FAQ’s Page
…gs. Click here to find out about these musicians. We also rely on local liaison personnel who have direct contact with the communities we visit and an expert knowledge of local music styles. During the field recording visits we also benefit from the voluntary help of the Abubilla Music Foundation trustees and UK Project Managers. How long have you been working on the project? We made our first field recording on the Kenyan coast in March 2011. The…
Field Recording Report by Kahithe Kiiru Story
…gs. We recorded five folk songs and a magic moment focusing on the percussionists only. In terms of costuming, although they did not have uniform costumes, the men had displayed some interesting traditional clothing items, such as for example banana fibre skirts, chest and leg decorations and a full cheetah skin outfit. We then proceeded to the second location of recording in Obekai village of the same location in Busia County. Here we met one o…
Day 1 – Saturday 1st July 2017 Story
…facilitate following the instrument makers narratives and allow for comparison. Other pertinent information provided by Rapasa during our drive to Kisumu included the types of trees used for nyatiti (with vernacular terms), the symbolism behind nyatiti’s shape (resembles the traditional Luo hut shape), symbolism of the number (8) of strings of the nyatiti, his tuning techniques and order of string tuning, together with the story of his personal a…
The Kalenjin of Kenya Album
…set. The very visual performances of the and the Sagat group (their image is on the cover) and the Embolet are both represented on the album. The final field day of the trip was spent recording the Tugen. The vocal harmonies of the performances have been captured well, with The Elimu Cultural Promoters and the Kewamoi Women Dancers both featured. The latter – a nice addition to the lineup, as the field day coincided with World Women’s Day. Eddie…
Albums Introduction Page
…music we record in East Africa and one of the ways in which we can share this music is through our albums series. For each project we undertake, we curate an album of the resulting recordings. In most cases, this will include at least one recording from each group recorded. Where it works artistically, we’ll arrange the tracks on the album in chronological order of the recording date – so you can experience the journey that we took through the mus…
Page
…couldn’t miss the opportunity to capture the true sound. With a lapel microphone on our lead lady and another microphone directly on the adungu, we asked the group to continue. At the end of the session we played the recording back and a magical voice and sound emerged – the old lady, sitting on the blanket in the middle of this village surrounded by her whole community, had a beautiful, strong, pitch perfect voice. It is moments like this that ma…
Mchele Mchele Sanaa Group Group
…This group, from the Sukuma community, was formed in 2010 and performs with a number of styles: Bukomia Lume, Buchheye, Wigashe. Their instruments are: Ng’oma (Drums), Pembe (animal horns, large impala), Firimbi (flute), and Njuga (shakers). …
The Singing Wells podcast #3 Podcast
…Here is podcast number 3. In this podcast, we look at the development of Abubilla Music – one of the partners in The Singing Wells project – from initial idea, to music label. There are interviews with members of the SMCC, and music from the SMCC, Louise Calf, Gus Warriner, Tati Kalveks, Chris Kozlowski and Ketebul artist Winyo. Click here to download the podcast….
3. Background of the Naizungwe drums Story
…ethnic society had a way it was organized socially before the advent of colonialism. Most of the societies were and still are organized on clan system. One ethnic society has a number of clans where each clan has a leader – clan leader. Each of those clans had identifying regalia and one of them are drum rhythms that symbolize the general belief of that clan. The Basoga ethnic society from the Eastern region of the country is organized according t…
Day One: The Iteso People and their Music Story
…isfied. Imadede: The name of a man with horrible manners. He gossips. He poisons neighbours if he is jealous of their success. In the song, the performers ‘call him out’, letting the whole village know this is a man of bad character. Achaung Kakolong: This is a song sung during droughts. Everyone in the village is running out of vegetables, and in the song the performers ask the villages to look for vegetables along the river banks. They need find…
Day Zero: 6 March 2022 – Travel To Stream Story
…harge of the technical aspects of the recordings. Shunkyz was assisted by Fiston Lusambo, a Briton of Congolese origin and guitarist with the London-based Afriquoi Musical group. The video section was manned by Patrick (Sapat) Ondiek assisted by Drix Muyeshi and Cliffe Munyasa. Nick Abonyo was the tour’s coordinator and Spade was our driver. The drive was slow and uninterrupted with only one stop for lunch in Nakuru. We reached Kisumu City just be…
Day 2 – Sunday 2nd July 2017 Story
…trument only once his father had passed away brought about several hypothesis on the meaning of this generational gap and questioned the possibility of an existing cultural taboo concerning two generations of players from the same home playing actively at the same time. From K’Orengo’s homestead we went on to a second location in Kaluo Umaje village of the same constituency where we met our first nyatiti maker – Obong’o Omenda. Born 1949, the elde…
Day Four: January 21 2019 Mwanza Story
…instrument during the RECCE. We recorded five performances: Changamoto: This is about life’s challenges Mawazo Gakwira: About deep worries Nkewane nsanja: girlfriend got pregnant and came to singer for papers Tudumishe mila: about honouring our culture Raisi Ametamka: politicians must support education https://youtu.be/Hmp4zM3kSaM Sadly, we then got rained out and went back to hotel. We scheduled additional groups for same location the next day….
Day 9 – Sunday 9th July 2017 Story
…imitations, this could not be done fully; yet the idea of instrument comparison remained and was reintroduced through an instrument comparison forum held on day 8 at the GoDown Arts Centre in Nairobi. We compared five instruments as follows, each represented by a master musician: Nyatiti – represented by Samson Otieno of Bomas of Kenya; Obokano – represented by Dominic Ogari; Litungu – an 7 string traditional lyre from the Luhya community, represe…
Conclusion: Challenges and Recomendations Story
…erviews. I would also want to comment here briefly on the instrument comparison exercise done on day 8 of recording. Although I believe it to be a good idea, which allows putting a central instrument – in this case the nyatiti, into a larger context and isolating its particularities, I am convinced it could be done much better if organised differently and adequately prepared for. A group interview is always difficult to conduct and individual arti…
2. Naizungwe Drums – progress report 1 Story
…cut down, the logs have been hollowed out and the skins have been formed. One of the early milestones was finding a tree out of which to craft the largest of the drums, no trivial task given the size and type of tree required. Here is our first video, James Isabirye talking about the tree and introducing the project: https://youtu.be/bZUxKhTGmCA The lead drum maker is called Muhamudu Kaziba (in the left of the video above). He comes from a famous…