Day 10: File Management at Ketebul Studios Story
…ou know from previous blogs, we seem to love this topic. What does a final day involve: Steve works out all accounts Andy works out all audio, including the Ketebul recordings Pato works through all video Jimmy works through all field reports and works with Nick on final spelling Tabu has final interviews with musicians We all agree next steps in terms of updating all our trip reports We have a final session on our learnings, positive and negative…
Hannah interviews Sabina – Acet, Northern Uganda News
…i Ite Yaa’ – a women’s group from a nearby IDP camp on our first recording day in Northern Uganda. Sabina played the ‘Uvure’ a type of horn for this women’s group and blew us away. Like Evelyn Ojok her husband was killed in the war after he was abducted and taken into the bush by the LRA. She has 7 children and 4 of them love to sing and dance, mainly through learning at school. What does this music mean to you? The Acholi often give meaning and…
Day 9 (AM): Ketebul Studio – Influences session for Cheri Story
…i to work in the studio with tribal musicians discovered previously. Yesterday we worked with Mwenzele-Nyerere wa Konde Music Club on five studio songs. Today, we brought them back in to work with Stanley on his song Cheri, featuring Macadem. Here’s how the process worked today: Jaybee first worked with Stanley, Bishop and Johnnie to get the basic song structure down and put on a vocal ‘Chorus.’ Stanley wants the song to be a classic love song and…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…ration. Every village had a group of young musicians and dancers. Some the best percussionists were 12-15 years old. Most of the best dancers were teenagers. You felt the next generation is passionate about the music and it is not just ‘a thing your grandparents did.’ This is really important. The key is that the traditional songs are taught to the children in the villages and then that the traditional music permiates into popular music. Northern…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…ildren were constantly scared. They were ‘trained’ to shoot in a matter of days, and were periodically beaten a number of strokes depending on your age, in his case it was 300. Odika called it the ‘bush mind’, and sometimes even once soldiers returned that mind would come back again, in nightmares or in daily life. To help returning soldiers they were taken to Gulu Children of War Rehabilitation Centre for 6 months before going home, partly to mak…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…e carved into a hill, with rows and rows of streets below us, and an equal number of streets and houses piled up above us. There were cars, motorbikes and taxi’s driving past and planes flying overhead. Everything was for sale by everyone who walked by. No sleeping cattle. No flower beds. But, as always, there was wonderful music. The first group was the Adungu Cultural Troupe, masters of the Adungu. We had interviewed their leader on our ‘recce’…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…the size of Rhode Island), with equipment going through 1.5 gigs of data A DAY. Second, we need an exact record of the day, linking files to songs and songs to groups and groups to sites and sites to days. We average about 20 songs a site and just over 1.5 sites per day. Just getting the right spelling on to a clapper board of a song and getting that recorded elsewhere against a take list takes time to master. Third, we then need to very quickly p…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…ief Guest of Honour. In addition, this group has managed to set aside Saturdays of every week to meet and make practices on their cultural music and dance in order to meet its target “staging music shows” as the future plans of the group. GATERA Group Gatera men and women group takes the highest position in savings from their cultural performance comparing it with other Batwa groups met with the Singing wells visitors. From their savings the gro…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
A day of two halves, with one of our best village visits combined with a long, nightmare journey to Kampala. The Macedonia Band We met the leader of the Macedonia Band at the Soroti Hotel and he led us to his village, Obuell-Lira, a 30 minute drive down rich clay roads. On the way, Joshua told us about the history of the group, which was founded in 1982. The group and its song Uganda Land of Freedom is legendary in the Teso region (the name for t…
Hannah interviews Evelyn Ojok – Acet, Northern Uganda News
…t also to celebrate that we are now in peace. Who taught you the music? My parents taught me how to sing and dance and all about Acholi culture. That has changed, now the children learn from school. I was born in Kitgum but I married in Gulu when I was 18. My children love school and never miss a day unless they are sick, which is unusual. They are also lucky because school is only 1.5 miles away, while many children have to walk half a day to get…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…piles of garbage left over from yesterday’s market. God help you if yesterday was cabbage day (very pungent).. And then there’s the mud. We love Ugandan mud. It is a deep red. When the ants build their palaces,, you get big stacks of mud, like deep red sand castles. The mud of a market seeps into the base of every building, soaking its way up the walls, giving the whole town a terracotta feel. A very fine mist of red dust covers everything. When…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…with his father’s group and then he founded this group in 2007. They use a number of styles, most notably Sengenya, which we covered fully in our March 2011 field recordings in Malindi. We interviewed Swalhe Mwatela Massai and his grandson, Ali Tungwa : Q to the grandfather: In contrast to Uganda, we have seen many villages in Kenya where the traditional music is only played by the older generation. And yet your group is so young and vibrant. Ho…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – night recording at Fort Murchison Story
…ting. Cieng Dwong Tonight’s group was fantastic, especially given the full day of travel. They had about 15 bul (drums) and 2 drummers and a smallish ndara (xylophone). Their lead male singer was about 6 foot five and commanded the whole group and the growing audience with a loud voice, great dance and fun drumming. They sang Myeli, Wuon Nyaci, Cwara Rac, Ngeta Romo, Atyekedec Gen, and Apako Orang’a. Each of their songs followed a rough pattern: t…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…nt imaginable: The Flute (yep, a flute) The Ndara (the amazing Ugandan xylophone) The Rigi-Rigi (similar to the Kenyan orutu) The Agwara (trumpets) The Adungu (the harp we’ve encountered every day now) The group was formed in 1993 and is professional, touring Kampala and other parts of Uganda, sponsored by NGO’s and typically campaigning for things like HIV Awareness, Cultural preservation, etc… Except for the fact they wear clothes under their an…
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://…
Singing Wells – The Story So Far News
…ral music heritage of East Africa. Support the Singing Wells project and buy a copy! You can buy a copy of the Singing Wells book at the Blurb Bookstore – just click this link: Singing Wells – The Story So Far The profits we receive from the sale of each book go directly to our UK charity The Abubilla Music Foundation which supports the Singing Wells project. Your donation will help give much needed financial support to tribal music groups in Ea…