Practice your finger cymbals with movement. Practice your 3 tones: ring, clap and click.

Here is notation for practicing the maqsum and malfuf rhythms at home on your finger cymbals, use clap for dums and rings for everything else, then try the opposite:

I pulled this notation right off of Jas’s Middle Eastern Rhythms website: http://www.khafif.com/rhy/

walking maqsuum 4/4

1-+-2-+-3-+-4-+-|D-T-k-T-D-k-T---| [MIDI]D-T-k-T-D-k-T-tk| [MIDI]with the bridge
                

The couple of beats you are finding near the end of some of these variations are known as a “bridge” or “chain” —
they are not basic to the rhythm, but are often played as a pick up into the next measure.

and here it is for malfuf:

malfuuf

2/4=3+3+2

1-+-2-+-|D--T--T-| [MIDI]DkkTkkTk| [MIDI]D-kT-kT-| [MIDI]

Here are some basic finger cymbal patterns:

The Gallop

RLR, RLR, RLR, RLR or LRL, LRL, LRL, LRL or RRR or LLL, try varying the ring and the clap, ring-ring-clap, or clap, clap, ring or all rings, or all claps, then try all clicks.

Alternating: RLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLR woo-hoo!

Patterns for 4 count rhythms

Masmoudi Saghir (Baladi), Saidi and Maqsum: RLR, RLR, RLRLRLR. I’m going to change my counting with numbers, just start every 1 with your dominant and or right hand, so the pattern above will read: 123, 123, 1234567

next pattern 7-3-3: 1234567, 123, 123
next pattern 3-7-3: 123, 1234567, 123
next pattern 3-5-5: 123, 12345, 12345
next pattern 1-3-7: 1, 123, 1234567
next pattern 1-1-3-1-3: 1, 1, 123, 1, 123 – this last pattern should sound familiar since it is Masmoudi Saghir.

There are several more variations that you can do, but go ahead and start with these.

Masmoudi Saghir – the name of a common rhythm in folk and popular Arabic music, also sometimes called "Beledi". It is a 4 beat rhythm. You will often hear it as part of the Egyptian Beledi Taksim musical construct. "Saghir" means "little" in Arabic. So this is the "little masmoudi". You can listen to it in it’s most basic form online at Al Siadi.com, you may also hear it filled on Jas’s Middle Eastern Rhythms page, and you may hear the name pronounced and hear the rhythm in music samples at Maqam world. Here it is mapped out for you:

D represents the low Dum sound made by the Tabla, T the accented high Tek sound and t k are the tek and ka.

1-+-2-+-3-+-4-+-|
D-D-__T-D-__T-__| basic form
D-D-tkT-D-tkT-tk| filled

on your cymbals that would be Clap, Clap, Ring-Ring-Ring, Clap, Ring-Ring-Ring or Ring, Ring, Clap-Clap-Clap, Ring, Clap-Clap-Clap, also try it will all clicks.

Watch this clip of local DC dancer Kawakib performing a finger cymbals only solo.

Learn the different names:

• Zills (Turkish)
• Sil Sil (Arabic)
• Sagat (Egyptian)
• Salasih (Farsi)
• Finger Cymbals (English)