Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…when Tabu discovered the Jeep had a flat tyre. This moved our departure time from the two hotels (Eldoret Club and Pine Tree) from 8am to about 9.30am. The tyre had a damaged tube that just wore out. We reassembled and headed off for a spectacular trip from an altitude of 2,800m down to 1,114m at one of the floors of the Great Rift Valley. The roads were more winding and steeper than on our trip to Rwanda last November but there was no rain and th…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…raditional Dancers. Kathy talked to the tribal elder about them. They come from Tot, about 50km from where we were recording. They had walked here the night before and had been practicing all night and morning before we arrived at noon. Most of their songs are about peace and unity between the Marakwet and Pokot tribes. They are also about important historical events and praising ceremonies such as weddings, births, circumcisions and funerals. The…
Acholi Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…ct of Luo. Origins: Folklore states that Luo was the first man, and sprung from the ground, son of Jok (God) and Mother Earth. His son Jipiti had a daughter called Kilak.Kilak is believed to have conceived a son, Lubongo, with the devil, Lubanga. Lubongo was the first in the line of Rwot the chiefs of Payera, the dominant Acoli clan. They have a variety of different dances and musical styles that serve different purposes. The top left image is o…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…ech. Click here to go to Song Translations Everything Else Everything else from today can be divided into three key events. First, we survived the drive. There were a few scary moments, the first being driving to the village for the shoot – straight up a very steep hill. This was not a hill for most humans and certainly wasn’t a hill for cars and certainly not cars filled with Ketebul folks and all our equipment. We got up and down, but we imagine…
Abubilla Music remix an original Batwa song for Influences News
…vocalists from other Batwa communities in the area. The song, called ‘Inyange’, is in praise of beautiful people who are compared to the beautiful white Inyange (Egret) bird. Musicians from Abubilla Music in London have added to the track for our Singing Wells Influences series. Here is the first ‘rough mix’ of the song….. …
Music of Northern Uganda News
…r Singing Wells when we arrive back in Kampala in December. Travelling to Gulu From Kampala, Steve and Patrick set off on the long, 340km drive to Gulu. The main tribe in the area is the Acholi whose instruments include a traditional harp, the ‘adungu’ and a wooden trumpet, the ‘agwara’. The Adungu, an instrument common among the tribes of northern Uganda While in Gulu, Steve and Patrick had two very useful meetings with Joyce Laker, the D…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…rd Today was the first day we used the ‘clapperboard’. First a little background to this…… Singing Wells has always been about the music so our initial focus was on audio recording. We invested in first class audio equipment and can record using 8 mics directly into Pro Tools. But during the March Pilot programme, we realised that the visual experience was as important as the audio. So for our November trip we invested in two more digital cameras…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…Sigerer’. Kathy interviewed him about all his songs and this is a classic (to go to Kathy’s Blog on Songs from Day 1, click here). Sigerer tells the story of two bulls in Teriet’s family that we were stolen and taken to Uganda. The family dog was able to follow the scent and led a posse of 20 armed men 75kms to a butchers where sadly one bull had been killed. The surviving bull, Sigerer, was re-taken and brought back to Kitale. In celebration, the…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…t will soon die out, leaving videos and songs in the archives. We also had to work to make this music relevant and important to contemporary artists. A key part of a field visit, therefore, is to bring contemporary African musicians with us to perform with the tribal groups and to write new music influenced by these sessions. Winyo, a wonderful singer/songwriter with Ketebul Music, is one of our Influences artists and has been with us on three Sin…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…ve never heard a lot of the tribal music, even around my own villages. Our trip to Nyanza in November 2011 blew me away. I have never heard music like that. My favourite was the performance from Okumu K’Orengo. I was so moved. He was singing about death, about his own father, about his grandfather. He forced you to think about all the people you’ve lost. Secondly, I love the confidence it gives me to expose my friends to new music. They all love t…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…Ketebul Music studio We came to Ketebul this morning to get ready for our trip tomorrow. Ketebul is buzzing with people getting everything packed up. Steve, project manager, was cracking the whip. Pato, head of Video, was quickly learning how to use the new lighting kit (SW 4), but he was constantly distracted by the new Singing Wells Flip Camera. Nick focused on learning the Clapperboard. And Willie joined Jimmy in the studio with Johnnie, the g…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…www.businessdailyafrica.com/Where+the+world+got+real+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/djb5mf/-/index.html Photos from Kenya House …
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…will become clear later). The only way to make absolutely sure of that is to go into ArcMap and look at the attribute table of the shapefile (that’s basically the data that makes the shapefile look how it does), and check the names of the counties. To do this open the map, which is saved at C:\How To Map\How to Map 1, or wherever you put it. Then right-click on GBR_adm2 and select Open Attribute Table. This will open a box with the attribute tabl…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…called How To Map 1, so the address where it is saved is C:\How To Map\How to Map 1. To get our country outline into ArcMap we need to Add Data. To do this either click File > Add Data > Add Data or select the Add Data icon. This will open a box; click this icon till you reach ‘Home – Documents/ArcGIS’: From here click on Folder Connections. This is where you will connect folders from elsewhere on your computer to ArcMap. Click on this icon: and s…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…tely stunned. Henry explains that this lady would need to make the journey to town 2 or 3 times a week, leaving her home one day, staying with another Batwa community overnight and returning the next. Extraordinary. Getting a lift in the van saved her half a day’s walk. The van pulls up on the track and Henry says we are there – or nearly there. The village is just up here he says, pointing to the top of the hill which looms high above us. We can…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…Western Kenya, we made a decision to bring some of the Batwa singers back from Kisoro to Uganda. We spent Saturday and Sunday recording them and the results are fantastic. The whole way back from Kisoro to Kisumu we talked about the Batwa and how much we loved the singers. We thought about bringing them to Nairobi sometime in the future. We then decided the future is now and called Henry Neza to see if he would be willing to travel with a selecti…