Hands cramping up when playing

[TDM]

I've been working on some faster songs to push my technique a bit and specifically I've been working some old Metallica and some tech metal. Like Battery, Disposable Heroes by Metallica, some Sikth and some Necrophagist

I find that I can play all the riffs up to speed when practising but after playing for 2 mins my hands start to feel like they are going to fall off so I find it hard to get through whole songs.

So what do you tech/thrash metal guys do other than using a pick? I know it will come with practise but are there any warm up or speed exercises I could do?

Also I find string skipping in fast riffs like this awkward, is maintaining the LRLRLR plucking pattern the best way to go on this?

--------3-----3-------3-----------
------2-----2-------2--------------
---1------1-------1-------3---4---
-0-------0------0-------1---1------

Edited August 9, 2009 by thedonutman

[velvetkevorkian]

I use 3 fingers in the Billy Sheehan style, with strict alternation. I also play with the lightest touch possible, and use a floating thumb technique whereas a lot of extreme metal players like to dig in a lot. I prefer a clean punchy sound which I can get without rattle- if you want that more standard death metal sound you do have to dig in a bit more but in that case I think you have to accept that its going to be much harder to get to the same kind of speed.

[TDM]

I dig in a lot because I find the attack helps me to cut through the mix more. I might have to work on my 3 finger technique a little more, because I mainly use it for gallops as I can get sustained semiquavers more even with just 2 fingers.

[velvetkevorkian]

If you're having trouble cutting through, turn up, or better yet, see if you can get the guitarists to turn down. For this kind of style you want to be getting the most notes with the least effort, and digging in on every note is going to make it much more difficult.

[TimR]

Breathe and make sure the rest of your arm stays relaxed.

[charic]

fiddle with the height of your bass a bit it can impact this a lot.
Some songs that helped me through this were-
Black lung by rancid
Stockholme syndrome by muse
Through the fire and flames by dragonforce
Theyre all abit different and could help see what is triggering the pain.

[Bilbo]

You probably need to warm up more before you hit the hard stuff. Also, I agree that using the amp to create volume and power rather than your fingers can help.

[TimR]

[quote name='TimR' post='564491' date='Aug 9 2009, 09:38 PM']Breathe and make sure the rest of your arm stays relaxed.[/quote]

I'll expand a bit:

The theory is: There are no muscles in your hands, just tendens and ligments. The muscles that operate your fingers are in your forearms. Tendens and Ligaments have fairly poor blood supplies. You need to build up the blood supplies to these but you can only do this slowly they don't adapt as quickly as muscles do. Queue lots of practice

By making sure that you are breathing properly you will help oxygenate the tendons so it should be longer before they 'cramp' up. By tensing the rest of your arm you are using oxygen in the large muscles that you don't need to be using.

I had the same problem, but on my left hand on a couple of gigs a few years back. It only happened on a couple of songs near the beginning of our first set. I worked out that the common factor was that I had freinds in the audience and I was tesnse and not breathing properly.

You can still be relaxed and dig in, just back off with the pressure, see how much you can dig in with a lighter touch.

[Adrenochrome]

When I was playing original stuff like that BITD I played most songs fingerstyle, and most of those using standard 2 finger with occasional 3 finger style. I also made sure my bass wasn't too low! I really only used a pick for specific songs that needed a very strong attack combined with palm-muting.

Using a Powerball would probably help build the correct muscles and improve blood supply, stability of the joints etc.

[iamapirate]

ahhhhhh, I play wayy too hard and it's something I have to constantly remind myself of. The funny thing is that I back off, and my vlume stays the same. I like the attack, but I've realised that I get exactly the same attack when playing light[b]er[/b].