Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…hrough about 10,000 receipts of expenses (we run a very tight shop, thanks to Steve’s leadership), we welcome Ben into the studio to record. The Otacho Young Stars stayed the morning as well. We had a full crew to support Ben – Johnnie and Bishop on guitar, Nina and Winyo on vocals. Watch this space. We also continued our work to capture new artists for Missing – Global Remix, our 2012 fund raising song. We had Prasad Velankar, a wonderful Indian…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…of four days. We now want to repeat this for every field visit and decided to invite the Otacho Young Stars, the great find of our field visit to record the Luo, and Ben Kisinja, the great Kalenjin musician we recorded earlier this week. Saturday was all about the Otacho Young Stars. Let’s remind you who they are – here are two clips: We focused our recording time on Mr Manager, their quite sincere thank you song to a factory manager that came to…
Day 7: In Nairobi – sponsors, blogs and strategy Story
…ensure the music we discover and capture from the field is truly relevant to new generations. We discussed in detail the twin mission of Singing Wells and the conflict inherent in our two goals. On one hand, we are scientists, collecting fossils to be stored and re-discovered. Here our obligation is to be systematic in our field visits, to represent the breadth of East African styles, to record fairly, and to not judge whether any particular grou…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…d for help. So we got to cross again to arrange rescue and then again went crossed to head back to Nairobi. That brings to six the total Singing Wells Equator crossings in the last 12 weeks. Arrival We arrived in Nairobi safe and sound at about 10pm, having survived the wonderful horrors of the road. We actually breezed through a traffic free Nairobi, although Tabu was at war with the GPS and decided to go his own way. The GPS, which had served us…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…after circumcision. They also wear beads crossing their chest which are given to them after female circumcision. Their belts are decorated with cowry shells and are used to drape over a woman’s abdomen when she is giving birth to protect the baby. The cowry shells hanging down from the woman’s neck signify that she has had twins. This is a huge honour and the women wear them while they sing as celebration of fertility and women. The songs include…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…rything 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 there were a lot of prayers said during those 20 minutes up a…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…so 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 first class audio equipment and can record using 8 mics directly into Pro Tools. But during the March P…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…are recording music in Northern Uganda in Autumn 2012 and then we will travel to Tanzania and Burundi in 2013, returning to Nairobi in Autumn 2013 in time for the celebrations for Kenya’s 50 years since independence. In addition to our field visits, we have developed an online Music Map of East Africa that charts the tribes of the region, their music, their instruments and influences. The map also shows where we have travelled with the Singing We…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…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 owner slaughtered poor Sigerer to feed the posse. As Kathy pointed out to Teriet, the real hero of the song was the dog, not poor Sigerer, who’s sole role was really to walk to Uganda and back and die. Masirtarit Finally, we recorded the ill-fated Masirtarit, a wonderful female folk choir wit…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
Today we drove from Nairobi to Kitale, passing through Nakuru and Eldoret on the way. Last night, we agreed a late fee of 1,000 bob a minute for anyone arriving at the studio after 9 am. Money talks and the whole crew were there by 09.00. Everyone. That‘s the good news. The bad news was no one brought a key for the studio, forcing Tabu to have to drive home and back. We left an hour later. Drive good, but long (roughly 400 kms) with a few little…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…est of Nairobi. In Kitale we’ll record the Sabaot. The next day we will drive to Kapenguira to record the Pokot. After that we go to Eldoret 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 t…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…velled to London in August as part of Ketebul Music’s ‘Kenya @ 50’ 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+…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…ng the real functions of ArcMap to display information on the map so you have a visual representation of your data. First of all, a recap of what we’re going to do: Prepare our data: ArcMap can be tricksy if your data isn’t properly organised and formatted so it’s worth sorting that out first. Import the data into ArcMap. Join the data to the country outline shapefile. Export the joined data and shapefile as a new shapefile. Display the data. Prep…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…he completely blank ArcMap screen. Before we do anything else, we’re going to save our map. Like all your other GIS files it needs to be saved on the C: drive. It’s also a good idea to put it in a folder of its own because it will start to collect lots of other bits that go with it and it’s always good to keep things tidy. I have entitled this map HTM1 (How To Map 1) and have saved it in a folder called How To Map 1, so the address where it is sav…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…eritage is one of a simple life living off the fruits of the forest and surviving without any of the modern day comforts we know. The sadness is that this lifestyle was abruptly taken from them and they have had to adapt to a new life on the fringes of Ugandan society. I am buoyed by the fact that our visit will provide an income for the community, as we have offered each group a payment for their performances to be shared amongst the whole clan….
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…the 30th. They then left the morning of the 30th and travelled by private van from Kisoro to Kampala, arriving in Kampala the same evening. They spent the night in Kampala and left the morning of the 1st of December and arrived in Nairobi in the afternoon of the second. ‘They’ were five ladies and five babies and three men, plus Henry. 14 people drove for roughly 48 hours to sing. Second, let’s introduce the team. Each of the ladies brought their…