Day One: January 18, 2019. Assemble in Tanzania Story
…provide a second angle on the performance and c) we interview all group leaders to understand group musical styles and background, instruments and songs. In almost every village, we struggle with spellings of songs and instruments as these can differ by village and by band. We fully recognize that there are multiple spellings out there, but we defer to the band leader in almost all cases. During a recording session, we will also capture alternati…
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…he 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 make us so thankf…
Day Zero: 6 March 2022 – Travel To Stream Story
…o perform and stream their concerts sprung up in Nairobi. Some venues also adapted to hosting online performances, directly streaming shows to mobile devices and computers of audiences wherever they may be. With the prevailing situation, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the ability of performers to earn a living is quickly shifting to a dependence on access to Internet connectivity and online streaming services. This solution works well f…
Day Four: 10 March 2022 (Rongo) Story
…ng Olero on nyangile (sound box) and Fredrick Ouma Olero on lead vocals. In 2007 and 2008, these youngsters were members of Apoly jazz band, a group that was formed by Polycarp Otieno, then a schoolteacher at Bondo primary school and well known for his skills in the adaptation of traditional folk songs. Apoly later moved to Yago primary school next to Ranen center in Migori County and is credited with teaching Otacho Young Stars the art of playing…
Ketebul Music presents Shades of Benga Online News
…riends Ketebul Music have just launched Episode 2 of their online series Shades of Benga Online, to go alongside their book ‘Shades of Benga: The Story of Popular Music in Kenya 1946 –2016’. You can watch the latest episode below, and also find out more at their website here. Shades of Benga: The Story of Popular Music in Kenya delves into the foundations of modern Kenyan music, examining external influences from the English waltz to Afro Cuban…
Meeting Ketebul: an interview with Tabu News
…moment. We need to look for a platform to promote our stuff, whether it’s online, digital radio, TV – we need to make the music more accessible to all. Why is Singing Wells important? Singing Wells is important because we’re trying to capture our East African heritage. Many of the musicians we record from remote tribes are old and we run the risk of the traditional music in Kenya dying out, we don’t want to see that happen. Further, most recordin…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…nce of African music. Diane Thram became Director in 2005 and, under her leadership, an online listening library has been created, in line with the cutting edge of content access, to allow anyone to listen to Hugh Tracey’s recordings, with work currently being done to also make the Dave Dargie and Andrew Tracey Collections available for online access. There are over 12000 30 second recordings from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. The archive grants access…
Archiving Guidelines News
…d Preservation Strategy’ (IASA-TC 03). When researching guidelines for the online archiving of sound, the term metadata is often mentioned and this is the largest part of the edition that was revised for re-publication, stressing the importance of extra information being attached to the sound file, describing the location the sound was recorded, the artist, the date, etc and other technological information. Another issue often raised is the need f…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…who had recorded the music with Wachsmann kindly offered up the copies he had made a kept aside. Wachsmann went on to lecture at various universities and was awarded the bronze medal for “Devoted Service to Africa” from the Royal African Society in 1958. His legacy lives on as he gives his name to a prize for advanced and critical essays in organology, at The Society of Ethnomusicology. Moreover, the Klaus Wachsmann Music Archive at the Makerere U…
Report from Womex 2013 News
…ght and got to the arena early on Wednesday morning to set up the stand ahead of the trade fair opening This was our stand after setup (note the obvious mistake in the nomenclature….): Conferences Attended I attended a few of the conferences arranged by the organisers. Revenue streams in the digital environment was the first of these and looked at different examples from different territories – the main example being given as the Caribbean. This…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…um ‘Benga Blues’ (released by Ketebul Music and Abubilla Music in September 2012) is rooted in traditional music. Of Singing Wells, he says, ‘What we find in these villages are important and very talented musicians. One of the most special moments of my music career was dancing on a hill in Uganda with Jovah from the Mperwa Batwa community. She has one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard. For me, Singing Wells is 100% about inspiration –…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…create a map of only the tribal borders of East Africa, from a layer she had created. Once we had a map that only represented these tribal groups we then attached further information on each tribe to this layer so there would be extra information about each group, anyone can access this by clicking on any area (each tribe is separated by colour – this is shown in the image of the map above). We then used this tribe distribution map as the basis f…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…um ‘Benga Blues’ (released by Ketebul Music and Abubilla Music in September 2012) is rooted in traditional music. Of Singing Wells, he says, ‘What we find in these villages are important and very talented musicians. One of the most special moments of my music career was dancing on a hill in Uganda with Jovah from the Mperwa Batwa community. She has one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard. For me, Singing Wells is 100% about inspiration –…
Andy’s cover of Boys of Summer News
…y has been working on the Singing Wells project since its inception back in 2010 but when he isn’t working on the project or producing music for various clients he actually finds time to write and record his own material and is also a member of Abubilla Music’s house band, The Saturday Morning Canasta Club. You can listen to more of Andy ‘s music online at his website: click here but before you go over there have a listen to his brilliant cover ve…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…C:\How To Map. The folder will appear under Folder Connections. You can now go into the folder to add the map outline shapefile to ArcMap. Go into C:\How To Map\Country Outlines\UK. Select the three shapefiles: GBR_adm0, GBR_adm1 and GBR_adm2. The map will now appear in ArcMap. The result You can select the different layers to see the different administrative levels of Great Britain. GBR_adm0: GBR_adm1: GBR_adm2: …
Congratulations Singing Wells! News
…n Kenya as part of a British Library World Collections Programme initiative. It was a great pleasure and it is wonderful to see these fruits of their expertise and enthusiasm. Janet Topp Fargion, Lead Curator World and Traditional Music, British Library website: http://www.bl.uk online gallery: http://sounds.bl.uk main catalogue: http://cadensa.bl.uk/cgi-bin/webcat…