Thanks all for the Help so far. Ishould have said I was in the u.k. I did say that my wife and daughter are both bellydancers and usually use recorded music. I have already taken lessons on Doumbek, douf and Req, and am quite o.k. with the various rhythm patterns and variations. I have also several pices by Hafez and Fairouz among others but tey are mainly vocal backings. My ear has developed well from constant exposure to Arabic and Turkish music so I find the various modes and scales, half quarter, eighth and sixreeth tones, are quite easy to handle if you are not frightened of them, and I have produced some fair sounding improvs when playing with our Egytptian percussionist at haflas, but I really want to get some of the Arabic standards. My baglama is a strange beast. It is a cumbus baglama, 3 double courses, and a deep metal bowl resonator with a small "banjo" skin. It is a very pleasing, but powerful instrument requiring minimal amplification to hold its own. and tuning is easy with western style mechanical machine heads. Italso uses standard long neck, loop end banjo strings. So anyone with further help, you now know a bit more about my set-up. Adrian