The "Old school music " came from the classics and ta-a-teet ( lighter country music) Eddie Kochak was more "american arabic" music. My favorite music to dance to was by Om Kelthoum who the most famous singer in the middle-east. Not only did I love to listen to her as every Arab did, choosing segments of her songs to dance to was an emotional experience. I also like Abdul Haleem Hafiz. I always wanted singing behind me as the words of Arabic songs are so beautiful and understanding them helped me express them. I often times danced to a large Arab audience so the shows were very emotionally charged.
When I first started dancing there was basically three parts to the music. Fast
taxim and fast again. Andre's father Najeeb played for me and we changed the routine of the show by having many different changes in the music. I did violin solos, as well as Oud solos and drum solos, I also incorporated the debke(folk dancing) and sometimes sang myself. Najeeb's voice was very stimulating for me. We had a real connection to the audience, even the American audience could see our passion and got caught up in it.

Today music is much faster and I rarely hear vocals, there is much synthesized music and it is very contemporary. It is probably easier to choreograph to, but besides a basic structure my music and dance was totally improvisational