Inuvik (Feb 14/03) - The cheerful, resonant tone emanating from the rosewood planks conjures images of warm and far away places.

It looks like an over-sized xylophone and it's called a marimba.

Last week, some Delta students got their first earful of a style of music from a duo who brought their show to the Delta, following a chance meeting of two teachers.

Musician and teacher Scott Tunison was working on his doctoral degree in education administration at the University of Saskatchewan, when he met Inuvik educator Bill Gowans.

"I met Scott last year, and he said he'd love to come to Inuvik," Gowans said. "We're always looking for musicians and authors who can come up and work with our kids, so it worked out great."

Tunison and fellow musician Darrell Bueckert flew to Inuvik with their 300-pound, $10,000 instrument and played for the students at SAM.

The songs are mostly Guatemalan and Central American folk music rarely heard this far north. Bueckert is a tympanist for the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra and Tunison is on call as a percussionist with the orchestra.

"All over Canada, the instrument is not very well-known, so we want to introduce the kids to it," Bueckert said. "The music is very lively and very inviting, so it's very suitable to introduce to younger audiences."

In Guatamala and Southern Mexico, he said, the instrument is as popular as guitars are here, with people plunking away at marimbas from the street to the concert hall. The duo welcomed the opportunity to show off the instrument and how it works. They also showed the older students how to build one.

"We take ordinary two-by-fours and show them how an instrument like this can be made very simply, even just out of two-by-fours," Bueckert said. "The students were very interested and we were actually able to put together a few melodies."

They went to Aklavik last Wednesday and came back to Inuvik to play at the assembly at SAM school Friday.

"We had a wonderful visit with the people of Aklavik," Tunison said. "We played for every classroom in the school in small groups."