Guitarist conducts study to find out how many gloves he can wear while playing "Enter Sandman"

One of the world's great musical mysteries has finally been solved

By Reid McCarter  |  October 18, 2021 | 8:45pm
Music Features Gloves
Guitarist conducts study to find out how many gloves he can wear while playing
A look inside the laboratory. Screenshot: JMAPMUSIC

After learning last week that it’s possible to perform “Master Of Puppets” in 51 different musical styles, another sonic scientist has turned to Metallica to conduct a new study: How many pairs of gloves can one person wear while still being able to play “Enter Sandman” on guitar?

JMAPMUSIC’s Jordan Perkic has uploaded documentary footage from the laboratory where his experiment was conducted, showing us the process by which he determined that 20 pairs of surgical gloves are the maximum number that can be placed on the human hand before it’s impossible to play the “Enter Sandman” verse.

“What’s up,” Perkic says by way of introduction. “I’ve got a fucking axe, I’ve got gloves, I got a riff everyone knows.” He then embarks on his mission, starting with no gloves (or, as he puts it, “raw”) and adding one new layer until his playing starts to degrade.

The problems start at five pairs, with the gloves slipping around on his hands. The problems increase around seven pairs when it gets harder to hold a pick, and it all seem like too much to overcome at 13. Nevertheless, Perkic presses on, adjusting his technique and using a bigger pick until he can play (an increasingly sloppy version of) the part.

Despite his best efforts, layer 20 just about defeats him, the gloves preventing anything but a simplified, single-note version of the riff. (An accidental discovery during the experiment is that a cat also enjoys being pet by a hand covered in 20 pairs of gloves.) “I dare you to fucking even try to beat my record, you fucking pieces of shit,” Perkic says as a conclusion, using the traditional scholarly invitation for peer review.

In the crowded realm of “Enter Sandman” covers, Perkic’s performance may not be as impressive as that time a pug played it on drums, but it does have the advantage of being decidedly more scientific. At least until the pug returns with a video of how many pairs of sunglasses it can wear while still playing the part.

[via Digg]

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