Beledi

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Beledi is a rhythmic style common in Middle Eastern music.

The word Beledi means "country" in Arabic, although it is a word that often has the connotation of referring to someone as a "hick" or lower-class. This is the most common rhythm among music used for oriental dancing, including Arabic pop and traditional Egyptian dance music. Traditional Egyptian oriental dance is most often done to a beledi piece.

Some people theorize that the word "bellydance," as Raqs Sharqi is often referred to in modern popular culture, came from "beledi." In fact this is not true. "Bellydance" - a term which many people today consider a vulgar misnomer and fight hard to abolish - is a translation of "danse du ventre", a term that the first French travellers coined in seeing the locals dance moving their hips and midriff, which in European dances is very stiff.

The basic structure of the Beledi rhythm, played on the tabla, is as follows:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

D D T D T

(Dum, Dumn, Tek...Dum Tek Tek...)

(Capitals represent stressed beats. Dum is the dominant hand on the middle of the tabla, Tek either the dominant or the non-dominant hand on the rim of the tabla)

What is perhaps the most common beledi version is more correctly called Masmoudi Saghir ("small masmoudi") as it is really a masmoudi contracted into 4/4 time. The drummer has freedom to “fill” in between these stressed beats as he/she sees fit to interpret the music. A common fill is something along the lines of:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & D D T k t D t k T D D T k t D t k T t k

(the second version has a "bridge" to lead it into the next bar)