Music for Beginning Belly Dancers
When purchasing music, there are a few things to consider:
You’ll want to find songs with a medium tempo. These are easiest for practicing. Even when practicing shimmies, I’ve found it’s way more productive to practice with medium tempo songs, building up to faster tempos. Discipline is the key. Think of your shimmy as a metronome, it should be even and steady with the tempo of the music.
For practicing drills, Egyptian pop is great because it’s more repetitive than Oriental. For beginners, Egyptian pop is also easier for improvisation.
You should find music that you enjoy, after all, that’s why we’re here, for fun! Hollywood Music Center This site allows you to listen to some of the tracks on each album, and they have a large selection to choose from.
Here are some of my personal recommendations for beginner/intermediate dancers, specifically for practice:
*Sunshine Arabia 2006 or one of the other volumes- Compilation of Egyptian pop and other; lots of medium tempo songs for practice
*Hakim – Any albums by this artist; Egyptian Pop; easy to dance to
*Bellydance Superstars,” Volumes 1-5 - Most people love these songs; You can buy directly from “Bellydance Superstars.”
*Sahara Groove – Variety of artists, medium tempo songs for practice
*The Orient Beats Back, One Thousand & One nights – Remixes by Said Mrad, fast songs with heavy beats, great for shimmy practice
*Tapestry of the Dance by John Bilezikjian and Var Daghdevirian- Turkish, Greek and Persian music; contains a full belly dance routine and other songs
*Kenza by Khaled - Moroccan rai music; easy to dance to
*Dellali by Cheb Mami –Moroccan rai music; easy to dance to
*Arabic Groove and Sahara Lounge by Putumayo World Music – Great listening music and practice songs
For more info about the author, visit www.mellilah.com
