One of my pet peeves when watching ATS or ITS groups perform is listening to boring finger cymbals. 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, please STOP! It doesn’t have to be this way!
I understand that playing cymbals is a difficult skill and that every tribal bellydance teacher can’t be expected to play well, let alone teach their students to play well.
So let me step in to help!
don't fear the Cymbals!
Playing cymbals has come easily to me and of course I want my students to be able to play well too, so I have always taught this skill in my belly dance classes. But, with one major difference from most teachers: I wait for a year or so before starting student with cymbals.
I taught students to play finger cymbals long before I began tribal improv bellydancing… it’s only been for the last ten years that I’ve used the medium of Tribal Odyssey bellydance as a tool for teaching cymbals. And in my opinion, it is much easier for students to learn this way – one more reason that I love ITS!
Here’s an article I wrote for Zaghareet! Magazine about how we’ve added finger cymbals to tribal improv: article
We use only six finger cymbal patterns in our Tribal Odyssey format, yet this gives our performances a musical diversity that won’t bore our audience.
How many patterns does your group play? Would you like to learn to play better? I have many short how-to videos on youtube just for beginning finger cymbals: playlist
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Tribal Odyssey - a bellydance journey 
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