Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…nt to hear. The tribes often think we want to hear gospel, rap or songs performed for tourists. He wants to archive the traditional music because otherwise it will be lost. Young Kenyans in the cities are ignorant of the traditional music and are surprised when they hear quality and uniqueness of the tribal music. In addition to archiving the music, Tabu feels Ketebul’s role is to make the music widely accessible and to empower the tribes. If the…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…med up with Andy Patterson while he was here and together they conducted a number of interviews with Kenyan musicians who are now based in the UK. They also had the chance to visit Kenya House in Stratford as a guest of our friends at the Kenya Tourist Board. Here’s Bill’s article published in Business Daily Africa: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Where+the+world+got+real+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/djb5mf/-/index.html Phot…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…using the UK unicorn distribution data I’ve cooked up or even just the UK for your country, I’ve already done that for you! Click here to get the data. As I mentioned, ArcMap can be tricksy if your data isn’t properly formatted and so on. The Unicorn Distribution data set we’re using is fairly simple so not all of these points will be applicable, but here are some things you need to think about when preparing your data: The title of each column m…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…me for the community, as we have offered each group a payment for their performances to be shared amongst the whole clan. Henry is responsible for distributing the money. Every time he explains about the payment we can hear cheers and clapping from the assembled throng. He tells me later that it’s more money than they can believe and they ask if it really all for them. The recording session is, once again, an extraordinary experience. There is no…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…ke sure the Subject is Administrative areas. There is other data available for free download from this page, such as elevation and population density, but for our purposes we’re only interested in administrative areas, i.e. the regions and districts of a country (though these may have other names, such as aimags in Mongolia). Clicking OK will take you to a page which displays the data you are about to download – an outline of the United Kingdom. C…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…ording on the hill tops near Kisoro. He played kid golf during his live performances, gently knocking the kids from the ‘stage’ with his spear. He is an amazing visual performer, especially in his songs about cranes where he does the Batwa ‘Bird Dance.’ He is the leader of the Kisoro Batwa in terms of music and we could not have recorded further without him at the heart of our sessions. Francis Sembagare Tiny Moses Tiny Moses blew us away at the h…
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…glory are the Kochia Dancers who dance in the Ramogi style of dance (ref: for a great article on the Ramogi dance of the Luo, by Helen Odwar, click here): https://youtu.be/_qVuMFLJ9-M https://youtu.be/pwVlHnpw8Io https://youtu.be/B_M_OFRzDoU https://youtu.be/6AjxDKLPLkg https://youtu.be/2iGUcQRLRp4 Photo gallery Here is the chief drummer… Here is the coolest Kochia Dancer you will ever meet in Homa Bay: The band in full dance: One of the dancers…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…drum solo in the Ohangla style. Here’s the ‘Magic Moment Video’ of the performance: https://youtu.be/2FOs3TObydk What you need to know as you listen is the drummer was drumming without a chair, doing deep squats and jumping about a foot off the ground with each ‘kick’ – this went on for four minutes. Try it for 10 seconds. Then he then would jump over the drums at key moments or jump in deep squats around the drums, and c) twice he did major spin…
Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…es, as they gradually built on the percussive/bass sounds of the Nytati to form something more bluesy; it morphs later into Rumba, which combines Benga and also Congolese music which is in turn heavily influenced by Cuban music. The big guy in Luo Benga was Daniel Owino Misiani who developed the style in the 60’s. A big reason to return to Luo-lands is to trace back to the origins of Benga, understanding in more detail the core instruments. Here,…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…surrounded by all the little children of the village. He would clear space for himself by gently ‘flicking’ the children to the side with his spear. He made a par five on the ‘Crane Song.’ Willie Bembe’s First Flight: Our sound engineer Willie Bembe enjoyed his first ever flight going from Nairobi to Kigali. He was far less scared of the thunderstorms then the rest of us, but did make things interesting. He almost went to the bathroom in the galle…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…roup had arrived with the Gatera Group and due to the former’s extended performance, they had to wait quite a time to get ‘on stage’. This did not appear to be a problem – they watched and clapped the Gatera performance with enthusiasm, despite the onset of some spectacular rain (which did not subside until the early hours of the following morning causing the power cut which lasted the same length of time). Their wait allowed us to capture some ph…
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…singing groups… This man was a wonderful dancer and he took centre stage. For us, he symbolised the essence of how life is for the Batwa today – a very hard life, but a life full of spirited song and dance… and this lady is their wonderful lead vocalist… https://youtu.be/pZzgr2PXZ3s https://youtu.be/gt4_CaZNN2c Then the guitar and bass took to the stage….if you are wondering where the bass is, the plastic bag turn out to be significant. We were…
Day 5 (PM): The ‘Togetherness Group’ from Kanyabukunga Story
…the ‘Togetherness’ group are waiting to greet us on the ‘stage’….. The performance is fantastic… here the group are singing ‘Waratsinze Sikota’ in praise of God, but lamenting that the Batwa people had lived in the forest under grass huts, but now live near the streets under tin roofs…. The crew worked hard in the blazing sun – getting close to the action to make sure we captured the energy of each vigorous tribal dance. While the audio team for…
Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…The group gathers in place and the lead vocalist starts her captivating performance.. This older gentlemen joins the performance and takes the lead in most dances… While spectators from every generation take a seat for the performance… Here are the videos: https://youtu.be/zFjbdw9j1io https://youtu.be/W_VV8xEYziM https://youtu.be/t8Ui32w_NbI https://youtu.be/QHo5Eb2Az20 https://youtu.be/wxzzC5qcweU https://youtu.be/mhzNpJLsZFA https://youtu.be/h_m…
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…e villages – everyday in 100’s of villages across East Africa wonderful performances occur as the community celebrates, mourns and remembers through music. But few peopele are there to listen and each performance runs the risks of being forever lost. With our mobile studios, we are able to take the studio to them, working in their environment to capture as best we can the music and dance of their community. It is important to note that these sessi…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…ed it on his head. And then he ran up the hill. So, there we were, humbled by the strength of the Batwa, before we had even witnessed their incredible singing and dancing. A young Batwa man grabs the mic stand bag, which required two of us, and jogs up the mountain We finally struggled up the hill and saw the recording site for the first time. There’s a great irony about hills in Uganda. From a farming perspective, hill tops are often the worst la…