Patterns of Rhythm From Families of Drums
Interview
from World Beat 1993
by Hal Aigner
Mary Ellen
Among
the qualities defining the World Beat movement
is the fundamental presence of the teacher-student
relationship. Across cultures, percussion
learned best is percussion learned from techniques
that are handed down. Native Pennsylvanian
Mary Ellen , entered the ranks of Bay percussionists
in 1969 with a focus on Middle Eastern idioms.
Her stature as a performer was thereafter
included in the 1979 San Francisco opening
ceremonies of the King Tut exhibition, the
1982 Palace of Fine Arts Arabian Splendor
show, which she produced, and the 1990 World
Drum Festival. But her growing presence
in the World Beat community is equally due
to a succession of small, fortuitous events
that nudged her in the direction of offering
classes.
WBR: Given that you were raised in a culture thats short on percussion, how did you wend your way to the art?
DONALD:
I grew up in a row house in Upper Darby, a
big suburb of 100,000 people in those days,
contiguous to Philadelphia. I started
piano at about eight, though my family didnt
even own one. My teacher lived about
two blocks away. She was an elderly
lady who taught in her home. She had
students who didnt have pianos practice in
her home, five days a week. I worked
for her to get lessons, housecleaning and
all kinds of chores. I studied classical
piano for about eight years. From junior
high school to Dickinson College, I was in
choruses. My junior year of college
I went to Spain, just for the adventure.
I got there and took flamenco guitar for the
whole year. My teacher again was an
elderly woman. She taught in a basement,
under the surface. I had to go down
subways and whole flights of stairs to get
to this cubby hole where she taught.
Later I came to the Bay Area and completed
a master's degree in psychiatric social work.
After that, I tired of academic work.
I said, I need something thats more in my
body, thats sensuous, thats expressive of
the female in me. I said, I want some
kind of dance. What fell into my lap
was belly dancing. One day, my husband
at that time heard a co-worker describe a
belly dance class in such exciting detail
that he called me and said, I think this
is what you want. After my first class,
I was sold on it. The music was very
passionate; the exotic costumes, the incense,
everything.
WBR: Who was the teacher?
DONALD:
Her name was Jamila Salimpour, one of the
foremost performers and teachers in the United
States. After several months of study,
Jamila noticed that I played the finger cymbals
that accompany the dance much more easily
than most of the students. She said,
Look, you have a good sense of rhythm; Id
like you to learn the drum the doumbec
that accompanies this dance because we need
drummers from within the dancers. I
said, Yes and her husband, a Persian drummer,
gave me lessons.
Shortly after that I studied dance with a
man named Bert Balladine, who has since become
an international belly dancing star.
He was teaching weekly classes in Sausalito.
I found out that Vince Delgado was teaching
a drum class an hour before the dance class.
His wife at that time, Mimi Spencer, also
studied belly dance. So Mimi and I would
study drums together. Then we would
stay over for Berts class. I studied
for one solid year with Vince, which was quite
helpful.
WBR:
So how did you make the jump from there to
teaching?
DONALD:
One day I was practicing and a knock came
to the door. It was a young girl who
was studying at College of Marin. She
said, I hear you playing the drum that accompanies
belly dancing. Im a belly dancer.
Will you teach me how to play the drum?
I said Yes and that Yes changed my life.
I had to organize my material, had to really
assess what I knew, so Id have something
to teach her. When the word got out
to Bert, he encouraged his dancers to study
with me. Three or four came. Then
two or three men because they wanted to accompany
their girlfriends or their wives. Thats
how I started.
After a few months, I decided that it was
laborious for my students to copy everything
from the blackboard. I said, I better
put together a few sheets of paper with these
rhythms, these techniques, something I could
just copy off and that would be it.
But every time I tried to finalize something,
I kept saying, No, I dont know enough yet.
So Id listen to more recorded music to figure
out what I was hearing. Eventually,
I said to myself, Why dont you just go ahead
and write the book? Because nothing had ever
been written on how to play Middle Eastern
percussion. Nobody had done that.
So I decided to do it.
Around
that time I did a lecture/demonstration on
playing finger cymbals at a cabaret show.
Afterwards, one lady asked me if I could teach
her to play finger cymbals. I said Yes
again. Then it occurred to me that I
might as well write two books at that same
time. That was in late 1974 and 1975.
I worked all year on those two books, researching,
listening to recordings, listening to good
Middle Eastern drummers, trying to put it
together and come up with terminology for
the techniques.
In 1976, I published both books, Doumbec
Delight and Mastering Finger Cymbals.
A month later I came out with companion cassettes
for the books. So I brought the books
and cassettes out to the public. I started
advertising in national belly dance publications
there was a big network of belly dancers
around the country then. There were
conventions all over, seminars, workshops.
And nobody was out there teaching the rhythms,
the music. Everybody was teaching dance.
And then I like to chuckle about this
I was declared to be an expert in Middle
Eastern percussion, because of having written
the books. As an expert, I got invited
to teach workshops everywhere, New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle. Belly
dancers organized these workshops, because
they wanted to learn their music. I
got to perform in each city with the Middle
Eastern musicians the dancers had connections
with. The dancers would usually produce
a show in conjunction with a workshop, so
there would be a band I would play with.
The bands drummers would usually be fascinated
that I played finger cymbals and drums fairly
decently and would take me aside to teach
me new strokes, new riffs.
So it was after the books that I really added
to my understanding of percussion. Since
then Ive incorporated all that Ive learned
into updates of my books. In my latest publication,
Arabic Tambourine, I was able to benefit
from everything Ive learned from percussionists
since 1976; rhythms used in the Arab musical
world, learned right from Egyptian and Syrian
drummers and tambourinists.
WBR: With such a wide variety of teachers, what styles of Middle Eastern percussion are you presenting?
DONALD:
The Middle East is essentially divided into
three cultures: Arabic, Turkish, and Persian.
There are a lot of similarities in those three
cultures, though the languages are different.
They all have quarter tones in their music,
tones that come between the half-steps in
our western scales. If you look at a
piano, quarter tones are the notes between
the black and white keys, the notes in the
cracks. We dont have them in our music
scale. But all three Middle Eastern
cultures do. In addition, Turkish music
is very particular about dividing a tone into
nine parts and tuning to the exact ninth of
a tone. So a very subtle ear is necessary.
In my specialty, Arabic music, there are three
further subdivisions corresponding to geographic
regions. One region is North Africa:
Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya. There,
6/8 rhythms and 3/4 rhythms are dominant.
They have some short 2/4 rhythms, but they
emphasize 6 and 3. Then they overlay
those two and a very exciting polyrhythmical
texture comes out of that.
The second area is called the Arabian peninsula,
or as we know it now, the Persian Gulf.
The rhythm from that area has an almost Latin
sound to it. It has a 3/3/2 pattern.
They call that music khaligi. It is
sometimes very fast, very lively music, and
its typical of the Gulf area.
Finally, the area of my heaviest specialty
is Egypt/Levant. Levant refers to
several countries: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan,
Palestine. Egypt shares that same music.
The key Levant rhythm is called the baladi
rhythm when its played slow and heavy.
When its speeded up, its called maqsoum.
Then, in Egypt, that same pattern gets speeded
up even one more notch and is called fallahi.
Fallahi is very popular in upper Egypt.
There is also a malfouf rhythm, which has
a 3/3/2 pattern, thats very much in use in
the Levant area.
WBR:
Where along the way did you begin to realize
that you were going to be very good at percussion?
DONALD:
There wasnt a particular point that I had
this sense that I was really going to be good
at percussion. Little by little, it
just happened. I now play five instruments:
finger cymbals, which are called zagat in
Arabic, tambourine, which is called def
or in Egypt is called riq, the doumbec,
the tar, and the giant tambourine, which is
called the mazhar. What Ive done
that I think is unique is that Ive taken
these instruments and, when I do my solos,
I do things that are probably not done in
the Middle East. Im playing all the
techniques, all the rhythms; doing a five-minute
solo, Middle Eastern audiences are surprised
and very pleased by that because Im taking
all the Arabic percussion and putting it in
a form thats unique.
WBR: And how has the teaching progressed?
DONALD:
I was able to get the word out about my classes
and establish a student body thats now steadily
over 100. Over the years, the nature
of my student body has changed completely.
At first, my students were all dancers, and
their husbands and boyfriends. That
persisted for many years. Over the last
several years, belly dancers have become the
minority. People are turning to drumming
for other reasons. Arabs are coming
to learn their own music. Others come
because theyre musicians who just want to
increase their rhythmical skill. People
from various religious practices are also
coming. I have a number of students
who are of various Sufi orders. Then
I have people from the pagan community and
the witchcraft community.
The average age of my students is probably
38 or 40. About three-quarters of my
students are women. Many say that they
always wanted to study the drum, but were
told as kids that girls arent supposed to
study drum. So they put that off and
now theyre coming to, 35 or 40 years old,
saying to me, Now I am going to learn the
instrument that Ive loved all my life and
denied it to myself because of the society
and culture.
WBR:
Whats the current Bay Area landscape like
for Middle Eastern music?
DONALD:
There are several places where good Arabic
music is played live ...
Excerpted from World Beat Report, Vol. 1, No. 6, April 1993
Copyright 2009 Mary Ellen Donald - All
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