Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…during the time of crowning the chief and then when he dies. It is also performed to entertain important personnel on big occasions. Being the only royal dance, it is one of the most important of the many dances of the Acholi: 2. We then plan to record a group performing the Otole war dance, although as times are changing it can now function for entertainment. It is performed to train the male youths during tribal protection and instils courage in…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…at the speed of light and transformed the song. He was so good, we decided to put together a magic moment. Watch this space for videos. We recorded right through to 9PM and the ‘northern folks’ rushed to the airport. The Ketebul crew continued to work in the studio, led by Jessie who loves bringing Singing Wells musicians into the studio. Hunter and Jimmy will board our flight at about 11PM and with a 12 midnight wheels up, we will officially end…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…cused our recording time on Mr Manager, their quite sincere thank you song to a factory manager that came to their factory and actually did a good job. We always found this song amazing – the group is deadly serious in their thank you to the manager. But in many ways, we kept thinking it is sad that they find it so rare for someone to essentially do his job that they need to write a song. Johnnie, Bishop and Eddie all joined in to support them in…
Day 7: In Nairobi – sponsors, blogs and strategy Story
…ot judge whether any particular group or style is likely to be relevant to today’s generation of listeners. On the other hand, we are artists, seeking musicians and styles that can be fed directly into the current music scene – we are ‘seed’ collectors looking for music that can be replanted and grown in different soils. Our obligation here is to judge, is to prioritise, to separate groups and find some groups that we should be bringing back to th…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…leg. ‘Arap Oloo’ : about a wife who thinks her husband is lost. She wants to look for him because she can’t be responsible for all her children and animals without him. ‘Chang’komen’ : about a woman who is married to a man in a different village. She comes home bringing specialities to eat and drink. ‘Nerekan Evyline’ : Evyline was left by a man who flew away. The song is asking about what she’s going to do. She’ll tell her father to build a hous…
Alur Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…himself in a cool beautiful land where he met an old woman. The Old woman took him to Labongo’s spear and then gave him a bead.When he reached home, the bead was handed over for everyone to see and, in the process; Labongo’s son accidentally swallowed it. Nyapiri, in revenge, also demanded that his own bead be given back. He refused all the possible substitutes. Left with no alternative, Labongo handed over the child to Nyapiri to open and retrie…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…kuru travelling down the Rift Valley. We will take this ride tomorrow. For today, however, in the words of Robert Frost, we ‘took the road less travelled.’ We left Iten on a red, dirt road. The athletes ran on the sides and our car and jeep travelled in the middle. While the countryside was beautiful, the roads left a bit to be desired and we bumped and jostled for about 80 kms. The land is tilled now, waiting for a new planting season, so we are…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…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 ther…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…the Birara Dancers (Music of the Batwa) was closer to Hip Hop than much of today’s music. And he also points out the Joginda Boys (recorded for Singing Wells in Kisumu, Lake Victoria) were amazing and more modern than most music today. The Clapperboard 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 firs…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…rdings. In the past, one or two of them might have been invited to a local town for a simple recording. Singing Wells allows for the whole group to perform, singing and dancing in front of ten microphones and three digital cameras.’ Video engineer, Patrick Ondiek, adds, ‘I love producing the final videos and getting phone calls from my friends asking me ‘how did you find these musicians?’ I feel like I’m on the cutting edge of music, bringing thes…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…ang a song called ‘Kiseete’ on the album. (Interestingly, our second group today, Chebonet, played Kiseete, which is clearly a communal song of this community). Ben recorded 8 tracks with us, including a fantastic Influences track with Eddie Grey, a musician who joined Ketebul Music in 2011. https://youtu.be/ot3xNHqm7pU https://youtu.be/MPPFeuH1vF4 Please click here to read the meaning behind Ben’s songs: Song Translations of Ben Kisinja Chebonet…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…d didn’t care about the music and performed songs which are just performed for tourists. Not real music and not good. I knew the second it started. I was so glad it started raining and we could get out of there.” [Editor note: we did not include this group in any Singing Wells materials.] So here is Pato’s favourite Singing Wells track – Jovah from the Mperwa Batwa community in Kisoro performing with Jesse on piano at the Ketebul Music studios Thi…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…ret then onto Iten and Kapsowar to record the Marakwet and Keiyo. The last day to go to L Baringo to record the Tugen. Tabu is not sure what to expect of the tribal music in the villages we are visiting but he is always surprised by the quality of music we discover with Singing Wells. “I didn’t really know what to expect of the Batwa of Uganda, and was blown away by the musicianship. I expect to be surprised again!” The last time he was there was…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…music documentary. He teamed up with Andy Patterson while he was here and together they conducted a number of interviews with Kenyan musicians who are now based in the UK. They also had the chance to visit Kenya House in Stratford as a guest of our friends at the Kenya Tourist Board. Here’s Bill’s article published in Business Daily Africa: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Where+the+world+got+real+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/…
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…