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…st 30 years has been involved in the music industry as a promoter, producer, composer and band manager. He has been actively involved in shaping the careers and running some of the top recording and performing bands and artists in the country. Together with the director of Alliance Française in Nairobi, Tabu Osusa co-chairs the steering committee of the “Spotlight on Kenyan Music“ project which seeks to discover and promote young talent, performin…
Recording Resources Page
…edibly privileged to have worked alongside some amazing musical technicians, videographers and ethnomusicologists. However, it has taken us time to really work out the best processes for working effectively out in the field. With that in mind, we have created some resources for other groups to use for working in the field. Please feel free to use the below resources for your field trips in whatever region you are based, and please do reach out to…
Get on the Map Page
If you are making music in East Africa, then we’d love to feature you on our map. Please fill in the options below to get in touch: To Upload music to the Dropbox – go to: http://soundcloud.com/singingwells/dropbox Note: submission of the form grants The Singing Wells project permission to embed any links contained within the form on the map of East Africa. Submission of the form does not guarantee that your group or music will be featured on t…
Field Recording Report by Kahithe Kiiru Story
…ly in Eastern Uganda and in Western Kenya. The Iteso of Kenya are about 500,000, the majority of whom live in Busia County. Their music varies from traditional drums to string ensembles of impressive complexity and we were lucky to both witness and document this variety. The first location of recording was Atapara village of Ong’ariama sub-location within Amongura location of Teso sub-county. Here we visited OMONG’OLUK TRADITIONAL DANCERS founded…
Guy Morley Staff Profile
…several venues in Manchester. Working under the name Yam Yam, Guy Morley has produced and worked with a host of artists in the UK, Nigeria, Tanzania and Kenya. …
Video playlists from Kenya 2018 Story
…ZWLQCNVUtE&list=PL6jxUA468Mq9Pd2xlX3D7Ru2MTTuT8KqS South Teso Jazz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VW0wNmuq8I&list=PL6jxUA468Mq_tVAwWIrPTe9FlbEmAWWBb Obasie Palnyang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieNi3J-ky4E&list=PL6jxUA468Mq_807_5aRNd5562pLxoHfIl Omong’oluk Traditional Dancers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILMAhvkRtg0&list=PL6jxUA468Mq9LNfV2MxN2k1JwC-xu5n06 Samuel Namatete https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtkGVQFNoPw&list=PL6jxUA468Mq-RUCpUdI…
Elgon Ngoma Troupe Group
…100 are performers. They are roughly divided between the two bands. For income, they do performances and also work four acres of land to feed themselves. Many of the members also do arts and crafts or a skilled trade – Julius’s dream is to open up a hair and beauty studio so they can support the bride with her beauty and music. He hopes the troupe will give them opportunities to travel away from their homes, but also to preserve the traditions of…
Mission Page
…East African tribal music to a new generation of musicians and music fans Offer tangible and lasting benefits to the musicians and village communities we visit Encourage the development of village music groups, particularly within the young community, and demonstrate that preserving cultural music heritage will help sustain a vibrant and successful community Forge partnerships with other NGOs and corporations to help sustain successful village co…
Andy Patterson Staff Profile
…both engineering and technical duties for a wide range of clients, from the world of pop music through to film composers. He has worked with Abubilla Music for around 5 years and has co-engineered and produced all of the releases to date. His past clients have included the late Gerry Rafferty, Q Radio, Bauer Media and Live8. His role for The Singing Wells project sees him heading up the engineering team in the field. He also works on the post prod…
Watmon Cultural Group Group
…ended the family cattle or worked on the farm. He lived in Awedi until 1991, when he moved to Kampala, due to the rebel fighting. He started a small group of dancers, performing Acholi traditional dance which he had learnt when he was young, both from grandfather in his village and from watching dancers at village events. He went around his district in Kampala, telling people he would like to start a dance troupe, and was met with a positive react…
Recording, archiving and sharing the traditional music of East Africa Page
…ew musicians. Here for Research? Click here! Whether you are a Musicologist, a student or just interested in the field, head this way to see more of our detailed field reports, group biographies and in-depth information regarding the various different instruments and styles of music we have encountered on our field trips. Here for the Music? Click here! Want to just enjoy some beautiful East African music and revel in some jaw-dropping performance…
Nile Beat Artists Group
…ed to the UK, keen to evolve his sound. He plays the Kora, and much of his writing combines West African instruments with an East African writing style. Song Meanings “Ikobo Kobo”: It is a type of herb. It is a song about a girl who is very bitter because her mother will not let her play with her friends freely. The mother explains to her that she was barren but the spirits helper her to conceive so the spirits set the condition that she should ne…
Ayub Ogada Group
…ated from the Luo word nyar as queen and titi, making it “the queen of the clan”. The most interesting points Ayub had made were on the difference between playing at home, in an informal or traditional setting and playing in a foreign setting (notably in Europe). He said: “When I’m home, I’m free, I don’t care about my tuning…When I’m playing in Europe, now the violin wants to come in, the guitar wants to come in, so now I need tuning.” In any cas…
Kochia Traditional Dancers Group
…ccompanied by drumming, and the Tung’, the Luo horn. You can contact the Kagan Kochia group for bookings on +254 700 600881 Sources: www.hivisasa.com www.allafrica.com Homa Bay, Kenya Leader: William Odero Ondiek…
Day 5 – Wednesday 5th July 2017 Story
…ing in a foreign setting (notably in Europe). He said: “When I’m home, I’m free, I don’t care about my tuning…When I’m playing in Europe, now the violin wants to come in, the guitar wants to come in, so now I need tuning.” In any case, both his tunings and his finger plucking techniques are very much different from the traditional nyatiti players. He says he created his own style of music and learned to “adapt in order to survive”. At his home, we…
Day One: January 18, 2019. Assemble in Tanzania Story
…follows the group around as they dance and sing. This provides a much more free feel, although it does mean we can miss part of the performance, so we always try to do two versions of the song. Magic Moment: For many songs, we find there is a moment of amazing percussion, or dance, or other instruments that we want to isolate and record, even if only for a minute. So we will ask the group to re-do one section of the song and sometimes we’ll mic th…