Home | Upcoming Performances | Performers | Venues | Photo Gallery | Class Schedule | Special Workshops | Instructors | Articles | Swap Page | Links

An Interview With Raquy Danziger

article by John Price

Me: Who in the band is into the metal type of stuff?

Raquy: Liron, the guy with the dreadlocks, yeah.  Before we started doing this he was in a hardcore rock band.

Me: I kind of figured. Playing the riq and the dumbek with foot pedals is pretty cool.

Raquy: Yeah.

Me: Is music a full-time thing for you at this point?

Raquy: Yeah.

Me: Knowing a lot of people that play in bands, your typical starving artist dreams of getting to the point where they can do music all the time. Now that you're able to do that, is it what you thought it would be?  Is it great?

Raquy: It's better.

Me: Better?

Raquy: Yeah, it's better than anything else.

Me: Do you pretty much eat, sleep and breathe music all the time?

Raquy: Yeah.  I mean, I have to check my email, and I write these books, which is about music, but you know, it's writing, and editing.  I plan retreats ... it's not just that I'm practicing all day.  But everything I'm doing has to do with music.  And, you know, I never imagined that I'd have my own band at this point - it's such a great band - and that we'd be having these nice shows.  Such a nice response ...

Me: So you started out playing classical music on piano?

Raquy: Mm-hm.

Me: Do you ever play Western music still, at all?

Raquy: Sometimes I'll, like, play Bach on the kamanche just for the hell of it.  When I go to my grandma's she likes to sing old songs, and so I'll play piano and she'll sing ... that's about the only time I touch the piano.  When I go to my dad's, he's a bassoonist, so we'll play some duets and stuff.

Me: So is the grandmother into the stuff that you currently do?  Or does she ...

Raquy: She just came to our show last week!

Me: Oh, that's great. So she doesn't just tell you to play piano.

Raquy: Oh, no.  No.  She loves it.

Me: So, why did you choose Middle Eastern music? Have you thought at all about what drives you to this specifically rather than jazz or some kind of American art form?

Raquy: Well, I grew up in Israel partly, and so part of me is very connected to the Middle East.  So I think that's a big part of it.  I was in the Middle East when I grew up ... I was living in Tel Aviv when I started drumming, and so, I think it's kind of natural that I would find the drum that's indigenous to the Middle East and through that I discovered Middle Eastern music.

Me: So do you call it a tabla or a dumbek?

Raquy: Well, in Egypt they call it tabla, but in this country they call it dumbek.  So I just change what I call it according to each country.

Me: Just to standardize I guess.

Raquy: Yeah.

Me: So that's another question I have.  There are a lot of belly dancers here, and lot of people playing Middle Eastern music, or at least playing at it, at haflas and things, and there's a tendency to kind of homogenize the Middle East and North Africa - 20-some countries - down to this kind of amorphous mass.  When you see people do a dance or music and it's obvious they don't necessarily know where it comes from, they're just kind of playing beledi or whatever - what do you think about that?

Raquy: Well, you know, whatever makes people happy.  I'm not a snob or anything.

Me: You don't seem like a music purist.

Raquy: Yeah, I mean, you know what I do is really a fusion.  I'm playing my original compositions on the Iranian kamanche with Arabic drums and electric bass.  These days with all the traveling and the media and the Internet, everything is mixing together ...

Me: So you see yourself as an assimilator?  Any kind of influences you get from wherever, you welcome those into your playing?

Raquy: Yeah, [but] to me, personally, it's important to learn the traditional way.  Like I learned the maqams - the Middle Eastern scales - the right way, and the rhythms from the Egyptians the right way and from the Turks.  I'm like a sponge, I absorb that and then I come out with something that's mine.

Me: Well that's part of becoming an artist, right?  [But] a lot of people skip that step and go right into doing their own thing without learning ...

Raquy: That's fine if people want to do that.  For me it's really important to learn the real thing the real way and then do your own thing with it, but to first kind of find the traditional.

Me: So when you go to play something more traditional, are you conscious of turning on and off a switch, like from freeform to playing in a certain tradition at all, or ...

Raquy: Well, I've kind of developed my own style now.  If somebody says "Play an Egyptian drum solo" I could sound like an Egyptian drummer or if someone said "Play Turkish drum" I could sound like a Turk, but I've just recently kind of come up with my own voice.

Me: So this is kind of an obvious question, and I apologize if you've heard it a lot of times, but you've traveled quite in the Middle East, right ... you just got back from Cairo ... what is the reaction, or does it vary, to an American woman playing this traditional Middle Eastern instrument, which I assume is mostly played in public by men, would that be correct?

Raquy: By men. They *love* it.  They love it.  They flip out over me in Egypt, you know, the reaction is unbelievable.  So positive ...

Me: That's great.

Raquy: ... and so appreciative, and respectful.

Me: I guess when you have the chops, when you know how to play the traditional stuff, you can't really argue with the music.

Raquy: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Me: It's like hearing Joss Stone, you know, the British teenager that sings blues and stuff.  She's this skinny little white kid, but when she sings, nobody can argue with that, right? So the music really kind of speaks for itself I guess.

Me: So where's your favorite place to play?  If you weren't in New York City, what other towns in the U.S. have good music scenes?

Raquy: In the U.S.?  Well for us, we have certain towns where they love us and we have a huge following, like for some reason in Ohio - Cincinnati and Cleveland - we have this amazing following and incredible fans.  Where else ...  You know, those are probably our two best cities - I don't know why.

Me: So do you guys play all kinds of venues?

Raquy: Yeah all kinds, from big theaters and concert hall types to dives and everything in between.

Me: Cool.  So this is kind of a silly question, but do you ever get up and look at the drums and  think, meh ... not today.  Do you ever need a break?

Raquy: Yeah, I'm not always in the mood to practice.

Me: So what do you do when you're not in the mood to practice?

Raquy: Smoke marijuana. (laughs) That always gets me in the mood to practice.

Me: You talked in your seminar about doing yoga and things like that to relax.  I know I find that when I play, and I teach a couple of very beginner people, a lot of people are coming from desk jobs and things and the most typical problem is super tight shoulders, and it basically makes it impossible to play drums.  So would you recommend yoga as a way of loosening up?

Raquy: Yes, yes.  Definitely yeah, if it's done right.

Me: What would you say ... well you've got several instructional books so I guess I know what you'd say, but what piece of advice would you give to a drummer who's, say, where I'm from -   Raleigh, North Carolina. Somewhat of a [belly] dance scene, not a lot of good music teachers for this kind of music.  How does somebody progress past basic beats to find their own voice?

Raquy: Well you know I didn't really have one teacher.  I hardly ever took a dumbek lesson.  But I learned so much from listening to the music.  Because these days you can get all this music and hear the greatest drummers in the world.  And you know what I would do is listen.  Once you figure out that's a pop, that's a slap, whatever, I would very nerdily transcribe a solo that I heard and then learn it.  That's basically how I learned to play, is just by basically listening to recordings and copying.

Me: So as somebody progresses is it inevitable to travel to the Middle East, and learn Arabic and that kind of thing?

Raquy: You don't *have* to - there are some good drummers here that play the dumbek and have never been to the Middle East, but I think you should, you know.  If you're going to play something from a certain tradition it's really nice to go there. 

Me: Well that's kind of a nice out for the people who are say, the fusion belly dancers, the tribal stuff - they're kind of making it their own.  But my wife and a lot of people I know do traditional style things, Egyptian, and basically almost everybody is dancing to music and they have no idea what the lyrics are or anything like that.  So it seems like it makes it a little bit difficult. I mean you can feel the music but ...

Raquy: Yeah.  Yeah, it's funny how they have no connection to the culture but they like the music.  It's fine, but I think if you're really into it, if you're teaching dumbek and all that stuff, go over there, go to the source, you know?  When I go to Egypt I feel like I'm going to the source of it.  It's important for me.  I feel like I owe it to *my* students here, because I'm teaching people all over America how to play, I kind of owe it to them to go there.  I go to Egypt every year and get new ideas, new inspiration, you know - play with the greatest players over there, and then I bring it back here and it just makes it so much richer.

Me: That's all I have.