Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…ding site for the first time. There’s a great irony about hills in Uganda. From a farming perspective, hill tops are often the worst land, far from towns and difficult to farm. The Batwa find themselves on a lot of hill tops. From an observers perspective, however, we found ourselves at the top of a hill, with a 360 degree view across the mountains and valleys. Every hill has been farmed, creating a mosaic of fields. Same were tilled, others in fu…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…r equipment (we really wanted to return with it all!). We then took Kenyan Airlines (new plane with movies!) to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, population roughly a million. We were met by our drivers Arun and John and drove through heavy rains to the Rwanda-Uganda border crossing near Kisoro. After a rather lengthy crossing, we then drove on to our final desitination – the Traveller’s Rest in Kisoro. Five quick things: Rwanda: Beautiful country kn…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…icrophones. This also carries the tripod for Roving Video 1. Cable Bag/Headphones: This is full of all the jacks, mic connects, headphone extenders. There’s a lot of cables. Mega Tripod: This is the bag for Pado’s pride and joy, the mega tripod for Stationary Camera 1. Project Management: How do we now set ourselves up for audio-video recording on site? Again, based on lessons from both the March Pilot and Lake Turkana, here’s the set up: Overall…
Photos from the pilot phase Story
…We promised a final set of pictures and some further reflections. And we deliver. …
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…is worth it guys? [This is a pretty relevant question 470 kilometres into a 800 kilometre journey back from the coast to Nairobi] TO: We have no choice. We have to do something and I don’t see anyone else doing what we’re doing. We’ve got to get three things right going forward: we have to get the audio right. People need to hear the music like we’re hearing it in the field. We’ve got to get world class at this. Second, we’ve got to get the video…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 – recording in the village of Kibarani Story
…-mbu. Beautiful singing and dancing from the women and gracious leadership from Bahri wa Katana… Chechemeko raha Bahri Wa Katana The Gunda Player and High Kick Dancer Two Lovely Women Dancers Dancing in mabumbu-mbu style One of the percussionists during break… Two members rest before the performance… Bahri wa katana and Tabu 4 the Mzinga Our fourth group was called 4 the Mzinga, led by Alfonce Kazungu, singing and dancing in the Koringongo sty…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…he music. Three things to report…. The Village Sita is about 15 kilometres from Malindi, which is on the Kenyan eastern coast, against the India Ocean. It has a long history, is mostly Muslim and has been ‘discovered’ by everyone including Chinese Emperor’s in the 1400’s. Sita is a very small village with about 200 people; we recorded in a subset of the village, where all of Bado‘s brother’s and sisters lived with their families. Bado is the fourt…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…yed percussion throughout. There was a lot of dancing, including a drop by from Maddo: Winyo: He’s the current new star from the Ketebul stable. He sang back up for Samba and when he came on he said he was humbled by the extraordinary talent in the room. 50 years of East African music, the hand-off of one generation to the next. Massive respect for each others talent and an amazing evening that only Tabu could pull off. Amazing voice: We recorded…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…o allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…will find the engineers from Ketebul Music being briefed by Jimmy and Andy from Abubilla Music on the recording equipment that would be used in the field. Unfortunately it was only Steve from Ketebul Music and our director Tabu who had arrived. I was introduced to Jimmy and honestly I was expecting him to be a much older guy. I had met Andy before. Back to my first encounter with my new love. I had read about her on the internet and I met her befo…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…ed by a small wooden xylophone, the marimba. Mzinga After four captivating numbers from Mzinga, we quickly pulled down the set and set off for our second location. The drive would take us to Mombasa,where we would end up in the most interesting set of all so far. Junda. We first drove in to what seemed to be a very busy township with a very steep and treacherous gravel road to drive on. Everyone was worried about where we were going to set up an…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…mobile recording equipment in Campo Limpo Sao Paolo, but we had been in a city relying on city power. In Kenya, we would be truly in the field, without power, with dirt/dust, with the constant threat of storms, with concerns about theft, etc… Test the Team: We would be training the Ketebul team on the new equipment and we would be seeing how we all did in the field in terms of logistics and audio and video capture. Test the Concept: Singing Wells…