How to Map 1: Housekeeping News
…Map being too busy to faff around sifting through all your old school work to find shapefiles and the like, so we make it easy for the old guy by saving all our GIS files to the C: drive, i.e. to hard disk. Continuing the ArcMap-as-pernickety-elderly-fella analogy, it also gets terribly irritated if you change your file or folder names. This is because the links made in ArcMap (that will make more sense later) aren’t live, meaning they don’t updat…
Day 4: Discovery of the Young Stars… Story
…he hits either ring (with different sounds), or the side of the box or the top of the box (with different sounds). He also has the option, and this is where it begins to sound more like a bass, to slide the rings along the top as he plays to elogate the note and change its pitch. 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…
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…under the bar and the dancers ready to do their stuff… The Kochia Dancers Today is all about dances, so our videos will be much better than still photographs. Let us introduce you to the dancers; here in full glory are the Kochia Dancers who dance in the Ramogi style of dance (ref: for a great article on the Ramogi dance of the Luo, by Helen Odwar, click here): https://youtu.be/_qVuMFLJ9-M https://youtu.be/pwVlHnpw8Io https://youtu.be/B_M_OFRzDoU…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…are based in Kisumu, at the Nyanza Club, deep into Luo-land tribal music. Today we are focusing on some of the best Nyatiti and Oruti players around. And we discovered the Keith Moon of Luo drumming. Woke up at the Nyanza Club, outside Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria. This is the view of Lake Victoria we face in the morning before we set out to the next village, Saiya: As we will do six times on this trip, we pass the equator. We can’t hel…
Christine Kamau – “The Jazzist” News
…n keep in touch. Christine BBC Africa Beats: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17831507 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thejazzist Reverbnation: https://www.reverbnation.com/christinekamau …
Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…look at a map and think of Lake Victoria as a clock face, the village for today’s recording is at 1PM – it is the Rang’ala Village, home of the legendary Luo singer Ogoya Nengo. We’re about 90 minutes northeast of Kisumu, our ‘base’ for two days. We are here to record the Sega Sega Band (Benga Style) and the Do Do Band (Do Do), both Luo musical styles; the Luo are Kenya’s third largest tribe, making up about 13% of the population. The Sega Sega B…
The Batwa Trail News
…f the Batwa (click here to go to our field reports), we didn’t have enough time to do the Batwa Trail but we heard about how it is helping the Batwa people tell the story of their cultural heritage and, in doing so, provide an income for this impoverished community. About the Batwa Trail ‘The dense forests at the foot of the Virunga Volcanoes were home to the Batwa people: hunter-gatherers and fierce warriors who depended on the forest for shelter…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…t. We waved the Ketebul team off on Friday and the Abubilla team used Saturday to backup drives, write blogs and post ‘excerpts’ on Soundcloud. We took the time to reflect on our travels so far. Ten observations: The Casket. We have travelled about 5,000 kilometres so far on African roads for Singing Wells. And we’ve observed Africans carry just about anything on their heads or their motorbikes – fruit of every type, doors, trees, chickens, etc… O…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…f the following morning causing the power cut which lasted the same length of time). Their wait allowed us to capture some photos of their members which demonstrate wonderfully the age range across the group and the fact that music here in Africa is for the whole community, from the very young to their much respected elders. This lady was one of the principal dancers and she out performed many of the younger members of the group… You can see her i…
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…ntre 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 lady is their wonderful lead vocalist… https://youtu.be/pZzgr2PXZ3s https://youtu.be/gt4_CaZNN2c Then the guitar and bass took to the stage….if you are wondering where the bass is, the plastic bag turn out to be significant. We were bemused by this magic plastic bag, but it turns out it was cov…
Day 5 (PM): The ‘Togetherness Group’ from Kanyabukunga Story
…hich include a Batwa song called ‘Abagyeni Beza’ which is in praise of visitors to the community, telling them that they are beautiful. A lovely song for us to hear! https://youtu.be/MIxv2AOZ7XU https://youtu.be/iYuE_b8lzF8 https://youtu.be/bApTXsrdZ3A https://youtu.be/nh9LxM8OrfE https://youtu.be/CPJ5H7XvdT0 https://youtu.be/qQK5NiF7aSk ‘Abagyeni Beza’ https://youtu.be/7i3F5hPSPg8 The afternoon session wraps up at about 5pm. We say our farewe…
Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…AY 5: Welcome to the most beautiful setting for a music recording session. Today we visit the Mperwa Community. The second day of recording – beautiful sunshine in morning and there’s a patten emerging. Morning sunshine, afternoon rain, then the power goes out. Then the locusts attack. But let’s focus on the morning. This morning we recorded the Mperwa Dancers – the lead singer had a beautiful voice and we did an ‘Influences’ sessions with her. Un…
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
…eaving from London), we were ready to record. And we rewarded with a great day of recording, starting in the morning with the Birara Dancers, led by the legendary Batwa artist, Francis Sembagare. We woke up early and were greeted with this wonderful view from the garden of the Traveller’s Rest Guesthouse: After breakfast our first stop was the office of the United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU), where we met Henry Neza, the C…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
DAY 3: Today, we travelled from Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro, arriving at the Traveller’s Rest Hotel by late eveningWe 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 cr…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…ve the musical legacy of East Africa; we are trying to make it relevant to today’s artists. Our ‘Influences’ sessions seek to demonstrate the extraordinary power of this tribal music in relation to today’s music. Chief Sound Engineer: Commands the audio team and is in charge of input for all sessions and for completing all finished audio for that day. Assistant Engineer: In charge of set up/breakdown of set and assisting Chief Sound Engineer on da…