Thread: Learning zills: How long does it take?

I've been doing Michelle Joyce's 90 day challenge, and of the many things I need to work on, I decided to focus on my zill playing. Apparently, I had some significant delusions about how far practicing them for the better part of 90 hours was going to take me! So I was wondering, how much time did it take you to feel competent playing the zills?

ummmmmmm I don't know? Good question. We just drilled and practiced and it just happened. The muscle memory kicks in and you find that you don't have to think about it. You just do it...

It takes alot of practice. I think like anything else, you get it at first or you catch on later. In addition to what I learned class, I took two zill workshops and have been playing better ever since

I know it helps me to play them while doing a choreographed dance. It's like a half-step between improv-ing with them.

I've been at it a year and a half and it's still the most frustrating thing I practice. It's much easier to add them to a piece your body knows well then to try and improv with them. I never played an instument though so I don't know if that makes a difference.

You guys make me feel better about it. It is getting better. I am not a musician. I take them where ever I go and practice in the car too.

Zills are like anything else. It depends on how much you practice, you're innate aptitude, and any previous experience with similar things - in this case, playing an instrument.

No worries, it'll come when it comes. I like to say that due to my MANY years of classical music training, I took to Zills like a duck to water - until I tried moving about with them that is! ..l;, Then the duck sank... ..c::.w.:

I learned to zill during the first few months I was involved in the dance, and I think that really helped. However, it was a few years before I learned more than the basic alternating strike and/or gallop rhythm (or that there were different ways to play the zills -- i.e. RLR RLR or RLR LRL or RRL RRL, etc.), so learning to play the rhythm rather than a simple pattern was hard for me.

I'm a big believer that the most common problem with learning to dance with zills is when you learn them standing/sitting still and then try to move with them. Instant square one syndrome! I always tell my students to at least walk with them while you're learning to play the basics, it makes adding basic movement easier. When I practice to a dvd that has me sitting/standing and playing without movement, I just get up and march around the room a couple of times while playing, then I add a hip twist to the walk, then double sided hip twist, then I stand still, but do hip circles or figure 8's, then add them to the walking, etc., etc. For my learn-by-doing brain, that works the best.

I love zills although I am not very good at it!!!! A recent instructor did tell us to make sure that we moved while playing the zills and not just stand still. Someday, I hope to be able to play zills well!!!

Hm, for me, it took about 5 years of more or often less determined effort to get from seeing a dancer perform with zills to a live band to doing the same myself.

Originally Posted by kat

I'm a big believer that the most common problem with learning to dance with zills is when you learn them standing/sitting still and then try to move with them. Instant square one syndrome!

This is absolutely, utterly correct.

I hate them, but I am learning them. No,no, I don't hate it when others play them, I just look like a drunk duck dancing the hokey pokey when I try it! Takes time. It is easier for me to learn a choreo and then add zills then just dance with them.

Originally Posted by nilifer

I've been at it a year and a half and it's still the most frustrating thing I practice. It's much easier to add them to a piece your body knows well then to try and improv with them. I never played an instument though so I don't know if that makes a difference.

And yet, my experience is exactly the opposite!

Probably from being an improv-er from the beginning and a very occasional choreo-er many, many years later.

Deborah

I am learning. I'm a leftie so it's easier for me to mirror the teacher than stand behind her. She's determined to get me to learn as a rightie though. Why is that?

Here's another weird thing: I can play any rhythm standing still with any hand dominant, when I start to move, my mind makes the left hand the dominant one. My lefty-ness just sort of takes over. Anyone else have this happen?

PS I don't really like playing them. I just feel that with layering, moving around the room, smiling, posture, etc. there is already so much going on. Zils just end up frustrating me. I am determnined though as I love the sound of them and the contribution they make to the dance. (as long as someone ELSE is playing them!)

It literally took overnight. One day I put them on, sucked. Next day I performed with them, sucked. Next time I put them on to play and perform, I was actually keeping rhythm with the music and dancing at the same time.
Played them for many years and to live music but haven't played them for an equal amount of years and now I think I suck again!
..l;,

Originally Posted by HOOKEDNOVICE

I am learning. I'm a leftie so it's easier for me to mirror the teacher than stand behind her. She's determined to get me to learn as a rightie though. Why is that?

The reason I have my students learn right hand dominant is because I am treating it like a musical instrument and it is easier to communicate when everyone is doing it the same way- it may be more challenging at first, but think about any other instrument- on guitar, my left hand is honestly doing things more challenging than what I do with my right, but with practice I get it. I have lefty friends who can play guitar upside down, and if a lefty student really insists, I am not going to push the issue, but I do think it is worthwhile to learn to play this way. The way I teach, no matter what rhythm pattern you are using, essentially the right will be playing on 1,3,5,7 (or on the beat with loft on the half beat if it is 4/4)- the reason the right gets to play so much is because a lot of the rests in rhythm often falls on an even beat (or on the half beat) I personally think this makes it easier to annotate new rhythms when I am working on them. Now, sometimes this is fudged a bit depending on the specific rhythm, & it doesn't cover doing double beats on one hand for speed, but we don't need to go there just now!

as for when I felt comfortable- I can't really remember, but I still feel like I have miles to go & I've been playing for almost 18 years. Don't mean to be discouraging, just saying there is always someone better, and I can always be better than I am now.

I took to zills immediately. It came to me easily. It was early on in my baby student days. I have played instruments before though so that may have been why it was so easy for me. I am teaching my newbie students to play them right away too. We drill them in class while walking then doing basic movements. They are doing well with this. It will come. Practice practice practice. Good luck. Zills are fun.

ETA, I recently bought Michelle Joyce's Killer Ziller DVD and it is a great DVD. There are some really useful ideas and it helped me to describe/show a few things to my students. I strongly recommend it.

Zills ... the bane of my life! I have improved, but zills and me just ain't friends. I have never played an instrument, and i find it so hard to play and dance. I have been to worshops and i practice at home. I think maybe another 5 years and I might be OK. I have been learning to play zills for about 2-1/2 yrs of my 4 dancing years.

I love the sound of zills and wish i was even just average at it..cr.:

A million, billion years, in my case. I've gotten better with practice, but I'm still a long way from performing with them.

sooo many posting like this...why oh why dont teachers ever let zills get out of a students hands ? EVERYBODY here NEVER has them off from the 3rd week of classes, for the whole hour.

Originally Posted by zamora

sooo many posting like this...why oh why dont teachers ever let zills get out of a students hands ? EVERYBODY here NEVER has them off from the 3rd week of classes, for the whole hour.

We need intensive immersion in the Zamora technique!

Seriously, most of the instructors around here don't consider zills to be integral to belly dance. It's taught as a special skill, maybe, but not *necessary*.

Took me about a year of steady practice to get competent enough to feel comfortable playing in public, but I've been playing for a few years now and I'm still working my butt off to get better. :-)

Starting out, I found a really loud belly dance club night in town and went with zills when I noticed other dancers doing so as well. You couldn't hear anything other than the thumping music in that club anyway, so it was a good place to practice basics while jumping around.

After that, steady classes with Artemis Mourat kicked my ass into learning more advanced patterns.

I suggest just playing them all the time during practice. I also like John Compton's "Zill Dance" DVD/video, for beginners.

Um...and I've even been known to practice while driving. Um. I don't recommend that.

I had zills in my hands in my fourth class so I didn't have to relearn anything. When I started I practiced hours daily, sometimes just with walking so I could get use to movement while playing. One thing I learned is to make sure you hold your arms over your head while practicing or the minute you try to play while performing, you yank your arms in and get chicken wings.

I used to practice while driving until a police officer told me to stop.

Now, I can't perform without zills. I try to add new rhythms and larger zills and whatever challenge I come up with on any given day.

I know that not everyone likes to perform with zills but I think they really can add to a performance. My boyfriend says I don't play enough when I dance but I try to use them strategically while dancing and I do have a lot of people comment about them. Plus ... shiny.

Originally Posted by Taj

A million, billion years, in my case. I've gotten better with practice, but I'm still a long way from performing with them.

Hugs to everyone for affirming that it *is* difficult- makes me feel a lot better about it... OK, and to Azhia and the other zill-whizzes, too.

One thing that I love about my teacher is that at every class we practice zills for at least 10 minutes. So I've been doing that once a week for over a year and by now I'm quite decent at them.

I was told at least a year, it is a musical instrument after all, just because it is easy to make them make a noise, doesn't mean they will be easy to play proficiently.

I play with an alternating lead (RLR LRL RLR LRL or RLR L RLR L RLR or whatever) and no teacher has ever tried to stop me! If a teacher is calling out lefts and rights I don't change, I just make sure I am keeping the correct rhythm, it doesn't sound any different (except perhaps that rolls are a lot easier if you are used to alternating all the time)

Zils was a very natural, easy thing for me to learn. On the same note, though, learning Middle Eastern rhythms when I was a beginner was very easy for me, too-I remember being a newbie in my beginner class, and being able to recognize a beledi, chiftitelli, 9/8, and all of that immediately after the first demonstration and explanation of what they were.

It is one of those things, really, that I think is born into you. Some people can recognize the rhythms, beat, etc. naturally and it really helps with zill playing...and others have to work at it.

I have students who can do beautiful isolations, and who can play the zill patterns-but I have to get onto them about staying with the rhythm. I tell them it doesn't matter how fast you can zill, if the music is not at that tempo! ..l;,

Some people are naturally going to be more adept at it than others. I took to zills very quickly-but I naturally DO take to music. I was invited into the high school marching band when I was in 7TH GRADE and in MIDDLE SCHOOL by the school system's music instructor..

Originally Posted by HOOKEDNOVICE

I am learning. I'm a leftie so it's easier for me to mirror the teacher than stand behind her. She's determined to get me to learn as a rightie though. Why is that?

Here's another weird thing: I can play any rhythm standing still with any hand dominant, when I start to move, my mind makes the left hand the dominant one. My lefty-ness just sort of takes over. Anyone else have this happen?

My teacher is a lefty and plays that way so she explains them both ways, "for righties, R L R for lefties L R L" or Odd on your dominant hand even on your other. If you are lefty, play lefty, no one expects you to write with your right hand so why zill that way?

I zill left dominant, but I'm trying to train my right hand to be dominant (I have yet to be successful). The only reason I've bothered trying to do that is I've had at least one teacher make the point that it may look off if I ever play zills in a group, since most people I believe are right hand dominant.