Kathy’s reflections on her Singing Wells experience News
…rakwet and Pokot fought each other for many years over cattle up to early 2000’s. That was not long ago yet these tribes came and sang together. They appeared to be at peace with each other although Fifty Cows felt it would have brought up memories of past conflicts. I saw various tribes intermingle and sing spontaneously with each other after their performances. There was also conflict in 2007 in the Rift Valley, in particular in Eldoret where we…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 continued…. Story
…Non-stop dancing, multiple songs and they didn’t want to stop (but we ran out of video!). Fantastic energetic dancers that we’ve only captured on video…. …and all the kids joined in… https://youtu.be/m0eG1EcIpNM The kids By now you know, we are surrounded by the children at every recording… here are a few more… We even had an audience high on the hills….. Jimmy March 2011 …
Interview with Fifty Cows – fixer for Singing Wells News
…st the Pokot. He calls this war. The villages would gather approximately 1,000 men and travel to the Pokot to steal cattle and goats. They used guns and spears. They would steal up to 6,000 head of cattle on these raids. When he was younger he was more involved with the support of the older men but as he got older he also had to fight. The fighting was most intense in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. He says it was done in the name of honour or anothe…
Music of the Mijikenda: video playlist News
…In March 2011, the Singing Wells team travelled to the coastal region of Kenya for their very first field recording trip. The team recorded music from various groups representing the Mijikenda tribes. Video Playlist The trip was facilitated by the generous support of donors to our charity the Abubilla Music Foundation. …
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 – recording in the village of Kibarani Story
…utine 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 interviews the group leaders That’s it. We…
Jimmy reporting on Kenya Rift Valley field trip (March 2012) News
…Back in Nairobi after the latest field trip, Jimmy files this report via Skype. Jimmy reflects on the recording trip and the weekend ahead in the studio with Ben Kisinja and the Otacho Young Stars. Jimmy reporting via Skype from Nairobi Date: 9th March 2012 …
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…cause it’s much simpler, clean and safe. He graduated from High School in 2006 from Mirogi Boys High School and then went to University at the MOI Southern Nyanza Campus, graduating in 2010 in Information Technology. In 2008, he moved down to Nairobi and therefore had to travel back and forth over next couple years to finish his degree in Information Technology. While in Nairobi his first job was a three month internship with AirTel. His goal was…
The Kalenjin & Kenya’s elite athletes News
…years. The programme follows two main runners – David Rudisha who won the 800m in the Beijing Olympics and Edna Kiplagat who is the world cross country champion. They are focusing mainly on their coaching and what it takes to get to the Olympics. Both athletes will be running at London 2012. Most Kenyan runners come from the Rift Valley, in particular the town of Itan where there is a strong culture of running. The high altitude enables runners to…
Best of Singing Wells 2011 News
In 2011 we completed three field recording trips in Kenya and Uganda and also took the mobile recording studio to the Lake Turkana Cultural Festival. We’ve recorded over 150 songs from more than 25 local music groups and uploaded 36 videos of these performances to YouTube (so far). Every performance was unique and special – we loved them all – so picking just 10 songs for a ‘Best of’ album was not easy. Here are our final choices….it’s just a sma…
Matthew Morin News
…ociety in Kenya based on fieldwork conducted in Kenya and Tanzania during 2010 and 2011. He currently lives in Japan and is continuing research on music and civil society from a global perspective. Matt has been following the progress of the Singing Wells project since March 2011 when he met the team in Nairobi. He has praised the project for its ‘value to academic fields like musicology and anthropology in addition to the broader benefit of provi…
Why “Singing Wells”? News
…name came when Jimmy witnessed an extraordinary sight while travelling in Kenya – the real-life singing wells of the Samburu tribes people. The singing wells of the Samburu During the dry season, Samburu herdsmen (and boys) draw much needed water for their cattle from deep wells which they have dug in the parched river bed. As they pull water from these wells they begin to sing, a different song eminating from each well. The animals appear fr…
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…ch 2012, we will have completed the following sets of field visits: March 2011 in Malindi, Kenya: This was our our pilot project, working our way across the Malindi coast recording 8 separate musical groups. Our major learnings here were: A) our audio equipment kit was extremely good, including when working with a generator. B) but we needed to raise additional funds to significantly upgrade our video capabilities. In this early pilot, we did a ve…
Music of the Luo: video playlist News
…In December 2011, the Singing Wells team travelled to western Kenya on the shores of Lake Victoria to record the music of the Luo tribes. To read the daily field reports from this trip, click here . Video Playlist The trip was facilitated by the generous support of donors to our charity the Abubilla Music Foundation. …
Recording the Luo: photos & music News
…Music and photos from the Singing Wells field recording trip to Western Kenya, recording the music of the Luo tribes. …
Sad News from Kenya News
…roject. Some sad news. Okumu K’Orengo, one of the musicians we recorded in Kenya as part of the Singing Wells trip, had passed away. He was a master of the Nyatiti and performed for us in the village of Aluny, his final track on the day being a funeral dirge. We send our sympathies and condolences to his family and friends at this sad time. Here is an audio excerpt and video from his performance in Aluny. The news of his passing is painful indicat…
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…etter to ‘go to the music’ then try to bring all these talented musicians 900 kms to Nairobi. In addition, we confirmed that Ketebul absolutely has the right set of sound and video engineers to lead these sessions in the future – they have all now been fully trained and have already begun to record sessions on their own. They will be leading the November sessions. If you are interested in the Ketebul’s team’s views of the sessions click on any of…