and they got great guest artists, too, some of whom would participate in the silly skits and bits. Those hambone guys knew what they were doing, and were really good at it. Same could be said of the rest of the house acts - The Million Dollar Band, The Gospel Quartet, The All-Jug Band (whose tag line, "We're through playin' now," I quote to this day - not that anyone gets that), whatever songs Roy Clark and Buck Owens had worked up - so much good stuff.

[Astro]

As a young teen I enjoyed watching HeeHaww too but would never have admitted it because it was considered uncool and corny.

I never cared much for Buck Owens songs, but Roy Clark's instrumentals would just blow me away and I still wonder how a human can play like that. And many of the other acts and guests were great. We still break out into Gloom, Despair, And Agony on me every once in awhile.

Back on point, when I concentrate on playing clean and fast (esp fast) I stiffin up and grip too tight and it always leads me to trip myself up. I really have to try to fight that more. When I loosen it up I play it all the way through better BUT never as clean or fast as I like.

Yeah I know, practice. But how many times can I stand to play the same thing over and over. Even my family asks me that from time to time. I get banished from public home places more so than with guitar. I guess mando can grate on you more than the more mellow big brother. Its a lonely life practicing mandolin.

[yankees1]

Wine has the same effect with me ! I play very loose !

[F-2 Dave]

Never underestimate the therapeutic benefits of watching Hee-Haw.

[bingoccc]

I always loved Hee-Haw back in the day. I have a Norman and Nancy Blake DVD where he plays both guitar and mandolin. Watching and hearing the bouncy, lively style he brings to his playing always gets my brain shifted back to that loose and free style of playing. He makes it ll look so easy.