Name: Raquy Danziger
Birth Month: November
Resides: Brooklyn, NY
Current Bands, Projects: Raquy and the Cavemen,The Wild Gypsy Ensemble, weekly Belly Dance Show
Upcoming gigs: http://www.raquy.com/upcoming.htm
29 JANUARY 2004
7.30pm, with Paul Winter as part of "The NY Open Center's 20th Anniversary Bash", Spirit New York, 530 W 27th St (btw 10-11th Aves), NYC, NY
Website: www.raquy.com
Discography: DUST, Masmudi
Favorite Color: Purple
Drink: "Raquy special" (cranberry juice, seltzer water and lime)
Favorite Dish: Kale, tempeh (vegan)

A solidly groovy middle-eastern percussionista, Raquy Danziger lays down exciting and expressive beats on the dumbek, a Persian hourglass-shaped drum (also known in North Africa and Turkey as darbuka) played with the hands and fingers. Danziger provides the strong foundation to several exotic "world music" projects, including Raquy and the Cavemen, a Turkish-rooted rock collaboration, her own dumbek "orchestra" comprised of students, and she also regularly accompanies belly-dancers. Not only is she an amazing hand-percussionist, but she also plays the Kemenche, tambur and viola. She took a moment out from practicing, teaching, and zooming to one of her sessions and talked with Drummergirl this past fall.

DG: Where did you grow up?
RD: I grew up mostly in America, but partly in Israel. My parents played in an orchestra in Israel when I was a kid, so we lived there. Then after college, I moved back to Israel and I wasn't really playing music. I was rebelling. I was doing journalism, or something. Then I took a trip to India. I was just planning to travel, but I started drumming. Instead of travel, I just sat in one city and took drumming lessons. It blew me away. There's the coolest stuff in Indian drumming. All of these long cycles, and polyrhythmic stuff.

DG: Did you start lessons with tabla?
RD: No, I chose the dholak, it's more of a folk instrument. It's wooden, not clay, and it's kind of like one drum with two sides. But I actually don't even play that anymore. It just got me into drumming. As soon as I started, I was practicing all the time. It was all I wanted to do. It was great to find something that I really enjoyed. So, I went back to Israel, and got some Latin percussion; congas, and bongos and stuff. I really liked it, but then I got a dumbek. And that was it. Through the dumbek, I got into the Middle-Eastern music. That was all about 7 years ago. Then I came to New York about 4 ½ years ago. I immediately started playing with these great musicians.

DG: And there are so many people to be found here. Did you come to New York for musical community?
RD: Actually I didn't plan on moving here. I was just visiting. I started playing with all these people, and I just stayed. It was really exciting - all these musicians - and I don't know why, but there don't seem to be too many dumbek players around. There was a big need. So I started getting all these gigs…and even though, I'd just started playing, and I wasn't that great, technically, yet. But I was used to accompanying on the piano - I'm a pretty good accompanist. So the musicians liked to play with me, because I know how to make them sound good. Even though my soloing wasn't quite like other dumbek players, but that's what got me in. Then I started practicing a lot and I got more confident, just learning on the job. I haven't even really studied dumbek with anyone, just learning from doing, and also recordings, copying. I'm a big copycat.

DG: You'd probably be doing the same thing if you'd had formal lessons. At least this way, you're choosing the material. So if you were learning on the job, how did teaching come about?
RD: A lot of people would come up to me after the gigs and ask if I teach, especially women, and of those women, many are belly-dancers, because they're dancing with me playing, and they realize that it's a woman playing. A lot of them actually want to learn the drumming to improve their dancing. But then, they get so into the drumming that they become drummers. So I have all of these students who are former belly-dancers. And you know, I love to teach. Like at Makor, and Open Center. I don't know how it all happened, but I have gotten around by word of mouth, and I have private students too.

DG: How many times a week do you teach?
RD: I'm teaching at the open center, one frame drum course and then at Makor, I'm teaching two dumbek courses. And private lessons as well.

DG: And you've also got a regular weekly gig or four -
RD: 3 regular weekly gigs, and two regular monthly gigs and other stuff as it comes up.

DG: Is that with your ensemble, or is that with students who can make it that night?
RD: A lot of my gigs are with traditional Middle-Eastern ensembles. Mostly older men, who are playing oud (Arabic lute), kanun (zither-like), and clarinet. And there's usually a belly dancer who comes out and I'm the drummer. That's basically how I started out in New York, doing that kind of stuff. I have 3 of those a week, and they're really fun. And it's easy - I just show up with my dumbek and they decide the songs.

DG: There's a basic repertoire?
RD: It varies slightly, but most Middle-Eastern ensembles perform the favorites that everybody plays.

DG: So is it kind of like jazz standards from a big book, or common tunes that you just know? Then, how did you learn all these Middle-Eastern "standards"?
RD: On the job. When I moved here, I started playing with these guys who'd been doing it for a while. They would make me tapes and I would learn from playing to them. I especially love the Turkish-Gypsy stuff with a lot of odd rhythms. I also have concerts with my students. I compose stuff for my students and I take them on retreats to places in upstate New York, they learn the pieces and then we come back here and perform. Oh - I also play these ancient bowed instruments - one is called the kemenche, from Iran. Anyhow, the thing that is the most exciting for me, is the stuff from my new CD - which is my ensemble with my husband [Liron Peled].

DG: You arranged the songs, or melodies from them and put them together?
RD: The percussion pieces are all my original compositions. Then the melodic pieces - some of them are mine, but the others are traditional things from Iran, Kurdistan, Turkey, around the Black Sea area - I love that music - it's very trancey. But I arranged them much differently than the original songs which are always melody and rhythm, but I've added many layers to that. My husband, who is a hardcore rock musician, also helped me arrange this stuff.

DG: There's an audible tug-of-war going on with the fusing of styles. But it's not to the music's detriment. Really, those extra layers make your CD, "Dust" a really good listen for someone who wants to hear the dumbek for the first time, someone who comes from a "rock" background. The other instruments like the sarangi-ish thing add so much to the music. What is that long-necked creature you're playing in the picture?
RD: It's yalai tambur (rare Turkish instrument), you can see it on the back of the CD. It's a bowed tambur. Amazing sound. It's a great thing to have an instrument with those microtonal frets. I'm trying to learn about those microtonal scales. They don't exist in Western music. Hearing them - they're gorgeous.

DG: So you've definitely got a solid background in music theory, if you're bringing up microtones…
RD: Yes, my parents are both classical musicians. I've got a heavy classical music background. They started me on the violin when I was like one. Then I started piano when I was 8. That was my focus…serious competitions. Blah blah blah. I was also playing a little viola in string quartets and stuff - I enjoyed being the inner part. It's good to have had it as a basis.

DG: Right, how handy to have had that training - to hear the differences in tone and pitch, finding harmonies, especially as a drummer.
RD: Yeah - Just being able to hear something and write it, or understand it precisely, mathematically. I know that a lot of Arabic players - they're great at the Arabic drumming, but they can't really do other things, like different cycles. But, I think that coming from a classical music background, you can kind of do anything. I'm very grateful for that, to have that foundation. And now that I have that, I can break the walls, start soloing and stuff. I feel like I've done the hard work already and can have fun.

DG: How do you maintain the dumbek? Do you need to re-skin it?
RD: It's metal and it has plastic skin. Once you tune it, maybe you have to tune it a little more, but it's not affected by weather or anything. Nothing can really happen to the drum. They're very strong. Very low-maintenance.

DG: Do you have a whole supply of them?
RD: Yep. The one I play most is the ugliest one. You wouldn't believe how ugly it is. It has this 80's electric blue wallpaper. But it sounds amazing. It's nice, and the "dum" is tuned to a "d", which fits in nicely with most oud music. It fits with the key. And I also have a bunch of frame drums. I'm really getting into the frame drum. And the riq, the Arabic tambourine.

DG: So, how do you practice when you're on tour, or at a hotel or something?
RD: It's really hard on tour to practice. I'm really lucky that I live in a noisy neighborhood in New York and that the neighbors don't mind. If you're in a hotel, you can put a pillow on the dumbek, and you can still hear it. Something of a practice pad. But, it's hard, especially in Turkey. I'll find a park to practice, but then there's the [Islamic] Call to Prayer, and they tell me to stop playing, so - hmmm.

DG: How long did it take for you to build up toughness on your hands?
RD: On the dumbek, if you're hitting it correctly, you don't have to hit it that hard to make a really loud sound. When I'm playing, like yesterday for example, I practiced for about 4 hours, and then I taught for 3 hrs, and had a 3 hour gig where I wasn't miked, so I was playing loud. Well, I wish you could see my hands. I have two calluses, but in general, it's not so hard on your hands. But that's what I love about the dumbek. It's a lot of finger stuff - intricate snaps and finger rolls, and so many different sounds - one even sounds like rain.

DG: Do they have names - the syllables and patterns?
RD: I've kind of developed a whole system of notation that I took from Indian notation. But I use it for the dumbek, and it's based on underlines. Each underline is one beat and you write the syllable of the sound. It's my own invention, and it's what I use for my students. Now some of my students have started to teach and they're using that. It's almost a system now. There's a snappy pop, and there's a rolly pop- I give the things names.

DG: Then, would you say that you regard drumming as more of an oral tradition? And how would you describe your style?
RD: I think it's mostly an oral tradition, especially in countries like Turkey and Egypt. I don't even know if the stuff is notated traditionally. It's probably something passed down in families as well. But my technique, because I've studied in India, and also studied Persian drumming, is a whole different thing. I like to think of the Persian drumming as between Arabic and Indian drumming. And geographically, too, it's right in between. It's more intricate but it's right inbetween. So my style on the dumbek is a mixture of all those styles. It's not typical Arabic, or typical Turkish, but actually, now in the Middle-East, everyone is mixing everything up. The most famous dumbek player in Turkey actually studied in Egypt. And there's this new technique where you do this double thing on the left hand which reminds me of Indian drumming. I think that the gypsies have just spread everything. You do still meet people who are true purists. Especially some of these Arabic guys.

DG: In the ensembles you meet at the gigs you get, do you find that you encounter "attitude" and get instructions on how to do it the "right" way?
RD: Some, especially Egyptian drummers, feel the need to say that "This is the right way to do it." But a lot of them, after they hear me play, they don't do it. My favorite thing is battling. There are some dumbek players who stop in NewYork, and I'll invite them over and battle. And I learn so much from that, and it's so much fun. I love learning through imitating people.

One kind of interesting thing. I was wondering if there happened to be any kind of dumbek competition in Egypt or Turkey, if there's any place where players get together and battle, I thought it would be really interesting to find something like that. Just to have that experience - the trading of beats and patterns. And I've been trying to find something like that on the internet. So there's this famous dumbek player - Hossam Ramzy - anyway, he's got tons of CDs available. Anyhow, I found his e-mail address and sent him a short letter asking him if he knew of any such competitions. Then I got this letter back, where he starts out all self-righteous, scolding me "We do NOT compete in the Middle East." But by the end of it he's like "but I could kick your ass," asking "how fast are you? How are you going to compete? I could personally run you under the table with my feet" - or something like that. And "you would never stand any chance against any Arabic musician." I have the e-mail up on my fridge. I show it to all my students. I included my web address in my e-mail, so I don't know if he saw that I'm a woman, or if he even looked at the website or what. It was just so interesting to see that reaction, maybe because I'm a westerner, or maybe because I'm a woman. I don't know.

DG: Did you write him back after that?
RD: I want to eventually, but I have to figure out the tactic.

DG: Have you already played your "dream" gigs? Or have you had the best collaboration ever with a musician? If you were to play with Anyone, who would that be?
RD: Omar Faruk Tekbilek. I played with him, in a couple of NY concerts. Also, this guy in Greece - Ross Daly. And actually, I think that the highest level of music that I've ever done has been with my husband. 'Cuz, when you're just rehearsing a couple of times for a gig, it can never get to the level of a project where you're working on it everyday. And recording it. And grappling over every note. That's definitely the highest level of music-making, but as far as arrangement level, and tightness, it's just not the same. My dream music partner is actually my husband. I have a lot of respect for him.

DG: If you weren't drumming, would you still be trying to figure out what you want to do?
RD: I don't really know what I'd be doing. I was doing pretty well as a copyrighter, but I'm not good at that. It wasn't fun though, like making music.

© December, 2003 Happy Mazza Media, LLC.
Contact Drummergirl