Preserving Matepe music
in the 21st century

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).

This morning we started recording and overdubbing the two parts of Hurombo (poverty), a song also played at a mhondoro ceremony, but for the “lesser spirits”.

Today we took a break from documenting repertoire and started with matepe making, in order to test to process and see if have everything we need. Chaka Chawasarira shaped a soundboard from a roughly cut block of mupepe wood.

While we were taking down the equipment of our afternoon recording session in Katrin’s garden, the first guests arrived for dinner. An illustrious round with Ambuya Stella’s daughter Virginia Mukwesha, Hope Masike, Melody Zambuko from Music Crossroads, and Plot Mhako. A splendid evening with delicious food and inspiring conversations, Katrin connected our project with Melody,…

After our recording session in Katrin Simon’s garden pavilion, Sekuru gave us a nice performance of Hurombo, the song we planned to record next

Our next guest from the East arrived just the next day after Solomon’s departure: Tatenda Lenade Cangola from Chimoio, Mozambique, my partner in the Kalimba makers and players in rural Mozambique project. In the morning we had recorded the first parts of Wako ndiwako which, revealed by Sekuru’s tuning and to our great surprise, sounded…

Unfortunately, Solomon had to leave us early on, and we devoted ourselves to the two parts of Musengu, and Nzou kudya mushonga, of which Chawasarira says there is only one part.

What an immense pleasure and honour to welcome our special guest after a long working day! Solomon Madhinga, player and maker of the mbira dzaVaNau arrived to meet us and bring a couple of his mbiras. He lives east of Chipinge, just a few km from the Mozambican border, and had started very early in…

Kari mugomba is Chawasarira’s adaptation of the nhare song to the matepe. He says he tried the same with many nhare songs, but was unsatisfied with all but Kari mugomba (and Nehondo, which he still occasionally plays). It turned out that meanwhile he created different versions of Kari mugomba which can be played together like…

Today it was noticeably colder than the days before, nonetheless there was good energy, and we recorded all parts of Kanotamba mubani and the slightly misogynic titled Musumbu woderere.