Thread: A confession and a plea!

First, background: I've been dancing about 30 years. I'm definitely old-school, so zill-playing is a big part of what I've always done. However, my first major instructor heard music differently than I do. Her main flaw as a teacher was that she could only teach things one way and if you couldn't learn it that way then it was your fault. As a consequence, I ended up being self-taught in zilling and never learned the patterns that everyone else seemed to do.

I play zills well enough to receive compliments from some highly respected zill players, so I have no particular problem with my zill style. However, I'm teaching zill playing (I will NOT allow zill-playing to die out!) and would like to offer my students the option to play my way or the standard way.

I can play the gallop and variations and can teach it along with movements. What I can't do is figure out how the pattern relates to the rhythm.

So, using the terms that I am most familiar with (and knowing that some people will cringe because they are not the 'proper' terms) what I need to know, understand, and be able to articulate is this: In a Beledi rhythm (or masmoudi Saghir, if you prefer) which I understand to be DD T D T, how do the 1,2,3 1,2,3 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 fit? That is, I always got lost between the two. I can dance and drum the rhythm, and can play the 1,2,3 and dance to it but I could never figure out how they went together.

Help, anyone?

123,123,123,123,1 That is a 3 over 4 rhythm that will fit in the beledi rhythm. So you can do the gallop but with the extra beat, it meshes with the 4/4. Z-Helene taught me that one.

I learned a beladi rythym as:
1,1,123,1,123 (or) R,R,RLR,R,RLR
sung to the words: "I like chicken wings, not chicken legs"

123 123 1234567

gotta dance gotta dance gotta chicken in my pants

Find where the 1 is in your zill rhythm and you'll be able to fit it to your Dums and teks in the drum.

I'm not a musically trained expert, I'm sure someone will chime in and explain it better but I'll have a go.

In the rhythm you describe (I call it sevens for short): LRL LRL LRLRLRL

if you count it like this: and a 1, and a 2, and a 1 2 1 2 3

you can see that the 1 occurs at the end of the first set of zill hits (is there a name for that? tinks?)

In the Masmoudi Saghir the 1 occurs on the first Dom.

So the zill pattern had to anticipate the drum pattern to fit in. People who have an innate feel for the music do this instinctively, often without even realising it. Once I realised that was happening, it became a lot easier to explain zills.

PS I hope I didn't miss the point of your question ...

I took it to mean you were trying to explain to your students how that particular zill pattern LRL LRL LRLRLRL would fit in with masmoudi saghir

most people seem to play beledi on zills as caasious mentions above
RR RLR R RLR (or opposite if you're left handed)

but I've never been taught that you *must* play any particular zill pattern with any particular drum rhythm, just that the zills must follow the tempo and timing of the drums. Just like all the other instruments do.

FYI Kitty : )

I'm taking over a beginner class and we will be zilling first thing every class : )

OK, let me clarify. I can teach 1,2,3 and 1,2,3 1,2,3 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. And teach moveing with it. I can teach drumming and how to count the rhythm in the music using D and T. And I zill perfectly well to the tempo or to the rhythm.

What I can't figure out how to explain is: if the music is counting DD T D T where do the zills go 1,2,3 in relation to the D? Or the D T?

BTW, I'm left handed and discovered years into everything that at least part of my problem with most teachers was hearing RLR. Doesn't work with Lefties. Morocco, bless her heart, is a leftie. She teaches 1,2,3.

Originally Posted by kahaz

First, background: I've been dancing about 30 years. I'm definitely old-school, so zill-playing is a big part of what I've always done. However, my first major instructor heard music differently than I do. Her main flaw as a teacher was that she could only teach things one way and if you couldn't learn it that way then it was your fault. As a consequence, I ended up being self-taught in zilling and never learned the patterns that everyone else seemed to do.

Being self taught is not necessarily a problem. In Middle Eastern cultures, music is often something you "grow up around," and not always something you take formal classes in, especially with a percussion instrument.

So, using the terms that I am most familiar with (and knowing that some people will cringe because they are not the 'proper' terms) what I need to know, understand, and be able to articulate is this: In a Beledi rhythm (or masmoudi Saghir, if you prefer) which I understand to be DD T D T, how do the 1,2,3 1,2,3 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 fit? That is, I always got lost between the two. I can dance and drum the rhythm, and can play the 1,2,3 and dance to it but I could never figure out how they went together.

Help, anyone?

I hate the number notation because it does not give you any clue as to what the length of the notes and rests are. What you wrote does not remind me of the traditional zill pattern most people learn for Masmoudi Saghir, i.e., [tek-a-] doum doum tek-a-tek doum tek-a-tek. It actually looks more like what I was taught as a variation for the first half of Masmoudi Kebir, i.e., [tek-a-] doum, tek-a-doum, tek-a-tek-a-tek-a-tek. If that is the case, your confusion is that the first "1,2,3" is the [tek-a-] pickup and the first doum, so Count 1 of the music is actually a "3" in your notation. In other words, the first "1,2,3" is the beginning "[tek-a-] doum" part.

Originally Posted by caasious

I learned a beladi rythym as:
1,1,123,1,123 (or) R,R,RLR,R,RLR
sung to the words: "I like chicken wings, not chicken legs"

Ditto! This is how I've taught beladi in the past. It works for most students that need to count or chant the zill drill.

Amy Renee
Arabian Flair - Modern Bellydance Company

What Tourbeau said. the 1, 2, 3 pattern played over Beledi (aka Masmoudi Saghir) is actually tek a Doum = 1, 2, 3. So the 3 of that pattern is actually on the 1 or Doum of the drum pattern.

I tell students to think of Lawrence Welk, "And-a One, and-a Two"
And-a-One = 1, 2, 3.

Musicians refer to those first two notes, the "tek a" or the "and a" as "pick up notes," meaning notes that begin BEFORE the measure or rhythm pattern starts.

Hope that makes some kind of sense for you.

Originally Posted by kahaz

What I can't figure out how to explain is: if the music is counting DD T D T where do the zills go 1,2,3 in relation to the D? Or the D T?

Okay, try playing a 3 pattern along to a baladi first. Tap your foot on 1, 2, 3, 4. Say the baladi with your voice (dom dom tek dom tek = 1& & 3 4). There is no such thing as too slow. Play the following on your cymbals:

ioiDDiTooiDiooT
&a1&a2&a3&a4

(where &a#=RLR RLR RLR RLR OR LRL LRL LRL LRL)

Now, with a matching masmoudi soghaeyer/beledi cymbal pattern (*no pickup/embellishment*):

DDiioTooDooiT
1&iiio&ooi3oo4


I am pretty passionate about finger cymbals, too...learned them from day one of my first belly dance class nearly two decades ago, and teach them from day one today. If you want to PM me I would be open to talking on the phone about this (it would be easier to explain how I learned/teach it in person!).

BTW, I'm left handed and discovered years into everything that at least part of my problem with most teachers was hearing RLR. Doesn't work with Lefties. Morocco, bless her heart, is a leftie. She teaches 1,2,3.

Yeah, I can see that. To teach I have had to become ambidextrous (I call it 'ambi-zill-strous', which I totally stole from Morocco once telling me that all belly dancers* need to be "ambi-hip-strous"!), learn to say the opposite of what my hands are doing, and use both numbers, doms/ka/teks, and rights and lefts). Crazy.

I studied drumming and tambourine with Mary Ellen Donald for a couple of years in the early 2000s, and that helped a lot. Working with an instructor where visual feedback was not possible really forced me to focus on sound and technique, and just...shifted my percussion (including cymbals) in an unexpectedly positive way.


*she did not use the term belly dance :)

P.S. I hope everything lines up here...I had to insert letters and then change the font to white so that the numbers and the doum-teks matched up!

Zill ocd 4evah. ;)

Monica is correct.

It is very important to teach your students that when they play 123, the "1" isn't on the downbeat of the measure, it is on the upbeat of the preceeding measure. This is especially confusing at the beginning of a piece of music, where there is no preceeding measure. If you are going to use your counting method, it may be helpful to teach it without the pickup at the beginning, for example:

3, 123, 123, 123, 123....

Some students will just listen to you play, copy it, and be able to keep the patterns in their head early on. They may instinctively recognize the "1" of a measure, rhythms, and phrasing of music without understanding it on an intellectual level.

Many other students will benefit by a more objective approach. They need to learn to find the "1" of a measure, count the beats, and know how the cymbal strikes relate to the counts etc.

Originally Posted by caasious

I learned a beladi rythym as:
1,1,123,1,123 (or) R,R,RLR,R,RLR
sung to the words: "I like chicken wings, not chicken legs"

I learned it this way too!
But first we had to get the doums right, after that we filled it up with the tek a teks ,r:;

We were taught that zills are a percussion instrument and are played with the same notations as the drum.
Doum, tek, ka. Right hand is doum, tek,
left hand is ka. Never have understood the numbers thing. :) There are fillers inbetween the main beats. Beledi is -
DD tka tk D tka tk (tka)
Elizabeth

oiDDiTooiDiooT
&a1&a2&a3&a4

Monica:

Perfect! That's what I was trying to verbalize. Which should have been obvious; the first mantra that I learned with zills was 'step on three, always on three' (while playing 1,2,3).

Thank-you!

Originally Posted by smwia80

We were taught that zills are a percussion instrument and are played with the same notations as the drum.
Doum, tek, ka. Right hand is doum, tek,
left hand is ka. Never have understood the numbers thing. :) There are fillers inbetween the main beats. Beledi is -
DD tka tk D tka tk (tka)
Elizabeth

Interesting; this is one of the ways that I play and teach. I learned to drum the basics about the same time I was learning to zill-like immediately-so it just made sense to me.

It seems like half of the threads I am posting in degenerate into a discussion of the "bellydance don't get no respect" thing, but this is something that absolutely drives me crazy. I know a lot of people love the "1,2,3 1,2,3" notation and the "3, 3, 7" notation and the "I'm playing triplets" business, but they're all freakin' wrong from a Western musical standpoint! Western civilization has an established system of musical notation and, in the absence of formal training in the Arabic system, most dancers use Western terminology--only at least half of them use it incorrectly. You cannot take a word that has an accepted meaning and randomly assign another definition to it. Hey, let's all become French chefs, but let's use the word "beurre" to mean "apples," and "pomme de terre" can be "pork chop," and let's call a "frying pan" "le fromage" from now on! This willful persistence in misunderstanding and misusing standard musical terminology is absolutely insane, and it's no wonder the rest of the fine arts world (you know, the ones who had to have formal musical study as part of their training) look at us like we're a bunch of ignorant goofs. If you haven't studied music (don't care, are afraid to learn, whatever...), then train yourself and your students to think in terms of "doums" and "teks" because at least that's what it sounds like coming out of the drum.

Originally Posted by kahaz

Perfect! That's what I was trying to verbalize. Which should have been obvious; the first mantra that I learned with zills was 'step on three, always on three' (while playing 1,2,3).

Argh, no! Your first mantra should have been "Find a teacher who knows where Count 1 is in the music! Find a teacher who knows where Count 1 is in the music!" I am sure you are a lovely and intuitive zill player, and I don't mean to get all ranting and harsh and single you out in an ocean of other people who have also been unwittingly taught in the same spirit of ignorance, but I think it would be extremely beneficial to you and everybody else who learned this whacked-out, pidgin musical system to do a mental reinstall of some uncorrupted software. It isn't that hard to learn how to read Western musical notation, and it will make a huge difference in not just how you hear and understand the instrumental composition of a piece, but in developing a deeper feeling for how your finger cymbal playing should fit into it. (It'll also go a long way toward keeping you from losing your place in more complex and foreign-sounding rhythms like the Turkish 9/8, if that's something you typically struggle with!)

Originally Posted by kahaz

oiDDiTooiDiooT
&a1&a2&a3&a4

Monica:

Perfect! That's what I was trying to verbalize. Which should have been obvious; the first mantra that I learned with zills was 'step on three, always on three' (while playing 1,2,3).

Thank-you!

I am so glad it helped!

I strongly suggest never saying 123 again. ;) Change it to 'and a 1, and a 2, and a 3, and a 4', which is what your 123s represent. It will make finding the count in the music--and matching it to your cymbals--much more straightforward, especially with more complex rhythms. So in your example above, you are actually stepping on the 1 (not the 3).

i have a zill playing book and you can play the patterns on right or left. it is up to the person. the gitty up it lrl lrl lrl
or rlr rlr rlr . the book really helped me out and made me think out of the box.

Originally Posted by kahaz

OK, let me clarify. I can teach 1,2,3 and 1,2,3 1,2,3 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. And teach moveing with it. I can teach drumming and how to count the rhythm in the music using D and T. And I zill perfectly well to the tempo or to the rhythm.

What I can't figure out how to explain is: if the music is counting DD T D T where do the zills go 1,2,3 in relation to the D? Or the D T?

BTW, I'm left handed and discovered years into everything that at least part of my problem with most teachers was hearing RLR. Doesn't work with Lefties. Morocco, bless her heart, is a leftie. She teaches 1,2,3.

My 2 cents from what I am understanding is: where in DD T D T does 123 fit? It should fit like this: D(1) D(2) T(3) D(1) T(2). So the rhythm would sound 123 12 123 12 123 12 or Lefties - LRL LR LRL LR LRL LR - Righties RLR RL RLR RL RLR RL - That help???

One of my best investments (and I have been playing zills since the beginning - 17 yrs ago) was this DVD - Saroyan presents How to Play Finger Cymbals with Mesmera. It's great and for seasoned players it really sharpens your skills but it is simple enough for newbies to pick up.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

II know a lot of people love the "1,2,3 1,2,3" notation and the "3, 3, 7" notation and the "I'm playing triplets" business, but they're all freakin' wrong from a Western musical standpoint!

Tourbeau, I agree with you for the most part; my post was more directed to people who were already entrenched with the 123, 123, stuff (I do not teach that way; I generally either use the count (and-a-1, and-a-2, etc.), or in some cases use drum-speak.)

I think students believe that that system is easier, because it does not require up-front study of any unfamiliar musical notation, nor does it require them to come to any real understanding of the rhythms. It produces an artificial sense of "easiness" that tends to evaporate rapidly when the student gets home and realizes that if the rhythm isn't in their heads, they can't reconstruct it from these numbering systems (123, 123, 123; 1,1,123,1,123).

For example, I can chant 123, 123, 123, 123 in the intended way, or as a series of true musical triplets, or a waltz, or a double jig, or really what ever I want because the numbers don't tell you how long strikes are or where the rests are.

On the other hand, the demand for western musical notation as the only answer doesn't rest well with me. I know lots of very good folk musicians who have limited music theory (or none).

I like how Shira presents the information on her online finger cymbal workshop: Belly Dance: Finger Cymbals For 4/4 Music because she presents sound clips, drum talk, hand patterns, simple counts, and western musical notation. If a teacher is to effectively teach to different kinds of learners, I think this is the way to go.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I know a lot of people love the "1,2,3 1,2,3" notation and the "3, 3, 7" notation and the "I'm playing triplets" business, but they're all freakin' wrong from a Western musical standpoint! Western civilization has an established system of musical notation and, in the absence of formal training in the Arabic system, most dancers use Western terminology--only at least half of them use it incorrectly. You cannot take a word that has an accepted meaning and randomly assign another definition to it. Hey, let's all become French chefs, but let's use the word "beurre" to mean "apples," and "pomme de terre" can be "pork chop," and let's call a "frying pan" "le fromage" from now on!

This willful persistence in misunderstanding and misusing standard musical terminology is absolutely insane, and it's no wonder the rest of the fine arts world (you know, the ones who had to have formal musical study as part of their training) look at us like we're a bunch of ignorant goofs. If you haven't studied music (don't care, are afraid to learn, whatever...), then train yourself and your students to think in terms of "doums" and "teks" because at least that's what it sounds like coming out of the drum.

Thank you for saying this. I agree.

OK, I'm going to stay calm as I respond to this. I have been dancing (and zill and drum playing) for a great many years. I take workshops in all styles of my art and in music that I can and work hard at finely representing the dance. I spend even more time on research and trying to be certain that any information that I pass onto my students is as accurate as possible and when I discover that I have been wrong I do my best to correct it. I also try to get as many influences for students as I can; when I realized that most were not going to travel out of town for workshops I got into the production business to bring the best to them.

I am not a musician. The bits of musicality that I do know I have learned to better my dancing.

If you check my original quesiton, I stated that I DON'T use the 'triplets' or '1,2,3' myself. I did mention the Doums and Teks because that's what I use. Many workshops with drummers later have given me a rudmentary understanding of the rhythms involved and I use them.

However: I am a teacher. And I have been a teacher and a student long enough to have learned that one way is frequently not the only way. And while learning from a musical standpoint worked quite well for me, I recognize that other more analytical students are going to learn better from the standard 'pattern' repertoire. I owe it to them to learn all that I can, so I can help them be better.

Please don't make judgments about other dancers because we have seen the world differently.

Kahaz, in Tourbeau's defense, her comments seemed directed at a widespread and general problem, not just to you or your specific situation. Her criticism of the "step on the 3" concept I would interpret as a criticism of whoever taught that to you, not you.

It is really easy to take things as a personal attack when in fact they are not. If you reread her post I think she is clearly not.

Originally Posted by Monica

ioiDDiTooiDiooT
&a1&a2&a3&a4

I agree with Monica's breakdown. Extending it to the 123, 123, 1234567 pattern the OP asked about, I think that would go:

&aDum &aTek &aDum-ee &aTek

That might make more sense if I go through the process:

(note: I find it easier to count out beledy with the more filled in version DDTkTDTkT (instead of the sparser DDTDT), so I'm going to go with my version.)

Anyway, if you start from the beat:
1 2 3 4

And add in the Rhythm:
1-----2------3------4
DD---TkT---D,Tk---T
(so the 1234 beats would be DTDT)

Then the add the pattern:
---1------2-----3---------4
---DD----TkT--D,Tk-----T
&a1---&a2--&a3e-----&a4


So, if you replace Dums and Teks for the 1234, you get:

and-a-Dum, and-a-tek, and-a-Dum-ee-and-a-Tek


I wrote up a more generalized (i.e., geeky) process that you can use to reverse-engineer your zil patterns, but it was too long for this post, so I'll have to post it separately.

p.s. Zil geeks of the world UNITE!

Here's the general process for figuring out how the beat, rhythm, and zil patterns match up.


Part 1) Figuring out where the rhythm meets the beat

- start walking with an even pace. Make sure that you step evenly on the 1234

- start speaking the rhythmic pattern in dums and teks. Don't worry about counts, just speak it out as you walk.

- once you've really got it going, start paying attention to what you are saying each time your foot hits the floor.

- keep speaking the full rhythm in your head, but try to speak only the parts that coincide with a step. i.e., you'd say "Dum-Dum, tek-ka-tek, Dum, tek-ka-tek" in your head, but your mouth would only say "Dum, Tek, Dum, Tek"
(this may take a couple of tries)

- Before you forget, write out the rhythm, making it clear which stroke of the rhythm hits the 1,2,3, and 4 of the beat. i.e.,:
1----2-----3----4
Dd--Tkt---Dtk--T



Part 2) Figuring out where the zil pattern meets the beat

- start walking with an even pace. Make sure that you step evenly on the 1234

- start playing the zil pattern. Don't think too hard about the timing; just get it going the way you would instinctively play it.

- start SPEAKING the zil pattern, and keep speaking it as you let the finger cymbals drop out.

- once you've got it going with your voice, start paying attention to what you are saying each time your foot hits the floor.

- keep speaking the full zil pattern in your head, but try to speak only the parts that coincide with a step. i.e., you'd say "Shave and a hair-cut, shave and a hair-cut" in your head, but your mouth would only say "Shave, Hair, Shave, Hair"
(Again, this may take a couple of tries)

- Write down where the zil pattern fits into the 1234 of the beat, i.e.,
1--------------2-----------3--------------4
SHAVE and a HAIR Cut, SHAVE and a HAIR Cut


Part 3) Merging the beat and the rhythm

Knowing how the zils and the rhythm each fit with the underlying beat may be enough. If not, you can merge the zil pattern and the rhythm into one thing you can speak out. here's how:

- combine your two written-out versions into one chart:
1--------------2-----------3--------------4
Dd------------Tkt---------Dtk------------T
SHAVE and a HAIR Cut, SHAVE and a HAIR Cut

- trace down the column for the 1234. Under the 1, replace whatever you said for the zil pattern (i.e, shave) with whatever drum stroke is in the rhythm row (i.e., dum). Repeat for the 2, 3, and 4.

In this case, your substituted chart would look like:

1------------2---------3-----------4
Dd----------Tkt-------Dtk---------T
DUM and a TEK Cut, DUM and a TEK Cut


So you would speak:
Dum and a Tek-Cut, Dum and a Tek-Cut


The more I think about it, the more I have come to believe that dance is as much a brainteaser as it is an art. :)

Nadira:

PERFECT! Thank-you. For myself, I will continue to work with the Doums and Teks and the tempo, but this is one more tool for my students that are having trouble getting there.

As I said, you may have a very good sense of intuitive musicianship when it comes to playing finger cymbals. I haven't heard you play. Unfortunately, you have indicated by your comments that you were not given a good foundation in the musical theory of Arabic rhythms by your teacher, which is a certainly not an advantage. It was meant as a criticism of your teacher and others like her, not an accusation that you can't play well, or that you couldn't overcome any gaps in your initial understanding of the material. I'm quite confident the Arab world has plenty of people who could play rings around the cream of our crop, while not being able to read a note of music, or know the names of the rhythms and maqams. Sometimes we get bogged down in the details because we have such a Westernized, academic approach to everything.

Having said all of that, the answer to your original question would have been simplified if you could read music. Hossam Ramzy has musical notation for the basic rhythms in the liner notes for his "Rhythms of the Nile" CD, which I find to be very handy--and much clearer than any combination of D's and T's and dashes and numbers and catchy phrases--because it conveys both the doum/tek sounds and the timing of the rhythm with no ambiguity. As Sedonia alluded, there are shortcomings to using the Western notation system for Arabic music (how would you indicate hand-playing order or whether you were making a ring instead of a clack on your zills?), but I think it is the best system we have as dancers.

I understand that people respond to different styles of learning, and some people "think" music, while others "hear" it or "feel" it. That doesn't excuse teachers who propagate obvious misinformation, though. Western musical notation evolved and became widely accepted for a reason--it's compact, clear, and consistent.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

As Sedonia alluded, there are shortcomings to using the Western notation system for Arabic music (how would you indicate hand-playing order or whether you were making a ring instead of a clack on your zills?), but I think it is the best system we have as dancers.

For Arabic music with microtones maybe (although there is a system in place for half-flats in Western music, so I should think that could apply to quartertones) but for percussion it's perfectly reasonable to use Western notation. You notate a ring or clack the same way as an American percussionist notates closed and open sounds:

(briefly noted here:)

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percussion_notation]Percussion notation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

I understand that people respond to different styles of learning, and some people "think" music, while others "hear" it or "feel" it. That doesn't excuse teachers who propagate obvious misinformation, though.

I missed something -- what was the obvious misinformation being propagated?