Do fingerless gloves hinder our piano playing?

[bombtrash]

Firstly i am new to this forum. so please bare with me if i have posted this in the wrong section and please do direct me to the correct one.
I am beginner at piano and i usually get time at night to practice and to live up my hobby. i dont want to be any professional or anything, i just want to explore this hobby of mine and maybe play it for minor audience in the future if possible. That being said the night times get very cold and after 20-30 min i cant really move my fingers as i want and so i was checking for some solutions and i found out about this.

fingerless gloves. Full gloves are obviously a downset for a piano player but what do u think about these fingerless gloves? Well they do keep your hand warm, but will it hinder our ability? Also having gloves makes you look much cooler(cooler as in fashion trend not in terms of temperature this time around ). So what do u think? I am gonna buy them and see, but i just wanted to know if it has any effect on our performance.

BTW if you dont know what fingerless gloves are, then check this image
https://www.smithical.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IMAG1255.jpg

Thanks

[cabbynum]

Firstly i am new to this forum. so please bare with me if i have posted this in the wrong section and please do direct me to the correct one.
I am beginner at piano and i usually get time at night to practice and to live up my hobby. i dont want to be any professional or anything, i just want to explore this hobby of mine and maybe play it for minor audience in the future if possible. That being said the night times get very cold and after 20-30 min i cant really move my fingers as i want and so i was checking for some solutions and i found out about this.

fingerless gloves. Full gloves are obviously a downset for a piano player but what do u think about these fingerless gloves? Well they do keep your hand warm, but will it hinder our ability? Also having gloves makes you look much cooler(cooler as in fashion trend not in terms of temperature this time around ). So what do u think? I am gonna buy them and see, but i just wanted to know if it has any effect on our performance.

BTW if you dont know what fingerless gloves are, then check this image
https://www.smithical.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IMAG1255.jpg

Thanks

It definitely hinders your playing. In the springtime at my high school they had a bunch of bands playing outside and asked me to play 2 or 3 classical pieces. It was about 40 degrees F outside. I went out there during a break and turned the sound off on the keyboard and played around. It wasn't working. My hands were cold and stiff. I put on fingerless gloves, it barely made me any warmer and my hands were even stiffer. Octaves were alright because there isn't much quick finger movement in those. You'd be better off buying a space heater than gloves.

[rmbarbosa]

can you use a electric heater in your piano room? Or is it possible to warm your hands with warm water? The unique pianist I saw once with gloves was a very old professional concertist but with his age he only played some musics for beginners and I felt very sorry for him... because he was playing in a concert hall face an audience. I think he has been a great concertist and the audience was there only to honor him and his age... I dont remember his name.

[gregh]

I don't know about playing the piano with fingerless gloves. But some people would probably say it's harder to touch-type while wearing nitrile gloves. I do that at work all the time, and after a while the sense of clumsiness just went away.

I don't know if that would solve your stiff fingers problem, though. Might work better to get a space heater.

[iansinclair]

I at least do find that they hinder my playing, although I have a vague suspicion that if I played with them all the time, every time, I might get used to them.  Sort of.

A space heater is a good idea!

Another idea, though, is wristlets -- long enough to go well up the forearm, and down over the hand at least to the base of the thumb (some have a loop to go over the thumb, to keep them from riding up).  At least they keep the forearm -- which is where all the muscles are anyway -- warmer.

[lorcar]

[cabbynum]

He never played with them on... If he did it wasn't serious playing.

[cometear]

Rather than playing in frigid temperatures I find fingerless gloves work well. I use them in my house until it warms up a bit. They're only a tiny nuisance.

[etogmajor]

lolol... I haven't tested this but you might find them as effective training tools. They'd provide extra weight and stiffness to your finger for a nice workout... Then you take them off and everything seems much easier.

[slane]

I have gloves I made just for that purpose but they are too long in the hand part so I roll the hand back so it only covers the first joints. I figure, since there are no muscles in your fingers, that is just as good as covering part of your fingers. when I say fingerless gloves, I mean just an open cylinder for the fingers, not each finger half covered in an individual tube.

I also warm up a wheat bag and have that in my lap on cold days.

[kakeithewolf]

It depends on the kind.

Rigid gloves, like carpenter's gloves or gym gloves, significantly hinder your flexibility, and in doing so, hinder your playing ability.

Gloves that go partially up the hand that don't properly separate fingers are a hindrance as well. Armwarmers can considerably worsen this, by making your forearms and, depending on the kind, your upper arm and shoulder base.

If the gloves are knit, crocheted, or made of spandex, they are fine. But leather gloves, latex gloves, or gloves with compression or low elasticity materials are not fine. The reason why is because of flexibility.

Partially fingerless gloves, like gloves that go halfway up the fingers, can be arguably beneficial, because they hold the hand to a correct shape, keeping the fingers orderly, whilst not sacrificing movement capability.

Long story short? Yes, the can hinder, but only if they are poorly chosen.

[slane]

Thinking about that photo I'm now thinking that next winter I'll make myself purpose designed piano mitts with a very short hand and thumb.
This sort of thing ..
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/piano-mitts-and-mini-mitts
but I'd probably make the hand even shorter than that.
These are cool...
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/chunky-piano-mitts