Anna Borg Cardona holds up a bunch of wild oats and carefully cuts out a piece out of the stalk, leaving a node on one side and an open end on the other.

She makes another cut and lifts back a flap, or bieba. “This is a bedbut – a single reed that children used to make when playing out in the fields,” she explained to Alex Casaletto, 8, and Hannah Camilleri, 11.

Although a simple, ephemeral instrument, Ms Borg Cardona explains how the bedbut also used to be made out of cane and was a vital component in other instruments as the cow horn, hornpipe and the bagpipe or żaqq. “I think it is really important to show children because somewhere along the way we have been losing the knowledge of making these things – it’s just been lost so what we need to do is teach the children these very little things, such as the bedbut which are so important for our instruments,” she said.

Somewhere along the way we have been losing the knowledge of making these things

For the past 30 years, Ms Borg Cardona has been researching and slowly building a collection of old Maltese musical instruments – including the żaqq, traditionally made out of an entire animal skin and inflated through a blowpipe in one of the legs, and friction drum known as rabbaba or żafżafa, that produces sound by rubbing a stick tied to a membrane.

Alex and Hannah pick out two colourful friction drums and expertly tuck them under their right arms. Ready with damp sponges in their left, the children start running their hands down the stick playing the rabbaba in tandem, filling Ms Borg Cardona’s Balzan basement with a deep, resonating sound.

Alex and Hannah play the friction drum known as rabbaba or żafżafa. Photo: Jason Borg

Although different to tablets, Hannah and Alex enjoy learning about “new instruments” but both admitted the bedbut was their favourite.

“It’s called a single reed and makes a funny sound – you blow into it and the flap starts to vibrate,” Alex explained.

Ms Borg Cardona has started passing on her knowledge about Maltese instruments to children and recently published a book called Musical Instruments of the Maltese Islands: History, Folkways and Traditions.

“There is no longer any connection with these instruments and the traditions behind them,” she said.

This lack of knowledge boils down to a lack of connection with the environment. “The single reed was something children used to make in the fields – the żaqq was made out of the skin of animals…these are the things that they knew and today’s children don’t.”