Level Two: 1.2 Guitar, Bouzuki, and Tray
Class Review This week's phrasing practice was on the call and counter. This is just like call and repeat, but instead of repeating the...
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Student Resources
Here, you will find student reading, including links to other resources, material written by our teachers, and links to lots of video clips!
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Lisa Lumina
- Mar 12, 2021
- 2 min
Level Two: 1.3 Rhebaba, Saxaphone, and Shamadan
Class Review This week's call and response type is a call with a lezma, AKA, a short punchy response. Again, it is shades of gray between...
60
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 12, 2021
- 3 min
Level Two: 1.4 Mizmar, Mijwiz, and Wings
Class Review One reason for going over individual instruments in class, and for practicing phrasing (and why I make y'all improvise) is...
360
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 12, 2021
- 2 min
Level Two: 1.5 Nai, Arghul, and Fan Veil
Class Review This week, we continued working on phrasing without call and response to draw attention to it. Phrasing can help you with...
30
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 12, 2021
- 2 min
Level Two: 1.6 Clarinet, Review, and Sword
Class Review One type of musical phrase is the tremolo. This is different from a drum roll, but also evokes a ramping up of energy. It...
50
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 12, 2021
- 2 min
Level Two: 1.7 Accordion, Violin, and Lebanese Cane
Class Review This week, we listened for some transitional phrases in music. When a song is going to slow down, there will usually be some...
20
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 12, 2021
- 3 min
Level Two: 1.9 Bands & Orchestras, And Beledi Cane
Class Review Last week's reading focused on some common song structures. This week, let's talk about what Dr. Sawa calls...
30
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 12, 2021
- 3 min
Level Two: 1.10 Bands & Orchestras, Plus Maleya
Class Review Listen to the song for next semester's choreography and review the music map we made. You can also re-write it into...
40
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 11, 2021
- 6 min
Level Two: 1.1 Oud, Kanun, and Veil
Class Review welcome to the melodic musicality semester! For anyone who didn't get this as an introductory student, here's my guide for...
70
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 11, 2021
- 3 min
Level Two: 1.8 Mawaal, Review, and Saidi Cane
Class Review When working on mapping out a song's verses/section, what I like to call paragraphs, there are some common pattens they can...
30
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 10, 2021
- 6 min
Prepping a New Costume for Use
New costumes are exciting, whether you make them yourself or buy them. Unfortunately you can almost never put a costume on right from the...
190
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 10, 2021
- 9 min
Assembling Your Gig Bag
As bellydancers, we do a lot of jobs that, for some other performers, would be spread out amongst a team. We are our own stylists and...
160
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 10, 2021
- 4 min
Shortening a Skirt with a Big Hem
If you have a circle skirt, or other very full skirt, you probably, understandably, want to avoid hemming it. There is a lot of fabric...
80
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 9, 2021
- 2 min
Introduction to the Arabic Alphabet: part 1, intro to reading
You might be thinking to yourself that you're never going to learn Arabic, so why learn the letters? Or maybe you want to learn the...
110
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 9, 2021
- 3 min
Introduction to the Arabic Alphabet: part 2, the vowels
OK! Now that we have a basic sense of how the writing goes, let's figure out those vowels. Why do you sometimes see this woman's name...
40
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 9, 2021
- 6 min
Introduction to the Arabic Alphabet: part 3, the consonants
In the last post we went over the vowels, and why you will sometimes see words spelled with a variety of them, but what about the "4...
70
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 8, 2021
- 4 min
Finger Cymbal Orientation: buying and playing
Welcome to bellydance class! If you're taking Lisa's level one class, you'll want to add finger cymbals by the time you start your 5th...
210
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 8, 2021
- 5 min
All About Hip Scarves
Question, how many hip scarves does a bellydancer need?Answer: Just one more! Nothing says bellydance like a hip scarf, it's the...
170
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 8, 2021
- 4 min
Overcoming Over-Dancing: The Confidence to do Less
Over-dancing is something like that awkward stage of adolescence, a development stage that most intermediate dance students go through....
230
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 8, 2021
- 2 min
Dance as a Meditation
In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a ritual where monks spend weeks creating mandalas out of sand. Then the artwork is swept away and poured...
130
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 8, 2021
- 5 min
How Bellydance Improvisation Builds Bravery, Empowerment, and Agency
Not long after I started learning to bellydance, I developed intrusive thought OCD. Under the direction of a psychologist, I had to...
390
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