Building a Maltese bagpipe is a complex affair. The playing part of the zaqq, the chanter, referred to in Maltese as is-saqqafa, is made entirely from pieces of cane of various sizes. There are seven pieces, all with their own Maltese name. A bull's horn fitted to one end serves as a bell to amplify the sound.
 
Guzi built the instrument with only two single reeds made of cane; the rest is made of wood, shaped on a lathe, and standard brass tubes. This ensured uniformity between one instrument and another. This new arrangement is still honest to the typical traditional sound. In both cases, the two single cane reeds provide the sound. The traditional finger-hole arrangement remains the same, maintaining what we call the old hexatonic scale. The bull's horn was retained.
 
The instrument's bag is usually made from calf or goatskin. Guzi used goatskin. The animal was skillfully skinned by Ganni Bajada of Qormi. This is a delicate operation. The goat is skinned from the neck down. A cut accidentally made in the skin renders it useless. The final preparation and drying of the bag took place in Guzi's apartment, to the bemusement of some of his neighbours!
 
The reed pipe, iz-zummara, is derived from the zaqq's chanter. The zaqq has two pipes, each fitted with a single reed. The zummara has only one pipe and one single reed. It is mouth-played and may be embellished by attaching a small cow's horn at one end. Imagine how many times you may have heard your mother sigh, "Xiz-zummara trid?" (What the heck do you want?), thinking this is back street lingo! Only now many shall realise this, after all, a traditional Maltese mouth instrument.
 
Goatskin was also used for the frame drum, it-tanbur, and the friction drum, iz-zafzafa. The frame drum came off the hands of Zabbar-man Charles Busuttil of the Band Aid Music Supplies.
 
Genju Portelli, a friction drum player from Gharb, helped us apply goatskin to the zafzafa.
 
You shall find him tending the counter at his Waterhole Wine Bar behind the Gharb village centre. The zafzafa is known for its mocking, gyrating sound and is still heard at the Nadur and Ghaxaq carnivals, known for their makeshift unorthodox floats and costumes.
 
Genju was provided with an earthenware jar, specifically designed by Guzi Gatt and thrown on the wheel by ceramist Martin Buhagiar. Rather than using an empty patalott, or paint-tin, as is the current trend, the original earthenware container has been reintroduced with good results: not only does the instrument look better, it sounds better.
 
Instruments need melodies, which are not easy to come by - here we are dealing with street music that never made it to the Manoel Theatre in the capital Valletta. Not only were these melodies never archived or catalogued but also the musical transcriptions are harder to come by than another Rosetta Stone.
 
This is populist music, championed by farmers, livestock breeders, fishermen, street cleaners and others that constitute a mainly barely literate strata of Maltese society. But their own insularity has helped preserve Malta's rural traditions that would have otherwise been tainted by unchecked external influences.
 
My interest and experience in world music and related ethnographic sources prompted me to look overseas for some answers about the music of my native islands. My search proved rewarding.
 
I dug into numerous old travelogues and other ephemeral printed matter. I traced a c. 1807 work at King's College University in London. The work, hitherto not referred to in local circles, is entitled 'Maltese Melodies or National Airs and Dances, usually performed by the Maltese Musicians at their Carnival and Other Festivals'. It was published by Welsh harpist Edward Jones (1752-1824), bard to the Prince of Wales.
 
It contains 16 transcripts of Maltese popular melodies, of secondary source, probably the work, as Jones's biographer Tecywn Ellis confided with me, of musicologist Sir John Hawkins (1719-1789). Besides being the oldest transcripts of Maltese folk music, the repertory includes the original Il-parata, a Carnival dance. Their existence is owed to the fact that Jones, a friend of Captain Bligh, continuously sought exotic regional music ranging from Persia, Australia, Lapland and Malta.
 
Instruments and music scores go hand in hand with a composer. Ruben Zahra, a graduate in music composition and film music under the tuition of Ennio Morricone, was commissioned the task not only to present Jones's melodies in their traditional form but also to compose new arrangements that shall fuse the ethnic Maltese instruments with contemporary ones.
 
He stresses that those who come to the August concert at University, as part of this year's Evenings on Campus programme, were presented with a continuation of this musical revival, with tints of jazz, rock and classical.
 
It has been his task to form an ensemble that juxtaposed the ethnic Maltese soundscapes with those of the flute, clarinet, violin, electric guitar, accordion, piano and tuba.
 
"This phenomenon is happening all over the globe. It is principally a matter of adapting oneself to the drones of the Maltese bagpipe and the shrills of the cane whistle flute. There is nothing wrong with these sounds. It is only people that have to tune their ears "
 
Ruben played the bagpipe, and so did Edmond Jackson, a seasoned player of the Scottish bagpipe (ic-cirimella) from Marsa. For years, Jackson had been yearning to team with an outfit that could provide a Maltese zaqq and its traditional tunes. With Toni Cachia, il-Hammarun, at a ripe old age and mostly unavailable, Edmond is an indispensable component and is full of enthusiasm for the project. There is also the vocal contribution of Julie Pomorski, who sang a rhyme written by Trevor Zahra. Singer songwriter Walter Micallef, well known for his punchy lyrics, came up with a pro environmental song.
 
Musicologist Andrew Alamango, Etnika's project coordinator, is keen on the sound of the reed pipe, iz-zummara and the guitar.
 
"Their relationship seems so natural. Wouldn't it have been a shame had all this gone to the dogs?" he says.
 
"Etnika is not about one concert. It shall be an ongoing programme to firmly re-establish what could have been lost forever."
 
A compact disc, Nafra, was released and made available during the concert.
 
Etnika's achievement is to be mainly attributed to the group's disposition to listen to what others have to say, immaterial of their rank or number. Attention was given to folk, some nonagenarian, that have never, the most, had a ready audience. Without them Etnika wouldn't have matured from a thread of an idea into its vibrant format.
 
Etnika knows that people out there are curious, waiting to experience new Maltese sounds. Performers need audiences.
 
Interest in the Maltese folk singing, ghana, is growing. Thousands thronged to the Mnarja Folk Festival last June to hear l-ghanejja (folk singers) in different parts of Buskett. Academics, such as folklorist Gorg Mifsud Chircop, also believe, that the preservation of our musical expressions is a further consolidation of what makes us Maltese.