A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…ls of the project and our progress and learnings. For those of you who are new to our work, this is a good place to start. OVERVIEW OF THE FIRST YEAR OF ACTIVITY: By the end of March 2012, we will have completed the following sets of field visits: March 2011 in Malindi, Kenya: This was our our pilot project, working our way across the Malindi coast recording 8 separate musical groups. Our major learnings here were: A) our audio equipment kit was e…
A message from Henry Neza at UOBDU News
…ing 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 non Batwa community…
Sad News from Kenya News
…the village of Aluny, his final track on the day being a funeral dirge. We send our sympathies and condolences to his family and friends at this sad time. Here is an audio excerpt and video from his performance in Aluny. The news of his passing is painful indicator of how important The Singing Wells project is, in its aims to preserve music….
AMF receive grant to fund Batwa recordings News
…rnational Education has approved a grant to support the Singing Wells trip to Uganda to record the music and dance of the Batwa people. We are delighted that our proposal was successful and that the IIE agreed with our rationale for taking the project to the Batwa to increase awareness of their unique music and dance traditions. In our proposal, we outlined our rationale as follows: “The overall aim of the Singing Wells project is to identify, rec…
Recording music & dance of the Batwa News
…ve to sing and dance, and often do so spontaneously. The Batwa in these photos are from the Nyakabande region near Kisoro, Uganda. The photos were taken in July, 2011 by Dina Buck for the United Organsation for Batwa Development in Uganda. Rationale for taking the Singing Wells project to Kisoro, Uganda The overall aim of the Singing Wells project is to identify, record, preserve and promote the cultural music heritage of East Africa. In takin…
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…. The reaction of the groups and villagers confirmed that it is far better to ‘go to the music’ then try to bring all these talented musicians 900 kms to Nairobi. In addition, we confirmed that Ketebul absolutely has the right set of sound and video engineers to lead these sessions in the future – they have all now been fully trained and have already begun to record sessions on their own. They will be leading the November sessions. If you are inte…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…traditional costumes, arts and crafts, dances and music to each other and to visitors. Combined with the stunning geographical characteristics and the very limited general knowledge on the Lake Turkana region, the presentation of the cultural traditions makes the Festival a unique and fascinating experience for everyone involved.’ Steve’s objective is to record the music of all 10 performing groups. All the material will be taken back to the Kete…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…e her name [CANON 5D CAMERA] Jimmy kept a close eye on her and he asked me to stop drooling all over the place because she belonged to him and only him. The second car was delivered and Maddo, chairman for Ketebul Music would be the pilot for the V.I.P car. He had to leave because he had to drop the owner of the car and left me with his car, but not without detailed instructions on how to handle it and with a stern warning: don’t visit your girl…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Willie Bembe News
…ies our grandfathers told us which got distorted over time. The safest way to store them was in the music which was passed down from generation to generation. Another five years and all this would be gone since the present generation is not really interested in learning there music. This is because it’s not packaged in a way that would interest them. DAY 4 Have caught on on how to set up the equipment and under the Andy’s guidance do the recording…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…m mid last century and offer them in easy to read, listen and view mediums to today’s audiences, young and old, we were trying to fulfill our dreams of preserving our music heritage for prosterity. We have so far produced two packages and are currently working on three others simultaneously. Of course the world cannot live in the past and must move on, but there is no future without a past. Countries that have rich music industries and whose music…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…20 people applauding their every move..When we finally managed to get them to stop, they insisted on doing one last number for us to join them in dance. I was dragged into the dance and forced to expose my two left feet. Tabu and Winyo gave a good account of themselves with the shoulder shaking dance (which I must point out though is very similar to the dance style of the Lake Victoria region where both Tabu and Winyo hail from). Jimmy gave it his…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…music for us to hear. In each case they were trying to imitate US artists from 50 Cent to Justin Timberlake. In no case did they build off their own musical traditions even though each of them was proud of their parents’/grandparents’ performances. They just didn’t link these traditions to their own music. Second, we showed the power of bringing a contemporary artists into the villages and working on ‘fusion’, the blending of new music with music…
Meet the team from Ketebul Music News
…ordinary team, with huge passion for Singing Wells. Our goal is not simply to ‘archive’ the traditional music of East Africa – it is about making it relevant to new generations and contemporary music. This is the right team to make it happen. Jimmy…
Testing the mobile recording equipment News
…in November. Tabu Osusa is putting together the itinerary and the plan is to travel to the coast, near Mombasa, to record the music of the Mijikenda – a Bantu tribe made up of 9 sub-tribes, the most well known being the Giriama and Digo. Music is prolific in these communities and features superb drumming and athletic dancing. Katana Bin Kalama is a contemporary Giriama musician and his song ‘Nilipata Mzungu’ is featured on Ketebul Music’s Spotlig…
More on the launch of the Ketebul Music website News
…of East Africa and the traditions that their non-profit organisation aims to help preserve. Using our experience from working with Abubilla Music and Sideways Recordings we were well placed to understand the functionality that a music organisation needs in their web site. Taking this experience we developed a dynamic design and implemented a custom installation of WordPress, enabling all content areas of the site to be administered by the Ketebul…
Ketebul Music website launched News
Great news to report today. Initial funds to the Singing Wells project have been used to complete our first objective and we are delighted to report on the launch of the new Ketebul Music website. When Abubilla Music and Ketebul Music first came together we decided the most pressing need was for a dynamic website which would show the work of the Ketebul artists in their full glory and we think we’ve succeeded in our goal. Take a good look around…