Monday, December 31, 2007
The Ancestors - Another Take

In our modern world, we might see things a bit differently than the Shona people did. I DO give thanks for the things that the ancestors have passed down and given to us. Somewhere in Africa, probably around Zimbabwe, someone invented the kalimba about a thousand years ago. And hundreds of African souls, now gone, have left their mark on the kalimba - hundreds of innovations in instrument design, note layout, and tuning. Not one of these people is remembered or recorded in history books, but the reality of their work lives on today in the different kinds of traditional kalimbas in Africa.

And the legacy of Hugh Tracey, who died in 1977, continues on today in the Hugh Tracey Kalimba. And I am making my own mark on the kalimba, with my own innovative tunings, which I pass on to some of you. The tunings, the note layouts, these define the space that each kalimba's music will occupy - these are a part of the spirit of the ancestors who made these kalimbas and made them what they are by stamping their own mark on the instrument. And so, we honor those ancestors by playing music on the kalimbas they have marked.

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