Thread: Review:Jamila Salimpour's Finger Cymbal manual and CD

I thought it might be helpful to put this here too. My response to Sonya2's question in the thread in the Student forum

OK [deep breath]-bare with me, as there is a lot of info. I ordered from the Suhaila Website the Jamila Salimpour "Learning to play finger cymbals with Jamila" CD and also Jamila's "An Illustrated Manual of Finger Cymbal Instruction". I had to buy them separate but maybe now she has packaged them together?
The CD:
It starts with a small inrto to finger cymbals and their origin/history. Then there are 26 tracks each of a different pattern:
3 (longa)
3,3,7
3,7,3
3,5,5
3,1,3,1,3
3,5,1,3
4 (quads)
4,4,7
4,7,4
4,5,1,4
4,1,4,1,4
L,R,R (X4),4
Singles
Singles half-time
Singles full-time
Alternating 4's and 5's
4,4,10
2,6
L,R Together
3,3,7 with L,R,Together
3,7,3 with L,R,Together
3,5,5 with L,R,Together
3,1,3,1,3 with L,R,Together
3,5,1,3 with L,R,Together
5's (using L,R, Together)
Moori pattern
She ends with an example of playing using a variety of patterns to music and a brief conclusion about playing.
Jamila uses a right hand dominant way of playing the cymbals-always starting on the right hand on the one unless otherwise noted as in L,R,R (x4),4 or L,R together. She mixes her verbal annotations from numbers 1,2,3,4… and letters R,L,R,L... Each track follows the same progressive pattern just about; first in half time and then in full time:
1) Her voice only saying the pattern using numbers and letters
2) Saying the pattern and playing the cymbals
3) Only playing the cymbals
When she is only playing the cymbals in full time, background music is added to play along with (the same music is played for each pattern and to what she plays as her example at the end of the CD in her conclusion).

Overall the cd is good. It covers a lot of patterns. Many of the patterns are VERY difficult and the track times are very short averaging only about a minute or so. This makes it very hard to practice with her. Because she speaks at the beginning of each track you can't put it on loop to make it longer since the speaking breaks it up anyway. With as difficult as the patterns get I can't imagine being able to actually dance while playing them without years upon years of practice. Even though it may never happen to me in this lifetime-lol-I am glad to have at least been exposed to all of the patterns though. From her short performance/conclusion on the last track is super short (44secs) it is obvious she is a very skilled master!
I would recommend this to anyone who has at least a basic background/knowledge/understanding of finger cymbals. I don't feel this is for a beginner and would perhaps turn them off from wanting to learn to play due to the fast pace of the cd and difficulty of a lot of the patterns. Don't expect to learn how to dance with cymbals from this cd alone-it isn't addressed at all.
cont...

cont...
The manual consists of...
1) Introduction (same as the cd)
2) History of FC from the Evolution of Related Percussion Instruments-a short essay followed by many very interesting illustrations of what she wrote about. Each picture has a caption of what it is you are looking at. (10 pages)
3) Short explanation about FC's how to put them on (including elastic attaching), where to wear them on the fingers, how your arms should be held and what your other fingers should be doing to support the middle finger. Also a legend as to what her letters mean L=left, R=right Tg=together etc...
4)If 26 from the CD wasn’t enough well here ya’ go…The patterns: there are 43 in this book. The first 26 are the same as the cd. Each pattern is written as you would see it on a bar of sheet music including, the time signature (ie 4/4, 9/8). Above each note is the number annotation of the pattern and below is the L/R letter annotation.
Beyond the first 26 patterns (Let me bow to you right now if you have gotten successfully that far-lol) are the following:
Running 5’s (not using L, R, Together)
Running 7’s
Running 10’s!!!
2,6,10
2,6,10,7,1,3,3
Kashlama (4 versions total)
Waheede’h
3 and 12/4 singles (I don’t even know what that is)
Taqsim basic
Taqsim 2
Taqsim 3
Masmoode’h
Running 6’s
5) Lastly in the manual is “The Jamila Method for Teaching Beginners How to Co-ordinate Finger Cymbals with Foot Work” giving 7 exercises and then a list of beginning steps to use with the exercises.
I would recommend this manual for anyone who needs a visual to learning the patterns on the CD. I was very glad that I bought the two together and it helped me a lot to understand what she was saying on the CD tracks. I use both of them at the same time and have been able to lengthen my track practice by stopping the CD and continuing following along with the manual. When it comes to the even more complicated patterns it is almost useless information unless you have an experienced person to explain to you what it is supposed to sound like or you yourself can site read sheet music very well.

Overall: I think that an intermediate/advance zill player, someone who wants to learn new and complex patterns or someone interested in some history could best utilize these. Do not buy these thinking it will help your dancing with zills. However, I do think that they are both filled with a lot of amazing information and add a lot to your dance library and overall knowledge. I definitely would be to buy these together; they support each other very well.

Phew-that was a lot-lol. Hope it helps.

:) Heather

I highly recommend Jamila CD and Manual and even better her workshops...Level II starting tomorrow...
I personally use her patterns and perform with it, I have seen tremendous improvement and confidence with my zill playing skill.

i really like her CD and manual and i use them both at least 3-5 times a week

I am smiling quietly to myself because at least the first few of these rhythms are exactly what I was taught. The Salimpour is strong in my land. I will definitely purchase it if the dosh becomes available.

Now I am curious to try this one. .w.:

Originally Posted by turkishdancer

I highly recommend Jamila CD and Manual and even better her workshops...Level II starting tomorrow...
I personally use her patterns and perform with it, I have seen tremendous improvement and confidence with my zill playing skill.

I would give ANYTHING to have that opportunity!!! I have been lucky enough to take a workshop with Suhaila but not Jamila. You girls that live close or have the opportunity to travel to them are so lucky and I am soooo jealous

:) Heather

I have the cd - but I need to start practicing!

If you'd like help matching Jamila's patterns to actual dancing, I recommend the Hahbi Ru Level 3 video, The Cymbal Dance. Beginner and early intermediate dancers should start with their Level 1 and Level 2 videos to learn the step combinations that they work with before tackling Level 3. More advanced dancers who can pick up step combinations easily might be okay with going straight to the Level 3 video. All three are reviewed on my web site at Belly Dancing: Shira's Reviews of Instructional Videos, Alphabetical List

Now that Suhaila online classes are going...you can take at least one Jamila class a week, I guess at least 4 classes a month. Also you can buy all Jamila Archieve series DVDs, learn all the basic combinations of moves and start putting the finger cymbal pattern on the top of those combinations. Be careful with the timing of cymbals though, most students try to match the patterns to the feetwork, it should not be played that way. All layered separately with their own timing, being you can play full time 3 1 3 1 3 while you are doing Arabic 3 move half time...etc.