Start Zill, Do The Drills

My job is keeping me incredibly busy and there’s a bunch of personal projects that are taking up a lot of my time, so not much blogging time left. First off, I start with the serious stuff. I zill quite decently already, hmmm… but not perfect!

Zills in Turkish, (sagat in Arabic) are small cymbals that are attached to the fingers and played either within a musical group or while dancing. To me learning zills is one of the hardest parts because, we as a dancer need to coordinate with the movement and playing the zills and dancing at the same time. I've got a couple sets of zills. This is the set I actually use - more expensive is so much better. Mine “ring” when clicked together quickly. Lovely sounding. One set that I never use - lightweight set of less expensive zills.

Dum-es-tek ….dum-es-tek…, RLR or 123? I actually found dum-es-tek-es-tek dum-tek-es-tek tek es worked best for me rather that RLR… I ended up getting my Right & Left all mixed up. Very noisy! I am sure people thought I was completely mad last night. Believe it or not, I don’t like zills, I don’t teach zills at the moment. During the limited time I have, I feel it is more important for me to teach on body technique than the finer points of zills syncopation. I used to play it because it was expected, and like it or not I have to learn them to move on to any of my Advanced class later. Apart from when my middle fingers and thumb turn blue, I hated the sound in my ears and I hated the way they compromised my hand movements.

Every time I practice, my dog bark, my cat run away, my mom either hide in the room or ‘throw me out’. I remembered while in my 1st zills workshop, the teacher told me to use a baby sock idea put them on and practice. I laughed at the idea, but they really do help keep the noise down so I can practice with my zills and not give myself a headache. Another idea is zill mufflers. Some people make little mufflers for their zills. I found mufflers patterns crochet from Shira website: http://www.shira.net/zillmufflers.htm. I have never tried this, I have not learn how to crochet zill muffles, I really need to make some, especially if I actually wanted to practice with anyone in earshot in the late night.

Yes, it's hard and practice is the key to learning. Now, time to start Zill, do the Drills. Anyway, I should be off to bed now – it’s 1am and I have to get up early. Goodnight everyone!