Amazing column, about something I’ve never heard of, and would have thought ludicrously impossible.
And more fuel for my Inner Hypochondriac.
Thanks a Lot.
Also, when the sun explodes it will have lost enough mass that it probably won’t consume the earth.
I was intrigued by this bit:
Unfortunately, upon looking up the reference, it was just trainers at a gym overworking two clients.
I play djembe with some pretty advanced players, and several of them (all men) report seeing blood in their urine after particularly long or brutal sets. I’m going to forward this column to them.
Which is exactly how I read it. Cecil just used the word “goon” to indicate his feelings towards the trainers.
Ditto. That darbuka is going in the closet.
I started getting into conga playing about a year ago but it didn’t stick. I’m kind of glad.
Also, it’s tough to sit comfortably while reading that article…
“I’ll stick to my pipes and my tabors”
– Iolanthe
As to the other matter, run out and get Death from the Skys!, by Phil Plait
I trying to imagine the lengths that you have to go to for this to happen. I assist at the first aid shack at a major neopagan festival grounds with all night, all day, 2-week drumming (think Burning Man, but much, much smaller) and in 10 years, I’ve never seen a single case. Blisters, bleeding hands, dehydration, torn off nails, sure. But no one peeing cola colored urine. :eek:
Maybe this isn’t the kind of thing people feel comfortable going to you about? See a doc tomorrow kinda thing? Maybe they think it’s something they drank?
If I hung out with WhyNot, and thought there would be anyone I could talk about funny-colored urine with, it’d be her.
Actually, I’d be willing to talk about funny-colored urine with a lot of people. But she’d be up near the top of the list.
Actually, I did think of one probable cause: it’s a campground. With no toilets. Presumably it’s harder to note the color of your urine when you’re hungover from drumming 36 hours straight and said urine is directly watering trees or going into a Porta-John instead of a nice white toilet bowl.
But I will have to ask my husband about it when he gets home from his business trip. He’s one of the drummers, I’m not. Maybe they know about this phenom already and so it’s not worth bringing to First Aid even if it is noticed.
Either way, I think maybe I’ll make a sign or something. Sounds like it’s really not a symptom to ignore, and I’ll have the captive eye of 800 or so avid drummers to help me spread the word. At the very least, I’ll alert the First Aid crew, so they don’t misdiagnose drummers as simply being dehydrated with concentrated urine when it could be this instead.
Thanks, Chronos! Feel free to PM me with urine color talk whenever you like. Pics optional. 
It could be that the amateur drummers haven’t built up enough callouses that would allow them to bongo the muscles in their hands into pulp.
Since it’s an impact-based thing, I don’t know that callouses would help much.
The Earth will be long gone by the time the sun explodes. The sun will first enter a red giant stage, where it expands to a size greater than the size of the Earth’s orbit.
No, I think he’s saying that an amateur, non-calloused drummer would get sore hands and stop drumming before he got to the point of funny urine.
Yeah, Chronos got it. That’s my not-so-clever clever way to putting it.
When I first started conga playing, anything over 30 minutes of practice would leave my fingertips and the palm side of my fingers feeling very red and sore. If I practiced for a full two hours with my band, they could feel sore for two days.
After practicing for a few months, I could whack the drumheads even harder than before, without my fingers becoming sore at all. By the time we got to performance, I could play the whole set with only a very light throbbing in my fingers.
I’m sure someone who has been playing for years can whack the drumhead a lot harder than me.
I notice in this context that Caroline Corr can be seen wearing half-gloves in the Royal Albert Hall concert, though she doesn’t always.