The $6.78 CondunDRUM

After six months of changing drummers almost as frequently
as I change my underwear, I finally found the perfect drummer to join my band.
He’s skilled, powerful, properly translates my moves, and isn’t lazy or greedy.
He’s everything I’ve been looking for in a drummer, and I couldn’t be happier.
But, as always, there’s a problem. The other members of the band don’t like him. They say he’s arrogant and
makes funny faces and gestures at them. And they want him out.

Do you see what I’m up against? Funny faces? I feel
like I’m in kindergarten here.

Dealing with musicians is one of the most challenging
aspects of my job. Technically, the band leader handles them for me because in
Egypt, it’s not “prestigious” for a dancer to talk to her musicians (and because
I have little patience for childish antics). Nevertheless, I still feel the
effects of their inflated egos, childishness, and greed. And last night, it
really bothered me. We were on stage, about to close the show with a drum solo,
when all of a sudden, the band stopped playing. They left me hanging in front
of my audience with no music to dance to. I turned around to see what the
problem was, only to find them arguing with the drummer!

It was at this moment that I finally understood all those
moments of stage-rage I had witnessed between Egyptian belly dancers and their
musicians. Not wanting to put on that kind of show, I composed myself. But
I must have given them the most threatening look humanly possible, because they
immediately continued playing. When we got off
stage, however, I unleashed my fury on the band. Egyptian style. I went off on
them for at least five minutes without coming up for air.

Basically, the main point of my angry tirade was “GROW UP!”
I explained to my musicians how there’s such a thing as stage etiquette. That
even if the drummer is a jerk or
messes up, it doesn’t warrant the whole band stopping the show to argue with
him. We resolve our problems off stage. To this, the musicians replied that the
drummer “was just trying to show you he’s a star.” To which I snapped back,
“There are no stars! None of us are stars! Michael Jackson is a star. Amr Diab
is a star. YOU are not stars! When I bow to the band at the end of my show, I
don’t see stars! I see a fuzzy blur of instruments. A band. A team. And I
am part of that team, so cut it out!”

I
went on to give them a lecture in reality. We are artists, I told them, and
most artists have big egos. Otherwise it wouldn’t be bothering you that the
drummer is trying to show me that “he’s a star,” if that is indeed what he is
doing. In life, you need to be prepared to encounter all types of
personalities. You will encounter the arrogant, the greedy, the liars, the
braggers, the humble, the loyal, etc. You need to know how to deal with each
type without disrupting your work or the work of others. This is called
professionalism.

(This
is why I now believe a degree in child psychology should be a prerequisite for
belly dancing in Cairo.)

My
musicians scowled. They huffed and puffed, but they didn’t shoot back at me
with a stupid response this time. They realized that I was right and that I
wouldn’t tolerate that kind of behavior, especially towards the best drummer I
could find for $6.78!

That’s
right. You read correctly. This drummer makes $6.78, or 40 Egyptian pounds, for
an hour show. That’s less than the minimum wage in most US states! It is,
however, slightly more than my other musicians make, and that is only because
I’m paying him the rest of his requested salary out of my pocket. (Yes,
musicians’ salaries can get that ridiculous in Egypt). And the reason I
agreed to pay him an extra US $2.54 from my measly salary of US $33.90 is
because he was worth every penny of it. He is also the only drummer of his
caliber who would agree to that kind of embarrassing money.

I
am willing to do this because finding my dream drummer is no easy task when the
venue is only willing to pay him $4.25 (25 Egyptian pounds). Though drummers
are a dime a dozen in Egypt, not all of them are created equal. I’ll show you
what I mean.

First,
there are the drummers who only work in small orchestras usually consisting of five
musicians (takht). They are appropriately
called takhaatees, and do not work
with singers or dancers.

Next
are the drummers who play exclusively for singers. This type of drumming
requires its own special type of skills.

The
third category of drummer is the dancer’s drummer, or tabbal ra’assa,as they say in Arabic. This is the drummer who is
attuned to the intricacies of belly dance. He knows when to doom and when to tak according to what the dancer is doing on stage. Most
importantly, he knows how to follow her, translating her moves with the drum.

The
fourth and fifth categories of drummer are my own made-up categories. They are:
good drummers and bad drummers, and they exist in all three previously-mentioned
categories.

Because
of the ridiculous salary, I’ve only been able to work with really bad drummers
thus far. $4.25 drummers. This is more unfortunate than frustrating, because
the drummer, or tabbal, is arguably
the most important member of the band. He sets the tempo of the music and gives
cues to the rest of the musicians. Most importantly, he makes the dancer dance!
(Indeed, in many ways, the drummer is the
dancer). Absent a skilled drummer, the dancer is at a disadvantage. Her accents
will look like nothing, and her drum solo
(if he knows how to do one) will be subpar.

What’s
funny about all this is that all of the $4.25 drummers I have worked with have
complained about me. They say they have never seen a dancer like me—that they
can’t keep up with me. Too many dooms
and taks. Oooh, how I love seeing
them sweat as much as I do during a show. 😀

The
real problem is that these drummers have grown lazy from never having to work
hard for local dancers. This is because many Egyptian dancers don’t really
dance and don’t really care (a topic for another post). Drumming for a foreign
dancer is a whole different undertaking—one that requires a drummer experienced
in working with foreigners. Luckily for me, I found one. And every time he
drums for me, I have a really good show. This, my friends, is why I’m bent on
keeping my US $6.78 drummer at all costs. Wish me luck.