Singing Wells Stories Page
…e Marakwet, view the field report. To listen to the music of the Kalenjin, check out the Kalenjin of Kenya. To visit the group page for the Sagat Traditional Dancers, visit their page here. If you haven’t signed up to the Singing Wells mailing list – please do. It is the best way to keep up to date with the project, our plans for recording and our latest content releases. You can do that below in the footer of the page. If you would like to hear m…
Day 2 – Sunday 2nd July 2017 Story
…al players do not (or only exceptionally) compose new tunes, but replicate existing old ones. Within the nyatiti tradition, tunes remain the same, whereas the lyrics can change, evolve. They are the fruit of a specific player’s imagination and can be adapted to the occasion and/or to tell the praise of a different person. The fact that Meshack picked up the instrument only once his father had passed away brought about several hypothesis on the mea…
Andy Patterson Staff Profile
…engineering team in the field. He also works on the post production back in the UK and is responsible for the Singing Wells podcasts. For more information, please check out Andy’s site at: http://www.andypatterson.co.uk or follow him on Twitter – @aandypatterson…
Global Influences Project: Loop Library Page
…re a collective of musicians led by Amone Watmon Matthew, who promote the preservation of Ugandan cultural heritage through dance. The group is made up of up to 50 members, the youngest members being only seven years old. You can learn more about the group here. You can watch the full visual performance of this song on our Youtube channel by clicking here. Download the loop singingwells · SW Samples – Watmon Cultural Group 154BPM singingwells · SW…
The Revival of the Entongooli Page
…2 Creating the Base Part 1 Creating the Base Part 2 Stringing it Together Check back soon for more episodes of our Revival of the Entongooli journey! A Musical Education What makes this project so different from any of the other revival projects we have documented, is how focused this project is on young people. Mr Mukadisi, who is heading up this project, is very aware that to continue the legacy of this dying instrument, children and young peop…
Global Influences Project: Artist Submissions Page
…ed something magical and we can’t wait to hear from more amazing musicians and creatives who are looking to create their own pieces. Instagram: @sofia.grant._ Check back here soon for more uploads of the submissions from our Global Influences Project!…
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…in swahili, she practiced and learnt this style of music despite cultural reservations, and in turn paved the way for future female musicians. This is what is said about her at the Dhow Countries Music Academy: “Singer Siti Binti Saad is a trailblazer who revolutionized taarab music in a way the is still felt today…Whereas her predecessors were all male and sang predominately in Arabic, she was the first woman to perform in Swahili…She was born i…
Day Three: February 18, 2020 (Stonetown, Mpendae, Maungani) Story
…h from Zanzibar) with Singeli (a new tribal rhythm). Taarab came from early 1800’s as Egyptian music. In Zanzibar the Mother of Taarab, Siti Binti Saad, made Taarab more popular in the 1920’s to 1950’s. We spoke to Hassan Mahenge, the assistant director of this band. He is a teacher at the DCMA. He teaches the Oud and plays the saxophone. All the students at the DCMA study traditional music such as Taarab as well as Western music. Members of the g…
Tarajazz Group
…h from Zanzibar) with Singeli (a new tribal rhythm). Taarab came from early 1800’s as Egyptian music. In Zanzibar the Mother of Taarab, Siti Binti Saad, made Taarab more popular in the 1920’s to 1950’s. We spoke to Hassan Mahenge, the assistant director of this band. He is a teacher at the DCMA. He teaches the Oud and plays the saxophone. All the students at the DCMA study traditional music such as Taarab as well as Western music. Members of the g…
Day 1: Saturday, 2017 February 18th Story
…spent the evening preparing equipment. After a brief hold up at airport to check documents and buy a chicken burger, we were met by our drivers, Isaac and Abdullah, and drove immediately to our first field visit – to the home of Mzee Morris’s son, Rafael Nyunyusa Morris. “Retracing the lost drums of Mzee Morris Nyunyusa” is the purpose of this trip, so before discussing today’s music, let’s now give you a bit of background. Mzee Morris is Tanzania…
Central and Eastern Uganda: Day 2 – Kampala to Jinja Story
December 1, 2015: Checking the progress of the Bigwala trumpets Today, we travelled 3 hours from Kampala to Jinja, to the village of Bukakaire, to listen to the Bukakaire Bigwala Players, led by the last surviving trumpeter from the Busoga Kingdom, James Lugolole. A woman playing the Bigwala First, why are we here? Well, there’s the obvious: at Singing Wells, we record and share the great music of East African villages. But, there’s another, equa…
Singing Wells Youtube Channel hits 2.5Million views News
…ot trip to Kenya. Seeing the generations of Nyerere’s family performing together was a special moment (his son Mr Bado is also a musician). We captured a great fusion of old and new https://youtu.be/-MU13FLg_io You also need to check out the Elgon Ngoma Troupe, performing a traditional circumcision ritual dance. Please keep following our channel – with new videos going up there’s always something exciting to discover and share. https://youtu.be/m…
The History Of Benga Music: A Report by Ketebul Music Story
…oved. The African All Stars added elements of this energetic rhythm to the existing Congolese rumba. In the 1980s some members of the African All Stars moved to Paris and formed the Four Stars (Les Quatre Etoiles) and became the base for the fast-paced Congolese music production spiced with additional Caribbean influences like zouk. This music came to be known as Paris soukous, a lively and compelling beat that was different from the one played in…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 1 – Nairobi to Kiongwe to Muranga Story
…Muranga on the Thika road, arriving at the Nokras Hotel in Muranga at about 1800. Here’s the route: We were all pretty shattered, so had a quick dinner (only quick if you ordered fish or meat, the chickens were apparently hard to catch and took considerably longer), drank the mandatory round of Tuskers and slipped off to bed. Working Practices: Roles and Responsibilities of the Team Each day, we will also bring you a set of ‘working practices’ we…
A Tanzanian Effort to Salvage the Music of the Past News
…Wells, is working to preserve traditional music, but for them the act of preservation is quite literal – the Tanzania Heritage Project is scrambling to digitise reams of reel-to-reel tape recorded between the 1960s and 1980s, which has been literally rotting for decades in the moulding archives of the Tanzanian Broadcasting Corporation. Some has already deteriorated to the point where it’s unplayable, and the rest will suffer the same fate if not…
Happy new year from Singing Wells News
…palace down. Here’s is Musisi’s incredible story. 3. We checked in on the preservation of the Bigwala trumpets The Bigwala is a trumpet-style instrument made from gourds. Singing Wells has been supporting the work of James Isabirye to preserve this fantastic traditional instrument, so in 2015 we went back to Uganda to check on the progress of the project. 4. We learned about the art of drum making During our 2015 trip to Uganda, we had the privile…