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
…it was odd to get this e mail out of the blue. But then Andy came down in October 2010. First time he came to studio he was very business like. He had a checklist that he wanted to go to. He wanted to get his to do list out of the way. He was very business like. Then in the evening we went to slippers to watch Winyo. We pumped some Tuskers into Andy and then relaxed a bit. He opened up more and we liked him. Andy now jumps in with a little more d…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 – recording in the village of Kibarani Story
…ts of the children The Children Our routine is now established. We drive into a village and meet the musicians and begin setting up. We are about 10 folks and the musicians are another 10-15. We then start the first song and by the end of the session we are generally surrounded by 50-100 kids… Behind the Scenes We have good routines now: We set up our little tent (right) We set up mic stands We set up mics and while folks are setting up, Pato in…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…ngo (broken glass moved in a big bowl) and Ndema (2 brass rings played in ringing and muted tones) Mwenzele-Nyerere wa Konde Music Club Lungo (Bowl) and Ndema (rings) Zaire Ndindingwa The group is led by Fundi bin Kalale in the ndindingwa style. Wonderful percussionist using two shakers and a whistle (filimbi). https://youtu.be/cvpcFBTaoTo https://youtu.be/3bvGrAulYP4 The Fusion: In this first village we really confirmed the mission of Singi…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…arranged at Sippers. The music was fantastic and brought to life what the Singing Wells Project is all about. Let’s focus on the music. After all, it is all about the music and the concert that Tabu organised to celebrate the best in East African Music. This was the concert (actually Tabu called it a ‘meeting’ to celebrate the partnership of Ketebul and Abubilla): Kothbiro: Ayub Ogado. This is the song everyone remembers from the Constant Gardner….
Singing Wells Project News Update News
…OCTOBER 2011 NEWS: Here is the latest news and itinerary for Phase 4 – the Batwa and Luo music recording trip in November. Click on the image to download the PDF: …
Abubilla Music release fourth album News
…um from Abubilla Music has been released and there’s a launch party on 2nd October in Richmond when The Saturday Morning Canasta Club will play tracks to a (hopefully) admiring audience – more news about that to follow. Click on the cover for a sneak preview – the track ‘Breathe’ performed by the Singing Wells Project’s very own Andy Patterson……. Importantly, the album also includes the global remix of an original Abubilla tr…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…urkana Cultural Festival to collect new audio and visual material for the Singing Wells project. The Abubilla Music Foundation (AMF) was pleased to be able to provide the funds to 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,…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…xcept perhaps where some extra personnel may be required in future. The training aspect on this field trip was excellent. I don’t think it was the allure of a couple of cold beers at the end of each day that made the boys bring forth their best. Another beautiful occurrence at this stage of the project is that the Ketebul team laid its hands on new equipment that they were eager to be exposed to. I’ll take a back seat here (I come from the days of…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…ith Ketebul Music engineers on the afternoon of March 27th. They had flown into Nairobi from London the previous evening. I must confess we started off on the wrong footing: all Ketebul engineers were late for the briefing..! Tabu was especially not pleased about that, and Jimmy kept reminding me that I wrote the itinerary and programme (which he said was well written), and should actually take some time to read it (bear in mind that I am the offi…