Desert Sands
Arab Dance
I have this cymbal that I’ve had for decades now, and I hardy ever take it to gigs. I think I purchased it new in the 80s and it was called a “swish” back then. It’s a bit of a Chinese shape without the squared bell, but turned up around the edges; 22 inches and originally had rivets in it.
What it does really, really well is a soft dry kind of wooshy-thin-gong sound and on this rendition of the Arab Dance I use it to invoke the desert sand and the sense of something really old, dry and yet man made.
The cadence is played with hand-made mallets with a wine cork center wrapped with an old hand towel and “socks” made from a bed sheet. The towel was glued with Elemer’s Glue All, and you can hear that its starting to come loose on one of the mallets, giving it a rattle of it’s own. If I had this to do over, I would use a wooden drum vs. the copper shell you hear on this snare drum.
Still, I can imagine the evening heat of the desert under the stars.