Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…y, so I’m very grateful to him. We’ve never met before, only spoken on the phone and emailed, but he’s so welcoming I feel I know him already. The complete Singing Wells team congregates at Nairobi airport. After many months of planning the trip, this is the first time I actually put faces to the names. Steve has been integral to the planning – preparing the budget down to the last shilling and organizing the logistics of taking a team of 10 to Ki…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…ase, GBR_adm.zip. Open it up and take a look. What you will see is a crazy number of files, none of which your computer seems to really recognise. Don’t panic. What you’re seeing is just a few shapefiles (remember shapefiles? No? Let me jog your memory). As we’re looking at the shapefiles in the C: drive rather than in ArcMap itself, you can see the six individual files which make up the one shapefile. In fact, in this case you’re looking at 18 fi…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…aturday 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 selection of singers to Nairobi. We told him if he left immediately he would probably make it back to Nairobi at th…
Day 4: Discovery of the Young Stars… Story
…Please now listen to him in action – it is extraordinary and yes, this is one guy, one instrument: https://youtu.be/yP3s7QyT750 https://youtu.be/34kILyMgZbM https://youtu.be/XTfrBuyept0 https://youtu.be/viY2RgM0ZJE https://youtu.be/yv07MFvC7zQ https://youtu.be/4tQvFzqxbxA Kanindi Jazz Band The second group were the Kanindi Jazz Band, great dancers who also introduced us to our first Africa venture with the Vuvuzelas. They also had a wonderful Ten…
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…which is frankly a bit off putting. The pelicans are big enough to fly us away, but luckily we don’t smell like fish. We smell like a lot of other things by this time – there aren’t a lot of opportunities to wash and you’ll notice a lot shots of us in the same Singing Wells t-shirt – but luckily not yet fish. Fish would turn their noses at us. Our set, below, with recording equipment set up under the bar and the dancers ready to do their stuff… Th…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…my on Camera 2 filming Organda Joginda: Andy resting after setting up microphones: And Steve working as chief engineer on this session (Macbook Pro and two Motu audio interfaces on top of our trusted Pelicase, which acts as storage for all equipment, chair and table….in the back of the truck that will see us throughout Western Kenya: Finally, here’s Willie setting up a lapel mic for Okumu Korengo Thanks for listening. The Singing Wells Team 29th N…
Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…The Sega Sega Band Led by Osumba Rateng. This is Benga style, originating from the Luo tribes, as they gradually built on the percussive/bass sounds of the Nytati to form something more bluesy; it morphs later into Rumba, which combines Benga and also Congolese music which is in turn heavily influenced by Cuban music. The big guy in Luo Benga was Daniel Owino Misiani who developed the style in the 60’s. A big reason to return to Luo-lands is to t…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…children’s rooms. There is a maze of inter-connected cubicles. Each is for one child. One wall is a photograph – floor to ceiling of the child. Another wall has a set of ‘facts.’ Name: Michele’. Age: 26 months. Favourite food: chips (they all loved chips the best). Favourite game: Chasing her brother down the hill. Last Memory: Seeing her Mother hacked to death. Cause of Death: Smashed against a wall. There are about two dozen cubicles. Two dozen…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…inyo. Here, they put down their track. Not at all phased by the use of headphones and mics, they take everything in there stride, performing a number of takes as the song develops. We start by giving them a simple click to follow the beat but quickly realised that their tempos are far more subtle than this. Francis comes back to set the rhythm with their natural clapping and it suddenly all came together again. Once we have the female vocals recor…
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…rs and set up a smaller group of ‘bass’ and guitar and absolutely blew us away… They started as wonderful large group moving through a set of songs, including ‘Imparake Yagahinga’, the National Park song, which is a staple of the Batwa singing groups… This man was a wonderful dancer and he took centre stage. For us, he symbolised the essence of how life is for the Batwa today – a very hard life, but a life full of spirited song and dance… and this…
Day 5 (PM): The ‘Togetherness Group’ from Kanyabukunga Story
…pily accepted some much needed water: And here’s a very special young lady from this community – Fiona Nyiraguhirwa. Fiona has been sponsored by UOBDU through Junior School. Everyone is hoping she will be able to continue her education into High School and beyond. She is a wonderful role model for the Batwa and is proving how, with the right opportunity, Batwa children can achieve the same educational goals as any other child. Here are the videos…
Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…ording area, keeping a close eye on Andy and Willie and enjoying listening to the live performance through their headphones……
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…hing very new and often scary to the tribal artists. They have to wear headphones to hear other instruments we recorded earlier. They have to sing into a mic. Often they are asked not to clap. Often they are asked not to dance while they sing. We do it to focus on sound quality, but we are fully aware that we are putting these fantastic musicians into an alien environment. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. With the Birara Dancers over the…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…ding site for the first time. There’s a great irony about hills in Uganda. From a farming perspective, hill tops are often the worst land, far from towns and difficult to farm. The Batwa find themselves on a lot of hill tops. From an observers perspective, however, we found ourselves at the top of a hill, with a 360 degree view across the mountains and valleys. Every hill has been farmed, creating a mosaic of fields. Same were tilled, others in fu…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…set off early so we could settle all custom issues with our equipment (we really wanted to return with it all!). We then took Kenyan Airlines (new plane with movies!) to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, population roughly a million. We were met by our drivers Arun and John and drove through heavy rains to the Rwanda-Uganda border crossing near Kisoro. After a rather lengthy crossing, we then drove on to our final desitination – the Traveller’s Rest…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…ical Pelicases with Apple Laptops, Motu Mixer, Hard Drive Back ups and Headphone Amps. With these, we can record 1 large session with 6-8 inputs, or two separate sessions with smaller groups. SW3 and AM2: These are two Pelicases, with Canon 5D, 7D and 60D camera/lenses and 12 32GB flash cards, plus multiple lenses to video the tribal dances. A major lesson from the March Pilot and Lake Turkana Cultural Festival was that we had under-estimated the…