When being a performer, it is important that we keep ourselves both musically and physically healthy, for a number of reasons, as being a performer does come with some health risks that can affect your performance on stage. That does not help when trying to deliver your best.
Physical Aspects
As a performer, there are a number of physical aspects that you need to watch out for, for a number of reasons.
For example, weight training would be a suitable exercise for someone that needs to lift heavy objects, such as drummers/drum techs as they will have to carry around cymbal bags, bass drums etc. without some form of training and if theres a struggle it could physically harm whoever is lifting. Long term injuries of lifting too much and too heavy objects include muscle and spinal injuries which can lead to having to pack in performing all together.
Another aspect that you need to take care of, especially when touring, is lack of sleep. Touring globally, means you'll be in a wide variety of time zones, constantly adjusting can lead to jet lag, which can further lead to overall tiredness. Tiredness on stage will translate to your performance. This applies to more than touring, The regular, 9-5 working employee won't be able to see your gig till late at night. For example a bar might hire your band for an 8pm show, if you have say an hour of material that takes you till 9pm, it takes around 40 minutes to completely pack up your equipment and you live an hour from the venue, that takes you to around 11pm to be the time you get home. Skip to the next day and a below average time of sleep, and you have to be at another venue the next day at 8 am to set up and soundcheck your gear. All this combined will cause fatigue so, sleep and rest is another huge factor.
Muscular strains - Being a drummer is physically demanding. After a while the constant battering and overuse of muscles will lead to not being able to use them and not be able to drum to the best you can, so looking after your muscles is a must, similar to how you need to look out for heavy lifting, it all adds up to strain on the muscle.
Maintaining a healthy diet is essential. While tequila and jack daniels is an option as your choice of hydration, water should be your go to. And you shouldn't wait till you're thirsty, drinking between songs can keep you alert and increase your performance quality.
Musical Aspects
This applies to mainly the people who work with drums too, and it involves noise. When being exposed to loud sounds for a long amount of time without using any form of protection, it can lead to a condition known as tinnitus. Tinnitus is where the hairs in the ear are bent the wrong way permanently, which can lead to permanent hearing loss and as a performer if you cant hear the music around you, it makes performing extremely hard, and as of now, there is no operation or cure for Tinnitus. 110 DB is where sound becomes dangerous, where sound protection is needed. While there are some cheap ways of protecting your hearing, its probably worth investing in some expensive form of ear defence for playing live, these include ear plugs with frequency filters, that block out certain sounds - for example if the bassist is playing next to a hard hitting drummer, in the ear closest to him, he may have loud frequencies dimmed down. these can start from £15/20 depending on the quality. The more expensive solution would be to get custom in ear monitors, top of the range in ear monitors can start at £200, but are 100% worth it, they isolate sounds, and play sounds at a safe level like regular in ear earphones.
Cables on stage are a subtle, but huge danger. If left exposed, a dark venue could turn the loose cables invisible if they aren't properly dealt with, the obvious danger is tripping over the cables, thats a danger in itself, but it can also cause damage to cables and amps - if the force is so big, it can completely sever cables, making them useless. This can also cause damage to the amps, messing up the connections to plug in cables, alternatively if the other end of the cable is plugged in to a guitar rig, a rig that could be expensive, would also get destroyed. loose cables cause harm not only to humans, but to the musical instruments, these can be avoided by using cable management tools, simply duct taping cables together and to the ground can be a massive help when being safe.
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