Preserving Matepe music
in the 21st century

Today our long-missed project partner Othnell “Mangoma” Moyo arrived, having returned from his US tour yesterday. Of course he couldn’t be stopped from playing matepe with Sekuru. Later on, we started recording Mangoma interviewing Sekuru about his personal and musical biography.

The day started with Samora noticing a strange noises from one block afar, shortly before the power went off. He said he once heard the same sounds when something in a transformer station blew up, and expected us to stay without electricity for a couple of days. Part of our equipment is a little solar…

Today Sekuru finished the matepe. After all keys were in place and tuned, Sekuru took them out one by one to file in the “scars” – decorative grooves on the upper side which also helps to keep the keys in place below the bar. He polished each key with the file and cuts off the…

We spent the later afternoon in the yard, chatting, listening to Sekuru’s 19-key karimba, drinking beer, myself trying to tune the two Zonke-tuning matepes which I had commissioned a few months ago to my liking, under Sekuru’s guidance. We quickly realised that filming a master craftsman building an instrument only goes that far – he…

This Sunday was our day off. We had some nice chats in the afternoon and Sekuru brought up a point he had already mentioned before: “One matepe is enough to call the spirits, with the nhare [mbira dzavadzimu] you need two instruments (or an exceptionally good player that can take the role of two).” I…

Recording outdoors is not easy. Every morning we set up our equipment, and take it down in the evening. At daytime there’s usually no electricity – which turned out to be a blessing, otherwise you hear noise and music from all over. There’s a whole range of familiar street noises from the other side of…

Enjoy…

We started the days with an overview of all tools and materials Chawasarira uses for matepe making, as well as possible replacements or workarounds if some tools are missing (like they did for mbira makers of former generations). Sekuru forges the left thumb keys in the order of which they are played in the Kuvachenjedza…

(this post is for social media, please excuse the redundancy) Most of us probably have seen the “Spinning Dancer”, a famous bistable optical illusion. Does the dancer turn left or right? Your brain decides, the animation is always the same. What if I told you that there is music which works the same way? Enter…

Today Sekuru shared with us his secrets on how to securely attach the bar to the soundboard, using bicycle spokes. In the morning he went to a local market to look for them. With the bar securely in place, Chawasarira explained the details of key forging. After finishing the first key, it was Samora’s and…

After finishing the hardwood inlays, and levelling the hard and soft bits of the soundboard, Sekuru showed how to make and fit in the bridge (which the keys rest on), the bar (which holds the keys in place, and the brace (which wraps around the soundboard and holds the bar in place.

After recording Hurombo, Sekuru was keen to finish the hardwood inlays of the matepe soundboard. They are used for the keys to rest on, and to prevent the bridge from tilting when inserting the keys (Chawasarira’s innovation).