Thread: Minor rant: why don't more teachers teach anything about the !#$% MUSIC????

If I had five dollars for every intermediate/advanced student who has ever come to my classes and commented "WOW! I never learned ANYTHING about different rhythms/musical styles/[insert any other musical info here] before coming to your class." I would be independently wealthy.

How can people teach belly dance without teaching ANYTHING about music? How? This dance is kinda based on MUSICAL INTERPRETATION!!!

I guess this leads to the question, how can anybody be a pro belly dancer and not know ANYTHING about ME music whatsoever????

Shoot me now.

I feel your pain. I was taught by an Arab. Dancing to and feeling the music was the main thing. I never learned combinations. I learned steps that went specifically for the piece of music we were studying.

I can remember my teacher frequently talking about the different instruments and what each one was saying. She always insisted that the dancer was just another instrument in the band, so we needed to understand the music. I'm not talking lyrics, but notes, rhythms, etc.

All to often I watch pro dancers and I see them just throwing steps in like a mathematical formula. 123 hip drop, turn. I do this in my beginner class!

It's one reason I can't do someone else choreography. And it's one reason I like to watch Dina. She feels the music.

I think the importance of this needs to be taught from the beginning. Then it can be done step by step...not all of a sudden "oh! here are the rhythms and these are the instruments and here are all these other rules and guidelines".

I've learned tidbits here and there, but I never really understood the rhythms until I picked up a drum. And then there was the Karim Nagi workshop. I learned more about Middle Eastern music in 2 hours than I have in 7 years.
I think the reason most teachers don't cover it is because a) most students don't show an interest in it or b) the teacher just doesn't know that much about Middle Eastern Music.
I've known a couple of teachers who couldn't tell a saidi rythym from a Maksoum if their life depended on it. Hell, they couldn't even name rhythms just randomly.
Not all people are in it to feel the music and some might say that they feel when they really have no idea what's going on. Just like singers. You can say you feel the song but it's something very different to actually feel it...cr.:

As a beginner I was taught to count to eight for choreographies. So that's what I did.

When I move to Albuquerque all of my instructors were musicians. That was years worth of an eye opening experience .w.: They taught rhythms, had us dance to individual instruments, dance to the melody only, dance to the percussion section only, find the accents, breathe with the instruments, feel the emotion, become one with the instruments grasshopper.

Now it shocks me when I don't see the music in the dance. But it takes very little to be in that circumstance. Take a six week wonder who takes up teaching, you now have someone who can count to eight, but was never exposed to the the rhythms or music interpretation of the dance.

I start training my students in musicality from Day 1. I always think of improvisation/interpretation as what this dance is all about! Even if it bores them to tears, the fact is that they need to know it.

It's like so many other things in this dance form...teachers don't teach it, which means students don't know it/don't know it's important, and then THOSE students start teaching and don't teach it and BAM vicious cycle, again.

Another factor - I think part of it is that even when you teach it, many students won't understand it unless they are ready. I have explained about the rhythms and composers and musical styles many, many times. It never fails that someone in class will have an ah-ha moment when it makes sense. *That* is when they remember hearing it for the first time...even though we may have taught the same thing in a dozen other classes with them.

There are definitely teachers out there who don't know or teach the music, but part of the equation is always when a student is ready to learn music.

You may also be extra good at explaining musical things to non-musicians :) That could cause a lot of ah-ha moments in your classes!

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If I had five dollars for every intermediate/advanced student who has ever come to my classes and commented "WOW! I never learned ANYTHING about different rhythms/musical styles/[insert any other musical info here] before coming to your class." I would be independently wealthy.

sooooo with ya here!

Why don't more students listen when I talk about the music, instead of staring into space and zoning out? OK, maybe I'm boring but it's very disheartening.

I've gone through phases of giving out lots of information, to very little, to lots again. I've decided I think it's interesting and important so I'm going to talk about it.

Originally Posted by Emma

Why don't more students listen when I talk about the music, instead of staring into space and zoning out?

Tell me about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Generally my students fall into three categories: those who WANT to learn about the music and work really hard to do so, those who couldn't care less (those are the glaze-over ones), and those who realize they probably should improve their knowledge of the music but just don't buckle down and work on it.


I am with you: I think it's an important and necessary part of class, so I plow forward, in spite of the glazed over people!

Amen. To quote myself from another thread, If you dont love the music, why are you here?

I'm trying to learn it on my own, my classes focus on moves and the choreography.

Originally Posted by Emma

Why don't more students listen when I talk about the music, instead of staring into space and zoning out? OK, maybe I'm boring but it's very disheartening.

I've gone through phases of giving out lots of information, to very little, to lots again. I've decided I think it's interesting and important so I'm going to talk about it.

Amen. It makes you want to throw up your hands and just regurgitate steps . . .

I wish I had $1 for every time I've been at a seminar with a student and the instructor told the class something I've said in class over and over and the student looks at me and says "did you know that?"..c::

We even have a nice little drum circle that works with our dancers and they still want everything counted in 4s or 8s -- tell them 'we're ending in 4 measures' and it's a 2/4 rhythm and they're still dancing away after the drummers have stopped. .w.: And wondering why we didn't warn them. . .

And it's not just music/rhythms -- it's what goes into the makeup of the character of different styles, info on the history of a style, costuming, etc. I've given info on references (i.e. books, articles, youtubes, dvds, other instructors), but do dancers take advantage of any of it? I'm to the place where if I think I've gotten through to just one of them, I've succeeded, because the feedback I get is overwhelmingly "I don't care about that, I just wanna dance." ..cr.:

My hair is much thinner these days (note to self -- stop pulling so hard . . .),r:;

Originally Posted by kat

And it's not just music/rhythms -- it's what goes into the makeup of the character of different styles, info on the history of a style, costuming, etc. I've given info on references (i.e. books, articles, youtubes, dvds, other instructors), but do dancers take advantage of any of it? I'm to the place where if I think I've gotten through to just one of them, I've succeeded, because the feedback I get is overwhelmingly "I don't care about that, I just wanna dance." ..cr.:

Yep.

I've heard teachers of mine say that they would like to go over more music, but there isn't an interest. I've gone to workshops (held by them) that explain it more.

It could also be that I'm still at an intermediate level, but I wish they'd start going over music and other cultural stuff earlier. I've had to seek it out myself via Bhuz and books a lot of the time

If you live in an area where there are very few musicians who have been formally trained in Middle Eastern music, most teachers will not know much beyond what shows up on those "Top Rhythms for Bellydancers" CDs. In other words, they have memorized that "Beledi" sounds like "dum-dum-tek-a-tek, dum tek-a-tek," and "Saidi" sounds like "dum tek, dum-dum tek," and whatever else is on their Hossam Ramzy or Uncle Mafufo record, after that, things start getting hazy. If you are lucky, they've taken a drum workshop or two along the way, but that is not the same as truly studying music. Heaven help you if you want to have someone explain maqams to you.

I think a lot of dancers deceive themselves by thinking, "Well, many Arabs, Turks, etc., don't have formal musical training, and they can do it, so that must mean I don't need to be taught about the music either." It's probably true that a lot of Middle Easterners have grown up with the sort of informal musical intuition that comes from being exposed to something all your life, but if you are floating into Middle Eastern dance from outside the culture, it's not just going to fall into YOUR lap. And it certainly doesn't account for the fact that a lot of Middle Easterners, particularly professional musicians, DO have formal training in music.

You can't (and definitely shouldn't attempt to) teach what you don't know, but unfortunately, not everyone has access to the resources to go beyond the bare-bones basics. Combined with the reality that most hobbyist/students don't really care if they learn things properly because they just want to dress up in spangles and dance around, you have a situation where there is never a shortage of ignorance.

I can pick out a rhythm, but I cannot remember the names of the rhythms other than basic beledi. And with drum flourishes and such, even that becomes hard sometimes in a song. I'm sure it aggravates my teachers when they ask "what rhythm is this" and I stare blankly, because I can't remember.

Had an interesting moment when I was listening to a song with someone - I heard beledi, she heard saiidi. She was right, but both of us probably would have picked similar accent points while dancing.

My current line of thinking is I'll dance as long as I hear the beat, regardless of the beat. Mainly because I also hate counting, heh. I'm a contextual singer and dancer!

In my Beginning class, I have students that are taking class for different reasons - plain old exercise, a way to get out of the house, and even some that are really interested in becoming good dancers. In Beginning, I touch on and talk about musicality but we don't apply it practically much because it's primarily a drilling-only class.

Everything changes in my Level 2 class, and it's clearly stated in the class description that in addition to more advanced dance techniques (layers, traveling and transitioning), we will learn cultural context, rhythms, musical interpretation and finger cymbals.

The reason I structure the classes in this way is that people can self-select if they want to delve into the dance above and beyond learning to do a hip bump or chest circle before moving on to a class in yoga or basket weaving. There's no eye rolling or "this is boring" when I start getting into the nitty gritty in my Level 2 class because the students have specifically chosen to take a class that has this focus.

In my Level 2 class, I try to pick music often that you can't always count out with, picking out accents in the melody or vocals instead. I agree that it's very important that once students start doing combinations, you should point out that a simple count of 8 for each movement will just not work with a lot of ME music (except for synthesized pop). I also always give as much information about the song as I can in the handouts (title, artist, CD, style, subject matter/lyrics), even if the class topic for that evening is more technique based than cultural/musical.

Originally Posted by yaalini

I can pick out a rhythm, but I cannot remember the names of the rhythms other than basic beledi. And with drum flourishes and such, even that becomes hard sometimes in a song. I'm sure it aggravates my teachers when they ask "what rhythm is this" and I stare blankly, because I can't remember.

It took me ages to be able to put the right name with the right rhythm! I knew the names, and I could clearly pick out and recognize the rhythms in a song, but putting the two together was multi-year long work in progress.

[QUOTE=Emma;370623]Why don't more students listen when I talk about the music, instead of staring into space and zoning out? OK, maybe I'm boring but it's very disheartening.

QUOTE]

This is a problem I come across. I can talk about it til the cows come home and most students don't listen or take it on board. I encourage my students to attend drum workshops in order to compound the learning of rhythms but only a handful will go down this route. I also try to teach them how to move through the tapestry that is ME music, dancing from base rhythm to top notes to melody to vocals and back again. But to be honest, the ability to encompass this is a personal one and often is accomplished only by those with a natural ability to 'hear' the music and dance within it, rather than over it.

Originally Posted by mahsati

Another factor - I think part of it is that even when you teach it, many students won't understand it unless they are ready.

yessssss.

I DO teach about the music. I teach rhythms, instruments, musical forms. I swear I do. But no one listens. ,f:: I recently taught an Oriental piece that had lots of rhythms in that we've covered before -- fast Ayoub, Khaleegy, Maksoum. I've spent whole 6-week sessions teaching a single rhythm before, lectured them on what it is and where it comes from, had them bring coffee cans to drum on, speak the rhythms, played them in every version, called out the dums and teks, taught combos and finger cymbals to them, picked them out of songs the students are already familiar with, improvised to them.

I put the music on and say 'Now what rhythm do you hear' and not one student in that class can remember the name of one single rhythm they've ever learned. Except the one, who really means well, who always asks 'Is it Saiidi?' because, I guess, that's the only one she remembers the name of, but she doens't recognize it when she hears it.

These are my ADVANCED students.

..cr.:..cr.:..cr.:..cr.:..cr.:..cr.:..cr.:

But I have to remind myself that these students, even though they're advanced and some of them have been with me for years, are hobbyists. They each choose, individually, what areas of the dance interest them, just as I make my choices. And understanding the music on an intellectual level isn't it. Some of them have an amazing innate musicality and can interpret the music astoundingly well, even though they can't articulate what they're doing. Others need a seeing eye dog and a stick to find the beat. I'm teaching to the second group, often, due to the No Habibi Left Behind laws.

Anyway, I wouldn't assume that the teachers aren't trying just because the students don't know.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

But I have to remind myself that these students, even though they're advanced and some of them have been with me for years, are hobbyists. They each choose, individually, what areas of the dance interest them, just as I make my choices. And understanding the music on an intellectual level isn't it. Some of them have an amazing innate musicality and can interpret the music astoundingly well, even though they can't articulate what they're doing. Others need a seeing eye dog and a stick to find the beat. I'm teaching to the second group, often, due to the No Habibi Left Behind laws.

Word. Despite what I posted above, I'm not silly enough to think that everyone in my Level 2 class is absorbing or even terribly interested in everything I'm teaching. I expect them to pay attention and follow along in class, but what they do (or don't do) with it once they leave the classroom is totally up to them.

I noticed the same thing, Lauren, with one of my more serious students. I tried teaching her all different ways to recognize a beledi, and then played (repeatedly) a very slow beledi for her. She could not hear the beat. I can hear it clearly; it makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong.

I would have to say that part of the problem is the filtering of information from teacher to student and so forth.

When I started dancing my first few teachers came from the follow the bouncing butt school of dance. (Which is great if you want to learn the moves and how to follow a leader.) Eventually I realized I was missing a big piece of the puzzle, I could learn choreography with no issue, I could follow my teacher through a song, but I had no idea why certain moves were done to specific rhythms and even worse I couldn't ID most rhythms unless they were Baladi or Saidi.

I stopped going to those teachers and started going to the people they learned from. Now I have a fuller knowledge base and more information with regards to cultural history and musicality. I attribute this to the passing of information. If I'm taught something first hand I know I'm hearing it correctly, but if I'm taught something from a 3rd party source (or even worse info that has been passed down through a long line of people) then maybe I'm not getting the full picture, information gets filtered through each person who passes it along, and somewhere on the journey from the originator's mouth to my ears, a lot of details were lost by the wayside.

Originally Posted by mahsati

Another factor - I think part of it is that even when you teach it, many students won't understand it unless they are ready. I have explained about the rhythms and composers and musical styles many, many times. It never fails that someone in class will have an ah-ha moment when it makes sense. *That* is when they remember hearing it for the first time...even though we may have taught the same thing in a dozen other classes with them.

This has happened to me many times as a teacher (not usually with music, but in other ways): I talk about, beat 'em over the head with Subject X, we work with Subject X; student goes to workshop where Big Name Instructor says the same thing, often virtually verbatim; student comes to me and gushes about all this "new stuff" she's learned at the workshop with Big Name Instructor.

I've given up nodding politely. Instead, I now say something to the effect of, "Yes, that's what we worked on in class last session. Remember?"

So, yes, the student has heard it dozens of times but, in this workshop setting, different from class, he/she finally hears it.

<sigh> At least it gets heard.

Deborah

ETA: I didn't read all the responses before I posted -- Kat gets kudos for having any hair left at all . . .

Originally Posted by Emma

Why don't more students listen when I talk about the music, instead of staring into space and zoning out? OK, maybe I'm boring but it's very disheartening.

That's what I heard when I asked teachers why they never do it. Two said, because the students stop to listen and zone out. One, because that was the key information that was considered her Egyptian partner's business secret, only to be passed on in his special studies. All I know is what I have learnt from listening, reading the internet and rooting through youtube.

I have badly wanted to learn the rhythms and I have paid attention to the teacher. But for the life of me, I could never pick out a rhythm in a song, yet I knew how to move to it and even what beat to use. If I had to take a pop quiz I was sunk. This was not the fault of any teacher, but I think this part is the hardest part to learn and could take years. So teachers, I wouldn't blame your students or yourselves because this is a tough part to learn, I think.

Great discussion. Nisaa, you're my hero.

I begin teaching rhythms on day 1. Even if it's just drilling hip drops to a baladi rhythm. I start with just the rhythm (from a rhythm CD) and then may even have them keep drilling to a song (with melody) that demonstrates that same rhythm. I figure most probably don't care, but we all gotta drill anyway so why not? Hopefully somebody will retain something that will help them further down the line if they choose to keep dancing. Even if I can get them to locate the doums, and the concept of moving to the tempo versus moving to the rhythm, that's at least a start. I find, what helps even me, is grouping like rhythms and presenting them together to show the similarities and differences. I have one of those oversized post-it pads I got on sale at Staples that I write out the basic form of the rhythm(s) I talk about in class, it's not as big and obvious as I would like (real presentation pads are expensive!), but it's a start. I was also one of those people who had to go learn all the good stuff herself and I at least want my students to know how much there is to learn about the dance form before they go off to become the next suzynippletassels.

So I'm not wrong in absolutely refusing to learn to count!!!!
YIPPEEEEE!!!
Actually I do count some chpreos in certain bits where a change comes in to very subtle change in music.....that's if i can remember when to start counting!!