Hand Care For Hand Drummers: Lubricating Our Hands
by Jim Greiner
We love hitting things with our hands! This is part of the nature of hand
drummers. Of course, this does effect our hands. However, we can minimize
the harm we do to our hands by simply taking care of them. Any craftsperson
knows the value of taking care of his or her tools. Our hands are our tools!
This is the first in a series of articles I am writing to address the various elements of hand care for hand drummers. In future articles, I will cover how to take care of callouses, blisters and cracks, as well as the importance of how we hit our instruments.
I strongly recommend regularly using some sort of lubricant on your hands. I've use many different things over the years, depending upon the instrument, the situation, the results and my gut feeling.
Here are some that I've stuck with:
Lightweight skin creams and lotions with lanolin: These tend to soak into the hands without leaving a sticky residue on the surface that gets on the drum head.
Bag Balm: this is available in Feed & Grain-type stores and is used by dairy people to heal chapped udders on cows. (Yep!) They found that it also helps their own hands, especially in the cold, damp winters in the northern Plains states of the U.S.. It has good healing properties and is slightly anti-bacterial, as well. It is kind of thick and sticky, though. I use this when I'm not going to be playing for several hours. A dance teacher whose classes I used to accompany recommended this for her students' feet. So, I tried it and liked it.
Vitamin E oil: I live on this stuff! I take it internally (Fish Oil capsules) and externally. It feels good, heals well and is produced by nature.
Lip balm: yes, that's right ... the kind we use for chapped lips. I figured if it's good for lips it might be good for hands, so I tried it. It works great to heal splits, open blisters and other minor skin injuries.
Whatever you use, I suggest avoiding getting too much on your drum heads. A little lubicant on drum heads, especially thick conga skins, is preferred by some drummers. Even some djembe players, with thin goatskin heads, like some on their drum heads. Too much lubricant on drum heads, though, will dampen the sound, feel sticky when playing and cause dirt to cling to it.
Rub the lubricant well into your hands until there is none left on the surface of the skin (this also helps warm up the hands in cold weather). If there is any excess left on the surface of your hands, rub this excess off on a dry area of your arms.
I suggest setting a regular time of day to use lubricant ... every day, all year around, not just in cold weather. Create a hand-care rhythm! Your hands will thank you!
I encourage you to use the Ask Jim section of this site to submit your own suggestions, as well!