Middle Eastern Percussion: Billy Woods Billy Woods, a master of Middle Eastern percussion and rhythms, will guide you through drumming fundamentals for playing the rthymns and songs from the middle east, to include composition and technique. Bring your dumbek, frame drum, or any drum! This class is appropriate for both advanced and beginning drummers. Billy Woods (Sylvanus): Billy Woods, aka Sylvanus, has been a professional drummer since 1958, and has performed and taught all over the United States. He began playing Middle Eastern rhythms on the dumbek in 1980, and learned to play for dancers by accompanying Eva Cernik and Susannah Del Vecchio in their classes and performances. In 1987 he traveled to Egypt, where he studied with teachers at the Conservatoire in Cairo, and played with a baladi band in upper Egypt. He has also studied with Ibrahim Turnem. He has received several awards and national recognition for his contributions to the quality of drumming within the Society of Creative Anachronisms. He has recorded with the Spellbinders on Mirage, 1992, and with the Luminaries on New Traditions, 1991, for Joynan of Denver. In 1994, he formed Lights on Productions with percussionist David Korup, and together they record music for dance, drum music and drumming instruction tapes. Their recordings include Eyes Behind the Veil, Seed of Time/invitation to drum, Drumming: the beginning and World of Dumbek, Volumes I & II. In 1980, Billy began studying Tao Tan Pai, the Taoist Elixir style of Chi Kung, in the lineage of Grandmaster Share K. Lew of San Diego who is from the temple on Mt. Luo Fa in China. He has taught workshops and classes since 1985. Back to Workshops and Seed Groups