In 2012, West African balafon-related practices were inscribed  on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. In contrast to  playing techniques on other bar instruments, originating in the Far  East and the equatorial regions of Africa and South America, these  have not yet had a significant influence on Western classical music.  That is why Hubert Zemler delved into the secrets of this art not  at the Warsaw University of Music, but by learning directly from  the griots, particularly from Noumsa Dembele, resident of Warsaw.  And the chromatic balafon he specifically commissioned, unknown  in traditional music, enabled him to bring this unique sound into  the world of tonal—or, more broadly, multimodal—music.