In Malawi, field recordings were made from Blantyre to the Nsanje area, with the guidance were the ethnomusicologist Dr. Moyo Malamusi, his son Johannes Malamusi, and ethnomusicologist Dr. Gerhard Kubik. Recordings include music of marimba; of traditional banjo (made from oil drums); and various ceremonial songs and dances.

One goal was to record a kind of thumb piano called njari huru before it was obsolete. After much searching, a player called Mr. Tekarora was located. It turned out that Mr. Tekarora did indeed have a njari huru, but he hadn’t played his instrument in about 15 years. His instrument had rotted and the keys rusted. He said he used to play this music for ceremonies to bring people together. But since the development of a mine nearby, the village had modernized and no one had use for that music anymore.

Another goal of field research in Malawi was to find the Likhuba drumming of southern Malawi, perhaps the most unique tradition of tuned drum ensemble in the world.

The Likhuba drums are precisely tuned by first tightening the drum skin with heat, then weighting it with a ring of castor oil bean or roast groundnuts mixed with beeswax. Traditionally, their rapid interlocking patterns were played by ensembles of 12 drums, of different pitches, from soprano to bass. It was generally accepted that this extraordinary musical tradition had already completely died out, but after long searching, one Likhuba drum maker and player was located - perhaps the last keeper of this tradition.

However, whereas formerly the drum ensemble would have numbered 10 – 12, his set included only 4, and he did not have trained drummers to accompany him. This old man reported that there was little interest in it any more. He believed that after his death, the tradition would disappear. The recordings made with him are very different in content from the recordings of the 1950s, made by Hugh Tracey, which feature the amazing melodies of the full complement of drums.

“We scoured Likhuba land, days on dirt paths following false leads. In the end we found one old man who still had some of the knowledge of the tradition and the rhythms. He pulled out four drums to show us. They were in very poor condition. He said, ‘We’ve lost it. It’s gone.’”

- Chris Berry, field researcher