Thread: zilling rythms!

i like listening to songs that have zilling in them, writing the rhythm(s) used down, and then try to zill along. some songs use simple rhythms (like one song i like, just has 3-3-7 repeated during the 'chorus').
but this one has me completely stunted!
it's track 11 on the "Aziza Raks: Passion of Belly Dance" cd, called "The Sensual Chifti". (i'm attempting to upload it to Bhuz, doesn't seem to want to work edit: song has been uploaded!)

can anyone help me out? if anyone has the patience to work out the rhythms... experience might help lol, i'm new at this which probably explains why it's so hard for me.

so far i have:

4?-2-5-5
2-2-2-2
loooooooooooooots!!!!

can anyone get any further? :D

thanks! :)

The easiest method is to play along the rhythm, and in the case of a chifti, I'll more or less just do the same thing on zills as I'd do on a drum. If it's the unfilled rhythm, I'll modify and play doum right, tek left. If it's filled, I'll play left zill for ka, r hand for doum and tek.

Well, first Sensual Chifti (if you're talking about Eddie The Sheik's Sensual Chifti) isn't really a chifti . . ..w.: it's a rhumba bolero.

I think there are two drum patterns I hear most often for rhumba or bolero or rhumba bolero:

Dum tekatekatek Dum tek Dum tek

and

Dum tekatekatek tekatek Dum tek

I think she's looking for the exact zill patterns that are played on that particular track.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

I think she's looking for the exact zill patterns that are played on that particular track.

There's a tambourine playing the standard drum rhythm and she may be hearing the tambourine jingles as zills, but the actual zills seem to be playing a variety of patterns (not rhythms) that fit into a 4/4. So there are runs, singles, doubles, gallops, played fast slow, in patterns and randomly, etc. Sometimes the zills are playing with the drums, but more often they are not.

At least that's how I hear it. ,r:;

Yep Lauren, that's what i want :)

Kat, there's a tambourine in there?? oh boy, that is NOT going to help...
i know the zills play a bunch of different patterns (yes, not rhythms, sorry about the confusion), i'd like to know if someone could cut it up for me and put the specific patterns played down in writing....

i know it's a lot to ask, but ya never know, someone out there might be bored... ^^

Originally Posted by Kathiya

can anyone help me out? if anyone has the patience to work out the rhythms... experience might help lol, i'm new at this which probably explains why it's so hard for me.

Part of what may be making it hard for you is that counting "numbers" like this is totally non intuitive and musically indefensible!

I know a lot of dancers swear by the "numbers" method, but I believe it is the wrong way to think about playing finger cymbals. From a strictly musical sense, it is absolute nonsense. Does "1-1" represent "quarter + quarter rest + quarter + quarter rest" in 4/4? "Eighth + eighth rest + eighth + eighth rest + half rest"? "Quarter + 3 quarter rests + quarter + 3 quarter rests" spanning two measures? Just counting zill strikes doesn't preserve the information about the spaces between them!

It is so easy to lose the nuances of the music when you try to reduce a rhythm to a sequence of numbers. If you don't want to (or haven't been trained to) count music as a musician would, then I think you are better off learning the rhythms as sequences of "dums" and "teks." You still lose the information about the unplayed spaces, but at least you train your ear to recognize the different tones of the rhythmic pattern, which puts you a step closer to being able to recognize the major rhythms and feel the music as a native would. If nothing else, "dum, dum, tek-a-tek, dum, tek-a-tek" is more widely recognized than "1-1-3-1-3."

Just say "no" to crazy, non-musical counting!

Tourbeau,
i definitely agree with you (that the numbers lose a lot of information) so i don't usually talk about music in numbers, unless i have the song to listen to at the same time (i usually have a pretty good ear for music). Here i'm just asking for the patterns in written, be it in numbers, or spelled out, i have the song so i can "hear" the zilling, just it goes to fast for me to rationnally note it down myself (plus i confuse the zills with the tambourine), but i'd like to see specifically how the zills are used in this particular song.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

Part of what may be making it hard for you is that counting "numbers" like this is totally non intuitive and musically indefensible!

I know a lot of dancers swear by the "numbers" method, but I believe it is the wrong way to think about playing finger cymbals. From a strictly musical sense, it is absolute nonsense. Does "1-1" represent "quarter + quarter rest + quarter + quarter rest" in 4/4? "Eighth + eighth rest + eighth + eighth rest + half rest"? "Quarter + 3 quarter rests + quarter + 3 quarter rests" spanning two measures? Just counting zill strikes doesn't preserve the information about the spaces between them!

It is so easy to lose the nuances of the music when you try to reduce a rhythm to a sequence of numbers. If you don't want to (or haven't been trained to) count music as a musician would, then I think you are better off learning the rhythms as sequences of "dums" and "teks." You still lose the information about the unplayed spaces, but at least you train your ear to recognize the different tones of the rhythmic pattern, which puts you a step closer to being able to recognize the major rhythms and feel the music as a native would. If nothing else, "dum, dum, tek-a-tek, dum, tek-a-tek" is more widely recognized than "1-1-3-1-3."

Just say "no" to crazy, non-musical counting!

The "numbers" method, like 1-1-3-1-3 and 3-3-7, etc. only works if you already know the rhythms. But except maybe for beledi (1-1-3-1-3), most of the "numbers" patterns will work for numerous rhythms. But you have to understand the rhythm you are playing to before you can apply the method.

Zill playing doesn't just follow the underlying rhythm, anyway, it can hit accents or follow the melody line, for example.

I hope you can succeed in uploading the track, Kathiya, then maybe someone will dissect the patterns for you. I have that CD somewhere, I think.

Well, the recording was done in a studio, so the zillist probably wasn't dancing at the time the recording was made. In that, he/she would be a member of the band. Like one of the drummers, she would have been playing around the basic rhythm, filling, following, etc. I doubt there's a set pattern to what she's playing, anymore than there would be to someone playing zills while dancing extemporaneously. She's just jamming in conjunction with the other musicians in the band -- just another percussion instrument. I'd think it almost impossible to figure out exactly what she's doing and then replicate it.

Now, I've choreographed a group zill number where everyone played the same patterns at the same places (hopefully ), but when I solo, I never "plan" the patterns, I just play what the music dictates I play (sort of like how I dance). I'm improvising, using the underlying drum rhythm as a base for sure -- but improvising, filling, following, playing accents and sometimes not playing at all. For the most part, my zills are on a sort of auto-pilot. I think about the song (lyrics), the drumming, the melody line and chorus. I think about the dance area. I think about my vision of the piece I'm dancing too. I think about my audience. I try not to think too much about the zilling. And I don't think about what the zillist on the recording is doing -- she's background, I'm live.

Yeah, yeah -- I know some people set certain zill patterns and/or rhythms to certain pre-choreographed combinations and use those in their performances. I certainly use that idea to drill zilling in my classes. But in actual performance dancing? I'm pretty much an improvisational soloist, so the combination idea is a great tool in my dancing, but I doubt I use more than two or three set combos in any performance. I want to be in the moment with the music -- not thinking about what combo I could use. If it flows naturally, without my having to think about it to bring it forth, it will get used, otherwise probably not.

Are you trying to identify what patterns/patters work in what situations? If that's it, I'd just listen to pieces that have zilling you like -- you'll develop an ear for hearing what seems to prompt the zillist to play the rhythm as opposed to what makes the zillist play some other pattern or just do that jingle/jangle where the zills of one hand are shaken inside the zills of the other hand. Percussion isn't exactly like an oud or kanoon playing the melody from set notations on sheet music -- the percussion has a base rhythm, but around that base there's a lot of room for improvisation. I think of my zilling almost like a takseem -- it's improvisational, unplanned, emotional -- but hopefully rhythmic!

Gee, I'm no help, am I?

Originally Posted by Kathiya

Tourbeau,
Here i'm just asking for the patterns in written, be it in numbers, or spelled out, i have the song so i can "hear" the zilling, just it goes to fast for me to rationnally note it down myself (plus i confuse the zills with the tambourine), but i'd like to see specifically how the zills are used in this particular song.

Well, if the problem is that the music goes too fast, one way you can approach things is to slow the music down! There are a number of different ways to do this. My favorite quick 'n' dirty way is using Audacity (free, downloadable, audio-editing software). Once you have that installed, you can rip the desired track from your CD, upload it into Audacity, select the entire song, and then use the "Effect" menu to change the speed to 5% slower or however slow you want it.

I haven't played with Audacity enough to figure out the combination of speed/pitch/tempo to keep it sounding normal-but-slower (as opposed to deeper-and-slower), but I typically just slow songs down a couple of percent to make it easier for students to learn a choreography.

Tourbeau -- i'd never thought of that! might well try that tonight :)

Originally Posted by kat

Are you trying to identify what patterns/patters work in what situations?

Basically, yeah ^^ it's part of my 'learning curve'. i'm nowhere near improvising with zilling yet, i only started playing around with zills this summer and i'm learning off internet (our bd teacher can't play zills...). i really wanna get Killer Ziller... so yeah, in the mean time, i'm listening to songs i like and dissecting them to see how the zills are used in different 'contexts' in music. it's hard finding songs though lol, i can be picky, and in the ones i like not many have zills...

I still can't work our how to put songs on Bhuz... is there anyone i could maybe send it to, who could be more qualified than i am? (lol)

ok, so the song is up! :D
i don't know how to link to it though, so just do a search (sorryyy

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I haven't played with Audacity enough to figure out the combination of speed/pitch/tempo to keep it sounding normal-but-slower (as opposed to deeper-and-slower), but I typically just slow songs down a couple of percent to make it easier for students to learn a choreography.

There is a change tempo without changing pitch feature in effects...it works okay for me!

Ditto the slowing it down to hear it better (you may even be able to "cheat" - depending on how good the program you use is and how good you are at using the program - by looking for percussion spikes on the wave (sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can't).

Good luck!