Origins of the Moroccan Six Zil Pattern

In our recent article, Cultural Influences - Morocco, we looked at the various music styles of Morocco and we danced FCBD®Style in a livestream of Dancing in Flow with the Music of Morocco. Today, let’s dive in a little more and look at the origins of our Moroccan Six Zil Pattern.

An instrument that is quite predominant in much of the music we dance to are the Qraqeb or garagab (Arabic: قراقب), in English often transliterated as krakeb (thanks Wikipedia).

You may have heard them called gargabas.

Gargabas as mostly played in Gnaoua (Gnawa) music.

This article from CBS news tells us:

“Most people have never heard of Gnawa. Originally you weren't supposed to. For centuries, the music was only played in secret ceremonies by enslaved Black Africans brought to Morocco. Gnawa—an indigenous word for black people— is music born of the suffering of slavery.”

This description reminds me of blues and soul music. Perhaps that’s why it hits the heart in a special way. There is so much soul and emotion behind it.

As Nawarra mentioned in our recent podcast episode, Gnawa music has now become quite popular all over the world. There is even a huge annual music festival called Essaouira.

The gargabas, or Qreqeb, have such a distinct sound they are easy to pick out in a lot of the music we dance to. I can even hear them in more modern songs created in the United States like Anathema from Solace.

Here's a YouTube video of some sounds you may hear with the Qreqeb. 

Side note: My internet searches cater to my location and language which is why this isn't from a Moroccan, Arabic speaking content creator. Nawarra and I discuss this challenge/limitation in our podcast.

What does this have to do with the Moroccan Six Zil Pattern?

Carolena recently taught an excellent class on the Moroccan Six zil pattern. She shared the origins, technique, tips, stories, and lots of drills to some of her favorite Moroccan/Gnawa inspired music.

Something important Carolena started with was:

“Our Moroccan Six zil pattern is an artistic interpretation of the Gnawa Gargabas sound in the music.”

While I highly encourage you to take her class for the full experience, I did want to summarize the origins here so we can continue building our community resources.

In the early days of our dance style, when Carolena’s classes were still held at the Noe Valley Ministry, she heard Moroccan music and fell in love with the sounds and almost trance like rhythms. She really wanted to dance to it which meant figuring out a way to zil to this more rounded 6/8 rhythm.

Carolena was determined to play our standard r-l-R zil pattern, but a drummer she was dating at the time told her there was no way that pattern would work with that style of music and instead showed her the pattern R-l-r-L-r-l.

After a while Carolena realized her girlfriend was right. Not only would our standard r-l-R zil pattern not work for this style of music, but it also meant we couldn’t easily dance our fast vocabulary with this music either. And so our Moroccan zil pattern AND our dramatic slow concept was born.

The Moroccan Six Zil pattern is mostly used in the chorus while the featured dancers are dancing dramatic slow. It’s also great to play with when riffing if it fits well with the music.

If you have more questions about the Moroccan Six zil pattern, I highly encourage taking Carolena’s class! You can post any additional questions in the comments and get your answer directly from her.