began humming this tune and playing my finger cymbals . Recognizing the tune , all the dancers stood up and put their hands over their hearts . Then asked me , “ How do you know our anthem ?” The parallels in music and cultural crossover now stood out very clearly .
Now I understood how I could use “ shared musical knowledge – the songs and music people know ” to develop a structural approach for teaching and learning . Dancers could learn and bridge the cultural divide by understanding the similarity of shared musical patterns . When different composers using the same musical patterns create songs and music for different musical genres using the same musical pattern of notes – people can recognize familiar tunes . For example , you can hear the same musical structure and notation in : the final movement of Beethoven ’ s 9th symphony , a Christian hymn , the Christmas piece “ Ode to Joy ,” and also the music for the European Union national anthem .
Ma * Shuqa performing for a Turkish audience
the next month , the famous American actress Jane Fonda was coming to train German exercise teachers . They were feeling fortunate and proud to have already experienced aerobic exercise .
My style of teaching aerobics then was a forerunner of “ Jazzercise ” – and I taught to favorite American and German songs and popular music . It was the year of Bruce Springsteen and “ Born in the USA ,” and some German pop songs , e . g ., “ Neunundneunzigsig Rote Balloon ” ( 99 Red Balloons ). But , teaching aerobic exercise doesn ’ t require a command of the language – as I found out when I wanted to show rhythms and musicality for Raqs Sharqi – or as they called it “ Bauchtanz ” = “ stomach dance ” in German . I had to find a way to bridge the language gap to teach dancers .
Transcending Language with Shared Music One eye-opening experience taught me a method of transcending language and teaching dancers to understand the connection between musicality and dance movement . On the radio , I kept hearing the piece “ Ode to Joy ” – a Christian hymn and music often played at Christmas . I decided to use this song in the dance class to illustrate the concept of connecting musicality , rhythms , finger cymbals , and dance movement . A funny thing happened when I
See this concept of shared music demonstrated in the YouTube video : https :// youtu . be / a23945btJYw of a plaza in Nuremberg , Germany , that begins with a little girl playing the tune on her recorder , and a musician then plays the melody on string bass . Next , you see the plaza very gradually fill with more musicians playing every instrument in the orchestra ( including tympani – my favorite instrument in junior high school ). Then , the entire plaza audience joins in singing the song in their various homeland languages . Since they are all singing the same piece – the voices are harmonious and blend into a truly joyous musical expression and joyful experience . Thus , you hear the musical pattern and song , but you don ’ t understand the different languages being sung . Lesson learned : even though we may speak different languages – we can perform to music and conform to the musicality via our movement styling , which corresponds to the music .
The Ma * Shuqa Method That long-ago lesson of connecting movement with musicality became the instructional format for my Ma * Shuqa Method . My Ma * Shuqa Method teaches dancers how to connect with the music and coordinate dance movement and zils musically . I had been frustrated in teaching zils as just specific rhythms to play while dancing . Just playing a steady rhythmic pattern with finger cymbals / zils can obscure musicality in a piece . It can also make it difficult to move and perform with nuance to catch the musical elements in a piece .
October 2020 � The Belly Dance Chronicles 29