To play the castanets, to really play the castanets, one must have a personality that is bigger than all of the room.

It is the same with the zills.

It must be a personality so expansive and enshrouding that it mutes the collective ear-drum drubbing of the mazamir and slows down the systole-diastole of the daff until all you hear is the clap of brass on brass.

Click here to see more photographs of the tannoura performance at the Wikala al-Ghouri in Cairo.