You want to start playing your finger cymbals now and that’s great. Below you will find a run through list of how to go about practicing. Some things to remember though: Keep your elbows and hands up Don’t get into the habit of playing your finger cymbals by your ears. It looks ugly and you are not deaf. Remember to let the your prominent hand do most of the work when you play your cymbals Concentrate Have fun.

When you are learning your finger cymbals it is important to:

1. Always stand when you play them. After all you are going to end up dancing with them while you play them, not while you are sitting down.

2. Practice your various rhythms at a steady pace that you are comfortable with.

3. While standing, move your arms into various positions and keep a steady rhythm going.

4. Once you can move your arms into various positions without making mistakes in your rhythms start walking around while playing until you feel you are comfortable to keep a steady pace going.

Okay you are doing great so far if you have managed to get to this point.

5. We are now going to incorporate simple belly dance movement to start off with while playing our cymbals. A few examples of movements are:

1. Hip circles
2. Figure 8s
3. Single hip pushes
4. Lifted figure 8s

You can incorporate any other movement with your finger cymbals as long as you can keep the rhythm going.

6. After you are comfortable with this it is time to find a piece of music that you like that you can play your finger cymbals to.

7. First stand and play your finger cymbals to your favourite piece of music to pick up what rhythms to play and keep it constantly going. Do this until you are happy.

8. Now play it again and start different arm movements and keep the rhythms you had picked up in the song going without making a mistake.

9. Once you are comfortable with this, it is time to play it again and to incorporate body movement into the song along with the rhythms you had picked up in the song.

And you have done your very first finger cymbal dance.

Keep on practicing and you are well on your way to become a musician and a dancer.

Please remember that you cannot learn finger cymbals over night. It is difficult to learn due to the concentration required to keep a rhythm going and to understand how to play it in a song while dancing.

So take you time, be patient and practice! You will be proud of the outcome after that hard work.

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