10 Songs Every Bellydancer Should Know,
Various Artists, Hollywood Music Center, 2008
Reviewed by Johonna Gamble
I have always found it amazing
the number of lists people have compiled over the years of what songs a good
belly dancer needs to know. Since I’ve now lived on both coasts of the
United States, I can honestly say that the majority of the lists are more
influenced by what music a dancer or group are exposed to and what the audience
the dancer is performing to than any other factors. Since where I am
right now, in Roanoke, Virginia has a high concentration of Lebanese and Greek
immigrants, both of which hold festivals during the summer, the music I can
easily find and am more likely to use is from those two ethnic groups.
While in Portland, Oregon, I was more likely to use Egyptian music based on the
audience coming to the clubs and the bands I would have access to.
That said, Mher and Moses
Panossian have done an excellent job of compiling a list of mostly Egyptian
artists onto this album. They have chosen some older classics, with good
acoustics and sound levels, newer renditions of classics by great Ensembles or
Orchestras and a few new classics from the last decade to round out this album.
While nothing new is released on this album, I was pleasantly surprised at
their mix. All of these songs are over 3 minutes and can easily fit into
any dance routine, with most being orchestrated for a dancer to exhibit a
variety of rhythms and speeds. They seem to have deliberately chosen
songs that show a wide variety of emotion without using a lot vocal tracks.
Like I mentioned before, the
sound levels on some of the older recordings are a bit soft. Most though,
are wonderfully mixed with the album having smooth transitions from song to
song….I didn’t have to adjust my sound levels between songs. I was
surprised when I checked online for the album and found that Hollywood Music
has included the 2 bonus tracks on the Amazon mp3 download. This means
that you don’t miss anything by downloading…except the lovely blue cover
featuring photographs of Sandra by Michael Baxter. Don’t think you are
missing much though since the cover is more of a case with only the song title,
artist and times listed for the tracks.
So is this album on my list?
Yes.