what is the sound of a one-holed zill clanging

Pretty good, as it turns out.  A long time ago, M gave me a pair of Zildjan finger cymbals, from their pro line.  They are heavy and large and have a beautiful tone, but they only have one hole for the elastic instead of two holes, which makes them much less stable than regular zills.  There's this big debate in the belly dance world about whether one-holed zills are more professional or just a bad idea in general.  But I will say that when M gave me the zills, I couldn't play them to save my life.  Now that I'm a more proficient zill player, I was amazed to discover this week that I can play them with ease and the instability doesn't seem to be much of a factor any more.  I'm excited about this because their tone is, as I said, beautiful--actually each pair is set to a slightly different tone so the sound is more complex.  I rather wonder if the single hole is part of what makes the tone so lovely, since the metal is less disrupted and the one hole is more symmetrical than two slots are.  Anyway, this was a wonderful discovery.  I'll be playing them tonight when I dance with Walter Sickert at All-Asia.

(These zills have a very rough finish to them and when you slide them across each other they make this wonderful melodic grinding noise, very neubauten.  I love it but M can't stand it, he was sorry he gave them to me the first time I did it :)

To make up for my apparent rise in professionalism, I'm wearing glitterdot tonight.  Don't tell the belly dance police!  It's just way too hot for pants and a glitterdot skirt was the next most appropriate bottom layer for the rest of my costume.

( oh, and SYTYCD )