Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…ocal stores on big speakers). We listened to a few different tracks on his phone, and I narrowed my favourite Ugandan pop tracks down to ‘Apple’ by Bigtym and ‘Guns & Bomb’ by Bebecool.. Odika Constantine, son of Watmon, is in his 30s. He was abducted by the LRA from his home in Kitgum District when he was just 17. He was held as a soldier in the bush for 6 months until he managed to escape. He described the day it happened: the rebels arrived to…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…henda from Kisoro district. This report therefore shows various progresses from different Batwa groups. Monitoring Monitoring was done by UOBDU staff who were designated the Singing Wells Project. The two staff (Neza and Alice) worked hand in hand with a committee of tourism in UOBDU to make sure that all the activities were implemented. This committee has been meeting monthly to hear from the implementing staff and be advised accordingly. During…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…ut generally perform music in the style of Acholi, 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 mu…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…smell nice. Like a refrigerator which actually works by drawing warm air away from it, we suppose sugar ends up tasting sweet by blowing out a lot of not-sweetness. This is as scientific as we are prepared to go. It’s 21:43 and all batteries are out on computer. Probably a metaphor. It is 11 PM. We dropped Akello near her home, arrived at hotel, at a late dinner and planed for the morning. The music of Macedonia is a distant memory, but it was so…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…critical to our village near Malindi, Thalatha Meli. I started learning it from my grandfather formally when I started at Takaye Primary School. In the group, my role is percussionist and I play the four drums of the Sengenya. I also dance and wear the shakers . And also I play the Chapuo, this is the small drum and the Upatsu (cymbol). I don’t feel ashamed to play this music. I don’t feel ashamed that I have an amazing teacher, my grandfather. He…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…rea. This time, Joshua had learned and said the band was made up of people from every village. Each time someone was threatened in a Teso village, Joshua would call an army officer and explain his key percussionist, or key harpist was under threat. And the officer would intervene. Pretty quickly, everyone in the Teso region carried a thumb piano or a drum and all claimed they were members of Macedonia. The Macedonia band and the song Uganda, Land…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…he darkness can only seek out objects within a 8 foot range. Your driver always hates the night road and therefore drives REALLY fast to reach out next destination. We like day roads. Now on to markets. Every little town is a market town. If the big consumer product giants and mobile operators have arrived, and they ALL have arrived, you are guarateneed a few Orange, OMO or Coca Cola stores – painted proudly in the colours of their sponsors. There…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…their guest at the World Travel Market at Excel and I met representatives from a number of organisations and companies in the travel and tourism industry operating in the East African counties we are visiting during our field recording trips. I met Nigel Vere Nicoll, Chief Executive of the African Travel & Tourism Association and explained a little about Singing Wells and our aims to record and celebrate the cultural music heritage of East Africa…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – night recording at Fort Murchison Story
…el. They had about 15 bul (drums) and 2 drummers and a smallish ndara (xylophone). Their lead male singer was about 6 foot five and commanded the whole group and the growing audience with a loud voice, great dance and fun drumming. They sang Myeli, Wuon Nyaci, Cwara Rac, Ngeta Romo, Atyekedec Gen, and Apako Orang’a. Each of their songs followed a rough pattern: the lead singer sang out the main theme of the song and the drumming started. The dance…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…nt 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 under their an…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…have two mobile recording units, each capable of recording from four microphones plus other sources at a high resolution to Apple MacBook Pro laptops. The benefit of the systems we have chosen is that they can run off the battery power of the laptops if we are in the situation where we do not have a generator (or there is a power cut mid-session which happened to us when we recorded to the Batwa at the Travellers Rest Hotel in Kisoro, Uganda!) We…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…y sang so softly and it was such a big crowd. But we gave her a lapel microphone and put a microphone directly on the Adungu and recorded. Afterwards, when we turned her up in the mix a magical voice and sound emerged – the ancient lady sitting on the blanket in the middle of this village, surrounded by 100’s had a beautiful, strong, pitch perfect voice. Incredible. She sang: Two Man Dong Lakee Cok Mon Alwak Munu Keya Here’s Two Man Dong: https://…
UOBDU report on Singing Wells visit to the Batwa, Kisoro Uganda News
…ce their dances so that they can confidently perform to more audiences. It is also clear that the financial contribution made to UOBDU by the Abubilla Music Foundation has gone a long way to improve the quality of life for the Batwa in a variety of ways. To read the full report click here. …
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…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 back during their performance and we take a Polaroid photo of each person so they can take a photo home. Then a quick 50 kilometer ride back to Gulu (smile) taking photos the whole way home of great road…
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
…inating. There are such a wide variety of different customs and beliefs in one area, and some tribes, such as the Pokot tribe from Kenya, were memorable for some of their cultural theories. Interestingly, while the home is central to their culture, women’s position in society is weak, and are considered to be ‘foolish’, like the cows for which they are traded upon marriage. Polygamy is widely practiced, and so long as a man has enough wealth in te…