Excerpts from The Dancing Cymbalist

... I kept hearing the same refrain from other dancers, no matter how experienced they were.... The refrain was: "I can play my zills fine, until I start moving." That was when I began to formulate a versatile, teachable method for practicing zills with movement.

- from Introduction

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What changed, so that fewer and fewer dancers play cymbals? .... in the 1970's, famous Egyptian dancers ... began hiring one or two musicians to play the segat for them, especially when they knew they did not play cymbals well.

- Morocco (Carolina Varga Dinicu)

- from A Little Zill History

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... the most widely viewed segatgi could be Ibrahim Abdel Kahliq, who can be seen playing in the Egyptian ensemble on the concert DVD No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, which was released in 1994 and has been televised.

- from A Little Zill History

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The overall sound quality of an untuned set can change just from arranging them differently on your hands.

- from Chapter I: Zill Choices

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Clamping is a tendency to hold the zills closed after striking, and especially to squeeze them shut.

- from Chapter II: Getting the Most from your Zills

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Sometimes we have two or more separate timesenses. This can lead us to think we have no sense of rhythm.

- from Chapter III: Understanding Musical Time

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When you are dancing to live music, and you don't know what the band's going to play, it's important to listen for patterns, you don't have time to count!

- Siovana el-Nashir

- from Chapter IV - Learning Rhythms

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...some different techniques make similar sounds. What makes their differences useful is that the techniques are most easily played in different arm positions. Technical variety permits greater freedom of arm movement with zillwork.

- from Chapter V - Voices of the Zills

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I have found that when it comes to zillwork, it is common to try to learn too much, too fast, too soon, and this is a recipe for frustration. Successful practice focuses on details, beginning simply and gradually increasing the challenge.

- from Chapter VI - How to Practice Music & Dance at the Same Time

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When Ahdil Yosef played segat with the dervishes, there was always a solo for him. There was a drum solo, a mizmar solo, and a segat solo.

- Amina Salah (Mary Hoppe)

- from Chapter VII - Improvisation

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Playing in unison is the simplest way to play together, playing the same thing at the same time. Trance unison goes beyond the relaxed sociability of simply playing together.

- from Chapter VIII - Playing With Others