The origins of Singing Wells Story
…s for the whole group to perform, singing and dancing in front of ten microphones and three digital cameras.’ Video engineer, Patrick Ondiek, adds, ‘I love producing the final videos and getting phone calls from my friends asking me ‘how did you find these musicians?’ I feel like I’m on the cutting edge of music, bringing these talented musicians to my Nairobi friends.’ In addition to our field visits, we have developed an online Music Map of East…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…n will be forced to pay whatever sum of money demanded by the offended husband and will even be expected to give up his shamba – the small plot of land upon which his family depends. As late as the 70’s, the other consequence is the offending husband would kill the adulterer. Whenever the song is sung today in the villages, some audience believes the song is pointing at them, accusing them… Kirori: This is the band leader’s song and is a song in t…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…d, a lovely school choir across the street, planes from the airport nearby and ‘wandering guests’, folks that decided to have one last view of the grounds and walked past ‘stage.’ There’s a pretty classic routine here. Folks wander into shot and turn in our direction. First look on their face is one of contentment as they have a very good position to watch the music. Their second look, however, is one of realisation as they face three cameras and…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…, as Watmon is originally from Kitikum, not far from Gulu up in Northern Uganda, and moved down to Kampala during the war. We love the instrument they played, the Nanga (below) so much we asked if they would join us in Entebbe to record more songs with Akello. We asked them to come with us to our next stop: our hotel in Entebbe, purely because we were desperate to have more time with the stunning musicians we met in the city. During the two hour d…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…here’s a typically day of ‘file management.’ Nick starts by going ‘audio’ and Andy or Steve answers “rolling.” Then for some reason, due to Patrick’s strange way of talking, Nick then says ‘Camera 1?’ and Patrick answers “Camera 1 is speeding”. We have no idea why, but it means that Jimmy and Vicki have to respond with “Camera 2 (or 3) is speeding.” Now with all systems go Nick starts with ‘This is Macedonia with their fourth song Uganda Land of…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…as a role model by my friends. I play the percussion and cymbols for the band and dance and it is viewed as very cool. I can’t help but be involved. My parents were students of my grandfather and I grew up with this music. It is in my blood and I feel a duty to protect my culture, to give back to it, to make it strong for my children. This music is critical to our village near Malindi, Thalatha Meli. I started learning it from my grandfather form…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…o or a drum and all claimed they were members of Macedonia. The Macedonia band and the song Uganda, Land of Freedom was known by everyone and served dozens of times to spare someone a fast execution as a collaborator. We then arrived at Joshua’s village. It was the most beautiful we’ve seen with four-five small thatched huts, each painted with patterns. There was a large clay oven in the middle of the village and the whole grounds were landscaped…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…uring the day, trucks are trucks. They lead a lot, overburdened with their cargo and the dozen or so folks hitching a ride to supplement the drivers income. Then there are the ‘taxi’s’ – in Uganda, these are the white vans with English names, ferrying folks up and down the highway. They are fun because each is covered with decidedly random words, like Gorgeous, Amen, Big Mama, Jesus Love, Go! Go!, etc… Motorbikes are everywhere, mostly on the side…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – night recording at Fort Murchison Story
…the case and it shouldn’t be surprising. Most good musicians play off the band and if you ask them to play the song just with their part find it all a bit strange. So too for African village groups. They don’t go into studios and ‘lay down their track’ in some great over-dubbing session. They perform with a troupe, and they feed off of and help drive the dancing and the other instruments. The song Apako Oranga had an amazing Ndara riff and we want…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…an Travel & Tourism Association and explained a little about Singing Wells and our aims to record and celebrate the cultural music heritage of East Africa. It seems Nigel liked what I told him! Operations Manager Lina Vaiksnoriene has been in touch and ATTA are now following our progress on our website and Facebook. We are delighted that Singing Wells is featured on the front page of their website under the ‘ATTA Likes’ banner! Thank you ATTA – we…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…y instrument 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 unde…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…ghting (and it is a pretty good tussle) before they are encouraged by the band and woman dancers to calm down, solve their differences and forgive. Given the recent wars in Uganda and given that we are in formally held Kony territory, this song is pretty important. https://youtu.be/_u4-hVbcVV0 In the same vein, their second song was Lweny Dong Pee, a message to the government to bring back the children of conflict, many of whom remain displaced or…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…aptops) Various Canon zoom and fixed lenses Plus at least 9 Sandisk memory cards and 15 portable back-up drives and a lot of leads and cables! Having settled on our first location the video engineers set up their shots while the audio engineers set up the recording rigs. The video engineers are working with Canon digital SLR cameras. One camera is used as a main locked-off shot of the whole scene while the two other cameras concentrate on close-up…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…ring and exiting this rather large ‘Set’ and performing the chorus. Akello and Andy then led the 350 singers through ‘We Are All One’ as a backing chorus. Very fun! As we were closing down we were greeted by the Chairman of Acet who was very gracious in welcoming us. He walked away with lots of photos and a Singing Wells 2012 shirt! He also got one of our Polaroid pictures. This is a new innovation for us – every group gets to listen to their song…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ately we all made it to super-market where we loaded up with money, mobile phone cards and other sundries and headed out. The William car stopped to pick up Akello, a lovely Ugandan singer/songwriter, who is joining the group as our Influences artist. The Emmanuel car headed into Kampala to pick up our press badges. We then headed off to Gulu at around 2PM (yes, we tend to spend a lot of time getting mobile phone cards!) and headed out on a 360 km…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…ation of where ankle bells are generally used in East Africa: broadly in Uganda and in specific parts of Kenya. Interestingly, the distribution of broad musical styles are distinctively different. While one would assume that Kenyan music is dominated by percussion, it is clear from the maps (above and below) that actually string and wind instruments are most prominent, and, largely, string and wind instruments are played together: Distribution of…