Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…he evening we went to slippers to watch Winyo. We pumped some Tuskers into Andy and then relaxed a bit. He opened up more and we liked him. Andy now jumps in with a little more detail… AP: To be clear, that was the first time I’d been out of Europe and I was definitely nervous. The first night in the hotel, I practically curled myself up in the corner with a chair barring the door! I’m from the North and came south in 2001 and spend four years at…
Kathy’s reflections on her Singing Wells experience News
…the driving in his blogs. The country side was beautiful with mostly farm land, small villages and quite hilly. I feel I had the best job on the trip because I got to interview all the groups about where they were from, what their clothing and adornment meant, what songs they sang and what they meant. I took advice from Victoria and spent quite a bit of time getting to know the people in the groups as well as the people in the Singing Wells group….
Kenya (Coast): Day 3 – our final recording day Story
…n the Kayamba style (which is also the name of the wonderful percussion). It was our first ‘harvest dance’ (Mavuno), which celebrated the harvest and the arrival of the new baby. Lots of ‘props’ including a baby doll, hay stack and lots of bowls of water and spices. Some final shots at our last village. Enjoy…. Winyo and the kids… That’s enough for now. There’s 150 pictures more for every one we show, but the internet is too slow to keep posting…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 continued…. Story
…d town, Junda. We drove into this very densely back ‘village’ going deeper and deeper into the urban jungle on very potted roads, packed with pedestrians, bikes and frankly, a lot of suspicious folks somewhat unwelcoming of our two big trucks. None of us could imagine setting up recording equipment here and we weren’t sure how much we’d end up with if tried… But after a lot of false turns, we met our hosts who gradually led us through the town and…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 – recording in the village of Kibarani Story
…then start the first song and by the end of the session we are generally surrounded by 50-100 kids… Behind the Scenes We have good routines now: We set up our little tent (right) We set up mic stands We set up mics and while folks are setting up, Pato interviews the group leaders That’s it. We’ll follow up with this afternoon’s action in the next blog… Jimmy…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…There are about 7 houses, two cows, lots of chickens, groves of pea trees and lots and lots of children. All smiling all the time. The Music Groups We arrived and set up our tent, our two tables, our recording kit and our six mics. Andy ran the desk, supported by Jessie, Steve and Willie. Jimmy and Pato handled video, Winyo did a lot of photography and Tabu and Maddo watched (having retired after driving 10 hours the day before). Mwenzele – Nyere…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…tures: Winyo warms up with the Swiss Bone Guitar The Legendary Ayub Ogado …and his legendary goatee …and his legendary Nyatiti From left to right, Joyce, Alfred and Tabu. Joyce is from the Ford Foundation and supports Ketebul. Alfred helped introduce Ketebul and Abubilla This was an evening to represent everything Ketebul is about – bringing new East African artists to the world, but rooting them in the generations of music that came before. This…
Best of Singing Wells 2011 News
In 2011 we completed three field recording trips in Kenya and Uganda and also took the mobile recording studio to the Lake Turkana Cultural Festival. We’ve recorded over 150 songs from more than 25 local music groups and uploaded 36 videos of these performances to YouTube (so far). Every performance was unique and special – we loved them all – so picking just 10 songs for a ‘Best of’ album was not easy. Here are our final choices….it’s just a sma…
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…ecessary expertise and equipment to do full field recordings (up to 8 microphones and 3 digital cameras) throughout East Africa. PROJECT BENEFITS TO EAST AFRICA : We are on a journey. When we started, we knew the critical importance of capturing the cultural legacy of East Africa with tribal music, before it was lost to all of us forever. We were reminded of the importance of this in December, when one of the most extraordinary musicians we’ve rec…
A message from Henry Neza at UOBDU News
…em. After the Singing Wells visit to Kisoro there was an opportunity for some of the Batwa to experience life outside their community when they visited the Ketebul Music studios in Nairobi for more recordings. During this trip they were able to interact with the Ford Foundation and benefit from new clothes and shoes, which improved their social status among the dominant tribes here. This gave them confidence and changed their behaviour. Now the no…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…mote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the new mobile recording equipment. The main pur…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…nres of music. Tabu and I were at the airport to receive James Jimmy Allen and Andy Patterson from Abubilla. I’d met Andy towards the end of 2010 on his first visit to Africa and we’d gotten on fine. I was looking forward to meeting Jimmy. Tall, burly American now domiciled in the UK. One look at him and I saw a professional we could do business with. I immediately loved his good nature too. We ferried them to their hotel and let them recover from…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…ndence between Abubilla Music and Ketebul Music. Day 1: The Briefing Jimmy and Andy from Abubilla Music, came to Ketebul Studios for a pre travel briefing and to go through the new equipment and software with Ketebul Music engineers on the afternoon of March 27th. They had flown into Nairobi from London the previous evening. I must confess we started off on the wrong footing: all Ketebul engineers were late for the briefing..! Tabu was especially…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…recorders and all performed well. The Team: The Ketebul team were amazing and Andy did a great job of training folks quickly. The three sound engineers are all very experienced in the studio and quickly got up to speed with outside recording and the new equipment (hard ware and software). Pato and Winyo did a great job on video and photography and we realised how important the visual archiving will be for the project. Finally, Deche, who was in c…
Ketebul Music website launched News
…ists in their full glory and we think we’ve succeeded in our goal. Take a good look around the site to see how Ketebul Music is working to combine the traditional sounds of East African tribal music with the best of contemporary artists. And through Bandcamp, listen to or download the inspirational music of Kenya from artists such as Ontiri Bikundo and Makadem, or the 4 piece women’s group Bismillahi Gargar, whose aim is to remind people of their…