Conga drum ailment
John C. Fowler
>fun. We were beating on the skins pretty hard. Anyway, it turns out that
>now he's complaining about some loose bone or tendons on the underside of a
>few knuckles. I guess there's some pain involved.
I've had this problem before, except I got it from banging on the doors of a
girl's dorm during a panty raid (roudy college prank). Couldn't play drums
for a week, and I still remember the pain of practicing after that.
>
>Does anybody know what this is or have a similar experience? Also, you see
>percussions tape their fingers. What is the reason for this and does it help
>prevent the kind of thing that my friend is suffering from?
>
>Later,
>Steve
I'm sure it would help your hand's endurance some, but I am unsure of the
quality of sound that would be the result. One of the best conga players I
have met told me that before his instructor let him touch a conga, he was
required to slap a cement block for a month or until his hands became
appropriately caloused. I'm unsure just how ethical of a teaching method
this is, but the man could slap the puppies with a louder pop than I've
done in the three years I've played congas. Of course, it could also have
to do with the fact that he's played about ten times as long as I have. :-)
As far as preventing it, don't play hard until your hands can take it. Start
soft, and when your hands gradually harden, start playing harder. Also,
make sure you strech your hands out before and after playing. As with any
instrument, don't try playing the hard stuff until you've warmed up. Since
conga's can be especially damaging to your hands, you don't want to start
hitting them hard until your hands are ready to take it.
john...
Brown Man
>
>I've got this friend, see, and when I was down in San Diego a couple weeks ago
>we had a little jam sesh. I was playing these killer congas that he's has on
>loan for a while, and Nick and Steve were mostly playing guitars. Well,
>later on Nick and I started in on a dual conga rhythm jam which was a lot of
>now he's complaining about some loose bone or tendons on the underside of a
>few knuckles. I guess there's some pain involved.
>
>percussions tape their fingers. What is the reason for this and does it help
>prevent the kind of thing that my friend is suffering from?
>
>Later,
>Steve
Hey Steve!
Sorry to hear about your buddies hand. But what it comes to is that
Congos are simply not designed to beat pounded upon. A great deal of
tonality can be generated by the manipulation of the both hands and drum-head.
HOWEVER - this is not something one can sit down and puzzle out (save
those with exceptional ability). Instruction is required. Seek some.
That will end the pain.
It's the same principle as those who drum traditional grip and get
chaffing on their inner fingers due to friction burns .... the grip is
wrong -- fix it.
This is not meant to be a flame, I am pointing out that playing congas
effectively should not induce physical harm...
I once say Manola Badrana (sp?) playing with taped hands, but I suspect he
did it because he was hitting the cymbals them. Unorthodox, but really
interesting stuff...
You're friend may have loosened the tendons on the underside of his
finger. There's nothing he can do himself. Get to a doctor and tell him
the story is my advice. I did something similar playing basketball. The
doc. fixed it for me, with a queer looking device. *shrug* He should see
his doctor.
The BROWN MAN
---
brow...@sciborg.uwaterloo.edu
(Percussionist)
PG Herzberg
playing congas can break small blood vessels in your hands. Not sure
exactly how true this is but they said that there was a saying in
Africa that you are a good conga player if your urine is red!?
Seems a bit of a UL, to quote another group, has anybody else heard of
this?
Raman Bhatia
Not this particular ailment but ...
I once knew a drummer who's wrist-joints would make crackling sounds
every time he moved them. Apparently the constant playing had depleted
the fluid in his wrist-joints, and the bones had started grating against
each other. He felt no pain though, but this was many years ago, and I
have'nt met him since.
Is this a generic drumming-ailment? What causes it? Do any preventive
measures exist?
Raman
Kip Bishofberger
I have on numerous occasions broken all kinds of veins in my fingers, esp.
my thumb and middle finger, whenever I play entirely too loud on the congas.
There is the correct way to play them, which I am not a complete expert on,
but can perform reasonably well in, and there is the "play as loud as you can
just to get heard over an un-miced band of 20 blaring horns and such" way of
playing, which causes the bursting of blood inside my hands. The callouses
develop slowly, slower than the 4-mallet, inside the forth finger callouses
from keyboard stuff.
It is true that learning the correct way to play is not self-teachable; get a
teacher, or do what I did, go to the nearest symphony (for me at the time it
was sacramento) and seek out a percussionist (stan lunetta is percussion god),
and just ask him, the actual technique is easily taught.... after that its
just trial and error.
How do you tune a concert bass drum? I was taught that the non-batter head is
as loose as it can w/o any rattle, and the batter side somewhat tighter, but I
keep getting some tone ringing through the thing.
kipster
Dances with Drums
> We were beating on the skins pretty hard. Anyway, it turns out that
>now he's complaining about some loose bone or tendons on the underside of a
>few knuckles. I guess there's some pain involved.
>
>Does anybody know what this is or have a similar experience? Also, you see
>percussions tape their fingers. What is the reason for this and does it help
>prevent the kind of thing that my friend is suffering from?
That's a long one.
When I first started out playing, I often would get sore hands --
seemed to be bone bruises -- of course starting out I only has a 12"
Doumbek that I was attempting to play african style, which I was told
later was a pretty brutal thing to do to one's hands. I later a Djembe,
and my hand problems decreased, but it took a while in *improving technique*,
primarily.
Different drum masters have different opinions on callouses and such.
Babatunde Olitunji has hands of leather -- his entire hand is hard, BUT
uncalloused. Abdouli, a senegalese master, has massive callouses. Another
of my teachers Fred Simpson, a congolese drummer, has pretty good callouses.
Zak Douef (sp?), often wore tape on his finger tips when drumming on
his Djembe for 2 hours for his wifes Liberian Dance classes. Baba is
adament that callouses are no substitute for good technique.
My teacher Arthur Hull, tends more towards Baba's view. If you hit
wood enough, the wood will win. If you *hit* the head enough, the head
will win. There is a difference between playing the drum and beating
ala 'hippie thunder drummer' style. Of course no one is perfect --
last year ata drum circle, I was taping my joints, which were getting
sore from playing for a while (several days in a row), and Arthur saw
me, came up to me in the drum circle, and took the tape from me and
started "yelling" at me for bad technique -- while at the same time,
ripping off some tape and wrapping some of his fingers also! :-) (He
was kidding!)
From my own experience congas are generally harder on your hands than
goatskin drums (such as a djembe) -- especially those congas with
thick, head of steel, heads.
Anyway, it would appear, that with good technique, and slow seasoning
of the hands, drumming injury/over-use problems can be kept at a minimum,
though anytime you go for the "hippie thunder drummer" type of drumming,
you are putting maximal strain on your hands...
-wat-
--
1935 will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has
full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient,
and the world will follow our lead into the future.
--Adolf Hitler
Cynthia Pettit
|> playing congas can break small blood vessels in your hands. Not sure
|> exactly how true this is but they said that there was a saying in
|> Africa that you are a good conga player if your urine is red!?
|>
|> Seems a bit of a UL, to quote another group, has anybody else heard of
|> this?
I played all weekend with Babatunde Olatunji (fabulous! See him if ever
possible!) and got a severe bruise on my left thumb where it joins my palm.
The bruise started well into my palm then wrapped almost an inch around my
thumb to the back of my hand... Hurt like Hell, but it was Baba! and I
kept right on playing...
My hands haven't gotten calluses up at all, but I don't bruise my hands. I
haven't been able to afford lessons and have learned mostly on my own. I
can play *hard* too. It's quite possible not to hurt yourself -- bruising
is not part of the game. Keep at it! :)
Cyn "white woman drummer, playing West African rhythms" Pettit
--
"It's not about driving down rt 66 and stopping at the Holiday Inn!
It's about *adventure*!!"
---Richard P Feynman
mkki...@gmail.com
Anyhow, I'm gonna try my hand at "self" teaching conga technique (heh, pun not inteneded...) with YouTube videos. Here's to technology as boone and not bane!