Reporting back on recording trip to Kisoro, SW Uganda News
…For a full report of the Singing Wells Batwa music recordings please click here: SWP report from Kisoro, Uganda Mperwa Dancers perform for the Singing Wells project …
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…es the time for recording. We decide on two or three different ‘backdrops’ for the performances and park vehicles in the centre so that we can easily rotate the setup while leaving the back end of the audio equipment setup in place. We have two mobile recording units, each capable of recording from four microphones plus other sources at a high resolution to Apple MacBook Pro laptops. The benefit of the systems we have chosen is that they can run o…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…y sang so softly and it was such a big crowd. But we gave her a lapel microphone and put a microphone directly on the Adungu and recorded. Afterwards, when we turned her up in the mix a magical voice and sound emerged – the ancient lady sitting on the blanket in the middle of this village, surrounded by 100’s had a beautiful, strong, pitch perfect voice. Incredible. She sang: Two Man Dong Lakee Cok Mon Alwak Munu Keya Here’s Two Man Dong: https://…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…i style. The group is led by Evelyn Ojok and was formed in 1981, disbanded for the war and reformed in 1999. The leader summons the band to practice by playing drums… They are all female dancers, with whistles and Gara (ankle shakers). They played all four of their songs one after another without a break: Oluma Lareku (a war dance celebrating the tribal chief), Talebero Koda Akoda, Odokomi Dek Owic, Lar Wodo Dwok Cen. Here’s a selection: Ribbe Ber…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ut 5 ‘brushes with death’, any one of which would be a lifetime of stories for London. We drove. We ate our packed lunch. We drove. We drove. And we raced faster and faster to make it to Gulu before DARK, our true horrible enemy on drives. Darkness just fell as we hit Gulu, which was fine, as we slowed right down and joined the chaos of the Gulu city center. We pulled into our hotel at around 1910, only 10 minutes or so after our target time. We p…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…ult of a platform developed by Harvard University. WorldMap is a great platform for a project like this for several reasons. It is free and open source which means any researcher can work with the source code to extend and improve its functionality, so it is constantly developing and improving. It’s also web-based so it’s easy to access and share, which is exactly what we want in order to carry on building the Singing Wells community. Rosie has ma…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…ched seats with Jimmy and talked to Andrew about the Singing Wells project for an hour. We then all settled down to watch Ted before landing about 8 hours later in Entebbe. All bags were gratefully recovered and we took a taxi for an 8 minute journey to the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe, where we were greeted by our old friends, Jan Willem Van De Kamp (the owner of this hotel and the Travelers Rest in Kisoro), Charles and Simba (the Rottweiler who fe…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…ing with us was a funeral song that our team at Ketebul Music felt was the best performance they’d ever heard of it: The Singing Wells team were also lucky enough to enjoy the sound of one of the best nyatiti players in the world, Ayub Ogada during their field visit in March, where Tabu organised a ‘Hall of fame concert’. He opened the concert with the famous “Kothbiro”, which featured in the film ‘The Constant Gardiner’. Here it is: There’s a won…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…o put on new percussion. He plays the Tabla at the speed of light and transformed the song. He was so good, we decided to put together a magic moment. Watch this space for videos. We recorded right through to 9PM and the ‘northern folks’ rushed to the airport. The Ketebul crew continued to work in the studio, led by Jessie who loves bringing Singing Wells musicians into the studio. Hunter and Jimmy will board our flight at about 11PM and with a 12…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…Larakarak courtship dance in Pawili. This is one for the youth, and, lucky for us, is usually performed in the dry months of December and January. When the young people in a particular village are ready for marriage, they organize a big ceremony where all potential partners meet. As a sign of friendship, food and alcoholic drinks are served during this ceremony. Only the best dancers will get partners, so there is a lot of competition during the d…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…some great songs over the course of four days. We now want to repeat this for every field visit and decided to invite the Otacho Young Stars, the great find of our field visit to record the Luo, and Ben Kisinja, the great Kalenjin musician we recorded earlier this week. Saturday was all about the Otacho Young Stars. Let’s remind you who they are – here are two clips: We focused our recording time on Mr Manager, their quite sincere thank you song…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…rap Oloo’ : about a wife who thinks her husband is lost. She wants to look for him because she can’t be responsible for all her children and animals without him. ‘Chang’komen’ : about a woman who is married to a man in a different village. She comes home bringing specialities to eat and drink. ‘Nerekan Evyline’ : Evyline was left by a man who flew away. The song is asking about what she’s going to do. She’ll tell her father to build a house. About…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…s such as weddings, births, circumcisions and funerals. They are also used for passing information on from generation to generation. The younger generation also sing but they did not come today. They mainly have older members in their group. The group have never been recorded before today and they were very excited about others hearing their traditional music. Kathy spoke to them about their dress and its significance. The white paint in lines and…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…village for the shoot – straight up a very steep hill. This was not a hill for most humans and certainly wasn’t a hill for cars and certainly not cars filled with Ketebul folks and all our equipment. We got up and down, but we imagine there were a lot of prayers said during those 20 minutes up and down! Second event: we are up on a hill with 360 degree views – a patchwork of little farms, with no electricity, no water and little exposure to the mo…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…n much of today’s music. And he also points out the Joginda Boys (recorded for Singing Wells in Kisumu, Lake Victoria) were amazing and more modern than most music today. The Clapperboard Today was the first day we used the ‘clapperboard’. First a little background to this…… Singing Wells has always been about the music so our initial focus was on audio recording. We invested in first class audio equipment and can record using 8 mics directly into…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…Tanzania and Burundi in 2013, returning to Nairobi in Autumn 2013 in time for the celebrations for Kenya’s 50 years since independence. In addition to our field visits, we have developed an online Music Map of East Africa that charts the tribes of the region, their music, their instruments and influences. The map also shows where we have travelled with the Singing Wells project and features audio tracks and videos of the songs and dances that we…