Many years have now passed since Dr Kristina Lindell at Lund University, Sweden, first introduced me to Kam Raw and her research project on Kammu language and culture. At one time she also let me listen to a few recordings of Kammu songs. They sounded different to me from anything I had heard before. After that Kam Raw and I worked together with recorded songs, talked about their meaning and how they were used. I started to make music transcriptions, but there were things that I couldn’t understand particularly concerning their form and varying lengths. It soon became clear that there were some basic principles in the singing that I needed to sort out if I wanted to make meaningful transcriptions and analysis. It was also evident that this would need a large material and it took many years to get the material and to analyse it. In the meantime our work focussed on Kammu musical instruments and their uses and functions.