Global Influences Project: Artist Submissions Page
…istening some more I decided to juxtapose the fast paced drums with a laid back bass and a simple bass drum beat to support the percussion. The shaker pushes the pace forward and accentuates the percussion. Other than defining the groove, the bass is also the lead instrument in this particular arrangement. The piano and gaara add more depth to the chorus parts and pull us away from the shakers’ high pace forcing us to lay back some more. I think t…
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…story they have to tell. After our initial meeting, we invited her to Entebbe to record with our Influences Artists and other musicians from the Abubilla Music team. The experience was unforgettable for all of us. Jovah then told us what Singing Wells means to her and her community. She said, ‘When you came things changed for us. We received money which we used to buy household things, chickens and clothes. We now have a plan to buy goats, a male…
What We Do Page
…e areas we are travelling to during our field visits. “Singing Wells can’t be just about archiving. We can’t be fossil collectors. We also have to make sure we can bring these traditions into modern music. We are doing this with Winyo – he really does bridge the traditional with the modern and you saw the reaction of the villagers to working with him. They felt he completely respected their music”. Steve Kivutia, Ketebul Music, while in Uganda rec…
Day 3 – Monday 3rd July 2017 Story
…l’ usage of many different types of wood for the resonator (ex. afene, maembe, ondero, mugombra) as he said he could basically use any “as long as it’s strong and the right size”. Another interesting piece of information gathered during this interview was Sewa’s description of the small pointy decoration on the bottom of the resonator we had previously referred to as ‘the nipple’. According to him, this is in fact the umbilical cord of the instrum…
Recording, archiving and sharing the traditional music of East Africa Page
…we have recorded with the groups that we have met. Previous Next Click here to Celebrate our Singing Wells Top 20 Moments Youtube Facebook Instagram Twitter…
Day 1: Saturday, 2017 February 18th Story
…re quite central to Tanzanian dance as are acrobatic acts. We spoke to Leo about this. “Yes, we love to bring comedy to our music. If you look at most circus troupes that are touring in the world today, a huge number of the acrobats and clowns are Tanzanian.” https://youtu.be/C-4PdHne3Jc We’ll leave you here. We checked in to our hotel, the Mediterraneo Hotel, Dar es Salaam. Tomorrow we head off for Bagamoyo….
Recce to Tanzania for our 2020 Field Visit News
…ic Academy for helping us with the information and contacts from their database. Getting a private crash course on the ganun from ganun virtuoso and teacher Rajab. In a few previous instances, the importance of Singing Wells is emphasised when someone we record passes on some time after we record them. We were reminded even more of the importance of Singing Wells when we received the news of the death of a musician who we were set to meet that aft…
The History Of Benga Music: A Report by Ketebul Music Story
…e 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 Kinshasa. Their signature of intricate guitars could be heard on virtually every soukous record out of Paris, which became the recording capital for Congolese music. Stars from Kinshasa like Pepe Kalle and Madilu System couldn’t re…
Discussions on music and culture with a young Kenyan News
…raditional music of East Africa I’ve been spending some time meeting the urban community in Nairobi. I’ve been talking to people about their music interests, whether the idea of Singing Wells appeals to them and what more we can do to ensure this musical culture is not lost. On a visit to iHub this week – a communal working space for tach-savvy Nairobi entrepreneurs – I got chatting to Edwin Maganjo about the Singing Wells Project. Edwin has lived…
Current Leading Figures News
…e “Spotlight on Kenyan Music“ project – a video from the 2013 festival can be seen below – and is the project coordinator of the Retracing Series, documentaries which aim to to research, archive and document the musical culture of Kenya, the latest of which ‘Retracing Kenya’s Songs of Protest — Music as a Force for change in Kenya 1963-2013’, was released recently. His extensive background of involvement in the East African music industry can be f…
Archiving Guidelines News
…cend the changes in technology; i.e. once archived, they are still able to be played back in the long term, due to support for new media or data formats – as in conjunction with OAIS. Chapter 7, Small Scale Approaches to Digital Storage Systems, is of particular use because it contains straightforward information for smaller would-be archives, such as those wishing to archive East African music, concerning both the digitisation of audio or the onl…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…he was incredibly talented, so we brought him with us to the hotel in Entebbe with his son, Odika Constantine. Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe It was a lovely afternoon on the hotel grounds and a load of German guests just back from safari became the rather surprised audience. Throughout the recording we competed with some very loud bird, a lovely school choir across the street, planes from the airport nearby and ‘wandering guests’,…
Kathy’s reflections on her Singing Wells experience News
…e. Second, the groups were all keen to be recorded. Most of them had never been recorded before or performed outside the tribe. They travelled long distances to get to the place we were recording them. The longest distance one tribe came was 150km by bus. Many of the other tribes had walked, some through the night, for up 60km to come meet us. They had practiced along the way and for hours before we recorded them. They were proud and wanted to sho…
More on the launch of the Ketebul Music website News
…aced to understand the functionality that a music organisation needs in their web site. Taking this experience we developed a dynamic design and implemented a custom installation of WordPress, enabling all content areas of the site to be administered by the Ketebul team.”…