This story aired in the February 9, 2026 episode of Crosscurrents.
If you have ever walked into Lark in the Morning you might have heard this:
Sound of Danboo
The store is a combination museum for rare, international instruments, a repair shop, and a brick and mortar retail store. It also serves as a hub for lessons in everything from banjo to the sitar to the hurdygurdy.
After working in tech, the current owner bought Lark in the Morning, and continues the legacy of a beloved world music instrument store.
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Story Transcript:
REPORTER: Lark in the Morning is a feast for the senses. Mostly sound…
Sound of wings, rain stick, drum, stone xylophone
REPORTER: But also touch. The instruments are made from a huge variety of materials, everything from a donkey jaw with a full set of teeth used as a percussion instrument in Peru to plastic and steel hand pans from Sweden.
Sound of hand pans
ERIC AZUMI: This is a kind of portable Cajon. It’s a box but it’s got a skin on it, but just a piece of wood on the other side
Sound of hitting cajon
REPORTER: The shop has more than a thousand different kinds of instruments from 50 different countries.
ERIC: This one comes from Vietnam… just a little xylophone but made from stone
Sound of xylophone
REPORTER: No one can be an expert at all of these instruments but Eric has a vast knowledge of his inventory and a deep curiosity and respect for the artistry.
Sound of Eric tuning Guzheng
REPORTER: The sounds are even interesting when he is doing mundane work. Here he is tuning a mini Guzheng
ERIC: Ancient Chinese instrument. Some people call it a Chinese harp.
REPORTER: Next he detunes a banjo to take the strings off
Sound of banjo de-tuning, spray
REPORTER: And then he cleans it lightly, just enough to take the crud off, not to make it look brand new
ERIC: The patina is kinda what makes this thing interesting.
REPORTER: Lark in the Morning was founded in 1974 as a mail order store by Mickie Zekley. Over the next couple of decades, Mickie and his wife Elizabeth expanded, opening three stores, and starting the Lark Camp for World Music. It’s still flourishing 45 years later.
After they sold the business in early 2000, Lark in the Morning struggled, and the stores closed. Mickie and Elizabeth bought the business back, and when they sold it to Eric in 2017, he revived its brick and mortar presence in Berkeley.
ERIC: One of the great things about taking on this business is meeting the people who make and repair these instruments.
REPORTER: From around here and around the world.
ERIC: Also we get a lot of instruments here for repair and people have no place to go to get their Ood repaired.
REPORTER: So they come here. People also come to find interesting sounds.
ERIC: We have a bunch of people who just are here as either sound healers who are are doing sound journeys and they're coming here looking for interesting sounds that are made by the the rattles or the drums or the other weird things that we might have.
Sound of rain stick cross-fades with wind wand
ERIC: There are sound engineers and they're working to score a movie or to sound effects for various things. The wind wands were used in Dune.
REPORTER: Eric says many other customers just come in to experiment and explore.
ERIC: There's something else that's moving people to pick up an instrument here and to try to make nice sounds come out of it.
A lot of people, they have been intimidated by the traditional instruments that they maybe played in middle school. I think in some ways it does make it easier to pick up an instrument that is rare or unusual to you and your circle of people.
Sound of death whistle
REPORTER: Instruments like this Death Whistle. Eric has been picking up instruments unfamiliar to him for much of his life.
He mostly grew up on the East Coast.
ERIC: My dad's Japanese — I'd gone to kindergarten in Tokyo
REPORTER: He worked as a teacher and in IT, in the US but mostly overseas. When he decided he wanted to return to the US, he thought the Bay Area would be good for someone in tech.
ERIC: But once I got back and started looking for jobs, I could just feel that my heart was not in it.
REPORTER: So he started looking for work that was meaningful, and that had an international connection. Lark in the Morning was the perfect fit
ERIC: You know, it had this international thing and these cool instruments which, I'd always had a thing for music and musical instruments.
REPORTER: Now he’s surrounded by these cool instruments.
ERIC: This one’s a little baby djembe
Sound of baby djembe
ERIC: Sounds great, looks great, smells great, actually
REPORTER: You heard that right, Sounds great, looks great smells great
RACHEL: Wait — where’s it from and how does it smell?
ERIC: This is from Mali. It smells woody and goaty to me.
REPORTER: I ask him how he feels when he comes to work in the morning.
ERIC: The enterprise is not making a lot of money. I wasn’t expecting to get rich but I don’t want it to die but when everyone is here and we are working and when people come into the shop and they are just delighted to be here… nothing could be better. It is just so much fun.
REPORTER: People even make pilgrimages to see the shop
ERIC: Some people will spend two hours here just trying everything and looking at the instruments, talking about them with us… that’s always the best.
REPORTER: Although Lark in the Morning may not make Eric Azumi rich, he does spend his days quietly delighting in learning new instruments and sharing them with his customers.
