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Apparently sustained and intense hand drumming can cause hemolysis, hemoglobinuria, and lead to the presence of red blood cells and/or hemoglobin in the urine. The urine then becomes dark or colored reddish/rust.

This can also occurs in practicing intense sports or marchs. But the case of hand drummers has been especially studied. So much so that term "percussion hemoglobinuria" has been coined.

I would doubt that "regular" playing/practice of bongos (or other hand drums) is problematic. The condition tends to occur only during repeated, prolonged and strenuous playing sessions.

Still, I am posting this for those who are engaged in a quite active performing/playing career.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3213680/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440284/

Interesting. I’ll take a look. It’s been a long, long , long time since I’ve been out on a gig. When I was doing it almost weekly, I don’t remember anything like this happening to me at least.

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I had that only once in my life, when I was a beginning conga player - and a young man. As you can see, I survived it and never got it again, although I did not know where it came from until years later.

Thomas

Glad you’re good Brotha!

Juaort:

All I wanted to say is that it is not a big thing - if it doesn't happen continuously. On the long run your kidneys would suffer. But as long as you are healthy, peeing blood after beating the drums too hard is just a warning signal. You will be careful from then on. I was certainly scared back then; but after a while the symptom disappeared and I forgot about it. As I said: It was only years later that I learned about the cause.

As Beatnik said, this is a well known phenomenon among hand drummers. I didn't check whether there was a thread about the subject on this forum; otherwise Jorge would be the person to tell us everything about it.

Thomas

Thanks Thomas. You guys blew l my mind with this issue. I was talking to my wife about it yesterday. Maybe I never noticed, who knows. She asked me if I ever noticed anything and honest to God I never did. I played standing and sitting for a long time, but I can’t remember ever seeing anything in my urine. But then again I wasn’t Really looking for it.

Great topic Beatnik! I love the input and discussion.

I played standing and sitting for a long time, but I can’t remember ever seeing anything in my urine.

Proper technique?

TA

Here is a related thread from 11 years ago.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4284&hilit=hemoglobinuria
Since then, I know one Central Park rumbero who had a major kidney problem from this a few years ago. It was a really hot summer day and he was at the rumba for many hours playing, drinking beer and rum but not much water. A few days later I heard from a friend that he had been admitted to the hospital the next day with renal failure and required several courses of dialysis. He had given a history of red colored urine after the rumba. He recovered and didn't need dialysis permanently, and I told him he had to drink water and not get dehydrated when he played. He mainly plays tumba not quinto, but hits hard. I am pretty sure his renal failure came from a combination of playing hard for many hours, dehydration from too much alcohol and not enough water, and probably some other factors I don't know about.
Bottom line, there is some chance of kidney damage from the hemoglobin. Hemoglobin can actually be toxic to the kidneys when it is free in the blood and not inside the red blood cells or bound to proteins in the blood serum. That can happen when too many red cells get broken open in a short time and all the binding proteins in the blood get saturated so the free hemoglobin concentration goes up. Several famous conga players, including Tata Guines and Puntilla, have died of kidney disease, not sure if it was related.
I think it makes sense to try to avoid blood in your urine from playing. I have advocated playing a little less hard, which falls on deaf ears of rumberos. Other than that, avoiding dehydration, switch off to play sticks or chequere or clave or sing or dance instead of staying on the congas all the time. I tend to use thinner skins, but they don't sound the same, they still take time to break in (and sometimes sound better than thicker skins), but they don't last as long as thicker skins. Some of the best conga players I know don't have blood in their urine, so I agree with Thomas, technique is important too.

jorge wrote:Here is a related thread from 11 years ago.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4284&hilit=hemoglobinuria

Wow, great thread Jorge !!

So this issue has been ongoing for quite a while.

Thanks a lot for all this information !!

@ Jorge:

I have advocated playing a little less hard, which falls on deaf ears of rumberos.

There is one clip of Barry's "Rumba en Antarés" series on YouTube, where Amado Dedeu picks up the tumbadora/salidor, and he plays so softly, but that drum is heard because of its low frequency. And furthermore, it is an accompanying part that is supposed to back up the ensemble. Holding back makes the work of the singers and the other drummers a lot easier, with the result of the entire ensemble sounding better. So that was an eye- and ear-opener to me.

Several famous conga players, including Tata Guines and Puntilla, have died of kidney disease, not sure if it was related.

Yes, you don't have to be a hand drummer to die of kidney failure. I don't know about Puntilla, but Tata wasn't a hard-hitting drummer. Maybe he was in his youth, that's outside my scope. But he sure played a lot!

... so I agree with Thomas, technique is important too.

I think, technique is an indispensable factor for anything you do, even for love - even for the arts! It's the Ogún factor. It helps you to make everything you want to do, just better and easier at the same time. And I'm not talking about speed; that's a by-product. As to playing an instrument: Sure, music is the ends. But how do you get there? Exhausted, injured, and still not where it could be? Talking about myself, I certainly went through my berserker period, but I soon found out that for me, not exactly being a Hulk, the only chance to succeed was technique. Control the physics of gravity and rebound, find out how you can accelerate the stroke, how you shape your hands, where you hit the skin surface, etc.. And remember, a good horse jumps only as high as it necessarily must. A hand drum is a relatively primitive instrument (no negative connotation), and the volume range, especially the range where it sounds good, is limited. If you play too softly, the drum sounds bland and empty; but if you try to play even louder than the drum can do, all you get back is a dull, unidentifiable noise - and hand injuries, damaged blood cells and whatever. So my advice to a beginning drummer would be to work on your technique seriously from the start, so that when you're finally busy performing, you got that out of the way and can commit yourself to the music itself.

Thomas

Thomas Altmann wrote: but Tata wasn't a hard-hitting drummer.

Tata played with a beautifully wide dynamic range, but, whenever he tilted his head backwards, you knew it was about to get LOUD! His technique was impeccable in any case.