Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…ad female vocalists, recording one of their songs in our ‘hotel studio:’ They could not help dancing through the sessions – so lovely. Later, of course, we’ll post these performances on our Map of East African Music. But give us a little time. We are still in the field… The Singing Wells Team…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…faced a beautiful patchwork of terracotta and green. These are the predominate colours of this trip. The dance site itself was no less beautiful: We then set up the ‘studio’ ready to record the Birara Dancers: The key sound engineers do a final check before we begin: Steve, Andy and Jesse do a final sound check before we begin. https://youtu.be/l-1IG790EOs https://youtu.be/u38YYaTQMIY https://youtu.be/uNeC4Dw4bu0 https://youtu.be/9FZeFgg4jKI ht…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…can go. Traveller’s Rest: We stayed at the Traveller’s Rest, a hotel famed for being a meeting place for gorilla observers. They write about this on their website: “In 1955 Travellers Rest was bought by Walter Baumgartel, and quickly became a meeting place for people interested in the mountain gorilla. Amongst them was ‘gorilla-woman” Dian Fossey, who said: “Walter’s hotel was an oasis to many scientists who came here before me.”. Fossey visited t…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…c. Chief Sound Engineer: Commands the audio team and is in charge of input for all sessions and for completing all finished audio for that day. Assistant Engineer: In charge of set up/breakdown of set and assisting Chief Sound Engineer on day Trainee: Supports Assistant Engineer and takes tutorial from Chief Engineer during session. Chief Video Engineer: In charge of Stationary Camera and placement of Roving Camera 2 Roving Camera 1: In charge of…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…orth of material. The main thing we’ve learned is how to organise the team better in terms of accountability for recordings (both video and audio). Logistically, handling all the cash required has been more painful then it needed to be. We’ll fix that. SK: With this ‘pilot phase’ we’ve now covered a lot of the ground. We’ve really proven that we can do it and we believe this is much bigger than we thought. We are collecting a wide range of materia…
Kenya (Coast): Day 3 – our final recording day Story
…s of ‘props’ including a baby doll, hay stack and lots of bowls of water and spices. Some final shots at our last village. Enjoy…. Winyo and the kids… That’s enough for now. There’s 150 pictures more for every one we show, but the internet is too slow to keep posting Jimmy…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 continued…. Story
…n… Katana bin Kalama, with beautiful costume of shells… The Group prepares for their performance… Sengenya The most energetic group by far, brought the house down, with wonderful dancing. Led by Munyaka Chimega, they danced in the style of Sengenya (which bears their name). 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 jo…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…probably two dozen little kids watching. At close of day we were invited to some coconuts to celebrate the music Winyo with Coconuts Maddo, Chairman of Ketebul during our coconut break That’s it for now. This is only Day 1 of recording… we look forward to the next two days, 6 more groups, 3 more villages and of course 600 kilometres back to Nairobi. Jimmy …
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…d 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 video and used the mobile recording studio to record most of the concert. We’ll post this later. In the meantime, a couple of pictures: Winyo warms up with the Swiss Bone Guitar The Legendary Ayub…
Mufu Ndosi-Luvai – Crave Music News
…“I’m glad I came across Singing Wells. The production team goes all out to unearth East African traditional music, giving account of the people’s past and present through music. The recordings are a valuable treasure, since a lot of traditional African music often goes un-notated. Singing Wells is the much needed portal for ethnomusicology research in East Africa.” Publisher, Crave [music] Magazine. …
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…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 to get a white collar job in Nairobi but nothing materialised and he went back to Mirogi to live with his aunt. Nick really loves music – his favourite was a reggae group called Lucky D…
The Kalenjin & Kenya’s elite athletes News
…ories. She was also surprised how far some of the musicians had come to perform. She was talking to some of the singers and, for example, the young woman in Ben Kisinja’s group came from Kitale, about an hour’s drive away. She was happy to see that people of all ages were committed to this tribal music. She’s interested in using some of this tribal music in her documentary. She was also impressed by how well the Singing Wells group worked together…
Paul Kelemba – Chairman of Ketebul Music News
…Ketebul Music is continuing its documentation and archiving of East African music genres, both past and contemporary. We are now in a strong partnership with The Singing Wells Project (SWP) whose goals are similar to ours in the preservation of the region’s music heritage. …
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…e entertained by traditional troupes – who shall be reasonably remunerated for their efforts (and not depend on handouts from politicians who use them to spread their own skewed policies or lack of them in the music industry).” To achieve this mission, we are committed to six specific objectives: Record village music in the villages, ensuring that the groups are able to perform as a whole, in their local environment, supported by their families an…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…perform live and they did not disappoint. Later they were joined by Winyo for a performance which in simple words was icing on the cake The second group of the day was Zaire Ndidigwa led by Fundi bin Kalale. Their group had fewer members but their music was good and we enjoyed it. Just as we were winding up my friend Bado asked if he could do some of his own music. Backed by his dad and Winyo, the song they came up with was simply amazing. We wer…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Willie Bembe News
…The guys form Abubilla have just flown in and a small party is being held for them at Sippers Restaurant in Hurllingham with performances from among others Samba Mapangala, Winyo and Ayub Ogada. I say hi to Andy who is at the control desk recording the event with the new equipment. I meet Jimmy a bit later when the event is over. Gosh he’s tall….and very hands on since he was helping take down the mics. DAY 2 We gather at the studio so we can set…