Traditional instruments such as the thumb piano made from gourd, are being played less and less in Malawi. But Patrick Chimbewa is trying to change that by preserving such instruments as the mbira or kalingo.
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00:00In an age of auto-tuning in artificial instruments,
00:03how is this Malawian musician and instrument maker
00:06keeping his cultural heritage alive?
00:09The best way to keep the traditional music alive,
00:12we should actually teach the younger ones
00:14so that we can have more people who are playing the traditional music instruments.
00:22Traditional instruments, such as the thumb piano made from gourd,
00:26are being played less and less in Malawi.
00:29So why is it so important to Patrick Chimbewa
00:32to preserve the making and playing of the mbira sansi and kalingo?
00:37Traditional instruments, for me, I do feel like they are very important
00:44because they help to keep the history of what we are done by our ancestors.
00:53And also, I think it's easy for someone to travel to perform outside the countries
00:59because you are actually doing something unique.
01:06For these traditional instruments, it's easy to play together with modern music
01:11because if the scales are the same, you can do it without any problem.
01:16For instance, we did a collaboration with Anne Malekwini.
01:21This girl is from the UK, so she plays the guitar.
01:25And at that moment, for me, I was playing the instrument you are seeing here.
01:30So we did a nice collaboration.
01:33People cannot understand, people cannot believe
01:37that this is the traditional instrument that was played.
01:52Actually, before I designed this instrument,
01:56I was playing the small sansi which was single.
02:01I was playing the single sansi and that, but separately.
02:07It was actually difficult for me to perform live on stage.
02:14So that's why I decided to start thinking about how I can build something
02:20which would be easy for me to play as a double instrument.
02:25So that's why I came up with this double instrument,
02:30just combining the two instruments, bhaja and the sansi.
02:37Patrick Chimbewa is Malawi's youngest ethnomusician.
02:41He started managing his own band at 18, playing with a homemade gallant guitar.
02:46He later met Malawian ethnomusician Chawvala Mangwere Mkamtama,
02:53who taught him how to build and play traditional instruments,
02:56such as sansi and kalingo.
02:58But for Patrick Chimbewa, being able to play the instruments wasn't enough.
03:02Having learned how to make them, he saw bigger potential in what he could be doing.
03:07How?
03:08Right now we are here in Chisi, my home village,
03:13where I also do my workshop, like making the instruments.
03:21If you want to make sansi, you need a wire like this.
03:26This is actually a steel wire.
03:29And then you also need two hammers.
03:35After that, you need a plier.
03:39When you want to make the keys, you actually hammer them.
03:44So after that, you take them to a grinder where you have to make them look smart.
03:54After that, you take them to the board where you fix them on the board of the sansi.
04:03After that, you start tuning.
04:06After tuning, you cut the end of the keys.
04:11Then you can put it in the board, which you cut with the size of the sansi.
04:18For me to finish the instrument, if I have all my relios together, it can take almost three days.
04:27Every year, I do manage to sell almost 15 to 20 instruments.
04:34Here, this is karigoba, the instrument which I designed alone.
04:38This is a top part called baza, and this one, it's karigo only.
04:45So when we combine the name, it's called karigoba.
04:49So I want to show you how it sounds.
04:58Patrick was cognizant of the fading attraction of traditional musical instruments.
05:03This has made him experiment with them, looking at how he can modify them to create new, unique sounds.
05:09What did he find?
05:11Modifying the instrument has changed the instrument how it sounds.
05:17At first, I was playing a single sansi.
05:22But now, when I combine this baza and sansi, it has changed the sound,
05:28because I do manage to play two sounds at the same time.
05:33I'm actually teaching the young people here in Chisi,
05:37even in the different districts like Blantyre and other areas.
05:43And also, I've been booked by the schools to design for them these traditional instruments.
05:51And also, I've been invited to perform in the different festivals like the League of Stars, Tumaini.
05:58So people there, they do appreciate what I'm doing,
06:02and they also get interested to buy some of these traditional instruments.
06:09By experimenting and crafting new variations on existing traditional instruments,
06:14Patrick Chimbewa has successfully been able to create a fusion of old and new,
06:19renewing the sound of Malawian traditional instruments for a new generation.