Hitching a ride Story
Nick took this picture on our journey from Kisoro to the Birara community while we were in south west Uganda documenting and recording the music of the Batwa. It’s about 35kms by road, most of which is uphill, following the winding road through the stunning, lush countryside. This guy was lucky enough to have a bike and took advantage of the passing lorry. Most people seemed to be on foot and many of the Batwa make the arduous journey to town th…
Ten More Singing Wells Stories News
…ew of the 250 stories – pull up a chair: The Batwa: Providing a Soundtrack to the Costs of ‘Simple Solutions’ The Batwa are a forest people living in the dense forests along the base of the Virunga Volcanoes. They were evicted from the forest to make way for the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park near Kisoro Uganda, which was established to protect the Mountain Gorillas that habitate in the park (travelling back and forth across the Uganda-Rwanda bord…
Current Leading Figures News
…promoting patriotism, love, hard work, name it. Music for instance speaks to the heart of the person..goes beyond the ears and brain as you might know, science has proved this already. Now, we have a festival annually that singly gives joy to the people in the villages but nobody around here would see value of entertainment in the villages, to the people. Why would anyone conceive support to a cultural project in the face of poor roads, HIV & AID…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…as it is a public facility, it achieves this aim by allowing public access to the archive onsite and online. It states that the GMA tries to be inclusive, rather than exclusive, with material and will look at origin, idiom, transmission, and style of performance when debating whether it is relevant to their collection. It has 10 principal concerns – which can be found here – but the themes of preservation, digitisation and access seem to be three…
Singing Wells in Numbers…. News
…Andy did a litte homework for this one: Number of recordings of groups: 374 (this does not include other recordings like Magic Moments, Influences, etc…) Number of groups recorded: 83 Number of hours of music: 27 hours and 30 minutes. …
James Isabirye and Tabu Osusa Discuss East African Music News
…threatened. I know that Hugh Tracy blamed Christianity. The churches came to the land and convinced the people that the old ways were evil. Traditional instruments with drums were part of the pagan culture and needed to be erased. Traditional songs about spirits, about witch doctors needed to be ended and replaced with Christian music. James: I think that explains some of it. But the church no longer does that and yet we still reject the old ways…
Report from Womex 2013 News
…d Music Expo this year in Cardiff. The festival lasted from Wednesday 23rd to the 27th of October. The trade fair and conferences were held at the Motorpoint arena, with the evening showcases and events held at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay. For our first visit to Womex, we booked a stand at the trade fair, with the main intentions being to spread the word of the project and the work we are doing in partnership with Ketebul Music. Ketebul h…
SWP Uganda 2013 – our proposed itinerary News
…m for a meeting the following morning which he thought would be of benefit to the recce. This later turned out to be one of the best leads and contacts I got for someone knowledgeable in Ugandan tribal music……The person Teshome wanted me to meet was James Isabirye, the Selam co-ordinator in Uganda and, more importantly, the secretary of a cultural organisation called National Council of Folklorists of Uganda – NACOFU. James turned out to be very r…
The Birara Batwa Community Story
…er 2011 was to record the music of the Batwa people. Here we introduce you to the first Batwa community we met on that memorable trip – The Birara Our story: Singing Wells & The Birara Community We left Kisoro in the early morning to travel to the Birara community. The journey by road took about one and a half hours – a distance of about 35km. Just outside Kisoro we picked up an elderly lady from the Birara community who was walking the long, main…
A recording studio which fits into the back of an SUV Story
…erything you need for a fully functioning, professional recording studio into the back of a small utility vehicle. Here’s a quick summary of what’s in all those bags…… We have two mobile recording units, each capable of recording from four microphones plus other sources at a high resolution to Apple MacBook Pro laptops. The benefit of the systems we have chosen is that they can run off the battery power of the laptops if we are in the situation wh…
The Key to Sustainable Aid in Africa? Perhaps we should follow the music. News
…sic heritage of the region and to help make this legacy relevant and fresh to today’s audiences. The last five years has only re-enforced our commitment. On our first goal, we only have to remember that we were probably the last folks to record Okumu K’Orengo, one of the great Nyatiti players, before he died. On our second goal, we only have to remember Francis and Jessie playing together in Kisoro. And as we plan for our next trip to Kampala this…
What people say about Singing Wells News
…e future.” PSN Europe Magazine Read the review of Singing Wells here. Mark Totokwa via YouTube “This is good stuff – a good example of a sustainable project both in context and content. A big thank you to those behind this project and most importantly to the resourceful musicians. A job well done!” (Posted on YouTube here) Atesh Sonneborn, Associate Director, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings “Andy, It was a real pleasure to speak with you this morn…
Kampala traffic jam Story
… We go to great lengths to plan the itinerary for our field recording trips so that we make the best use of the limited time we have. Steve K from Ketebul Music is our Africa Project Manager and he does an amazing job in the weeks prior to the trip, contacting music groups, booking local accommodation and arranging vehicles and drivers to transport us to some very remote destinations. But even Steve’s meticulous planning could not help us avoid t…
A quick summary of the Singing Wells Project News
…nd spared the men. The rest were filled with bloodlust, however, and moved to the next village and killed everyone. The Macedonia Band, a Likembe band (think thumb pianos on steroids, sounding like a calypso band), played in the rebel camps and within the rebel held villages. Aware that the political tides may change, the band leader was careful to not play rebel songs and stuck with very traditional songs far away from politics. The tides did cha…
73,603 views on YouTube News
…was the very first video we uploaded to YouTube following our field visit to the Coast Region to record the music of the Mijikenda tribes. Is second place is a video from our field visit to Kisoro in south west Uganda where we met and recorded the wonderful Batwa people. The music is performed by Kamuntu ‘Tiny’ Moses accompanied by our Influences artist Winyo. And in first place with over 21,700 views is ’71 Hours to Monday’- a global tra…
A new type of city Story
…re were animals everywhere and make-shift houses, which starkly contrasted to the taller office buildings you could see in the distance. Despite this unconventional type of city,I loved it. There was certainly a lot going on and during the week Akello told us many stories of the vibrant buzz in Kampala. Every night there’s music to listen to somewhere in the packed hub of 180,000 people . The image above of the tin houses and the Uganda House of C…