Tribal Bellydance: it's origins, it's evolution and it's future...?
Books / music / video / DVD
What is tribal bellydance music?
In bellydance music you have two main currents: the classical and the pop style. Classical oriental music has a large variety in rhytms, rich melodies and textures and uses classical oriental music instruments and percussion as well as modern western instruments.
Oriental pop is straight and uses mainly electronic instruments and samples.
Tribal bellydance music also has two main currents: the folkloric and the electronic style. According to Kajira Djoumahna in her book "Tribal Bible" tribal style music is above all reflected in the use of folkloric accoustic instruments like mizmar, kaval, rababa and ... of course percussion. As the essence of tribal is improvisation, the nature of the music should be improvisation as well. Electronic types of music miss that element as they are simply programmed.
Folkloric music is in nature pretty straigh and the orchestration is also very sparce. The numerous egyptian saaidi cassettes are a good example. Derboukka or tabla and mostly mizmar or zurna do the job.
