Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
Another amazing start to the day. Today it was all about music of the Alur tribe. We drove from Pakwach across the Albert Nile Bridge into the Nebbi district to the village of Widyanga. The Music Alur Kingdom Troupe We set up amongst the ‘five layered’ thatched roof huts, settled down around the cows, goats and a really music loving chicken and recorded one single band, The Alur Kingdom Troupe, with every instrument imaginable: The Flute (yep, a…
Reporting back on recording trip to Kisoro, SW Uganda News
…n Uganda today. The following week, we invited ten of the Batwa performers to the Ketebul Music studios in Nairobi to record more songs, and in particular, collaborate with contemporary music artists to generate new material for ‘Influences’ – a series of new songs influenced and inspired by traditional themes. Our aim is to provide a lasting benefit for the Batwa community in Uganda and we are doing this through our continuing relationship with U…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…ildren settled under the same tree our sound crew was using and sang along to the songs. There was only one set of shrieks, when a 4 foot grass snake slithered through the kids, over our equipment and through performers Part of our routine now is to have Vicki on top of one of the vans to get a good 3rd angle (much of the Acholi dancing involves circling a drummer, meaning you can’t see said drummer unless from above…) The Music Groups Rubanga Kin…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…ubilla Music. We are invariably joined by a local ‘fixer’ who will take us to the village and introduce us to the music groups who are expecting us. Once we arrive in our location, we liaise with the local musicians to find the best space to record. If possible we will record more than one of groups in each location, as it reduces the setup and breakdown time and maximizes the time for recording. We decide on two or three different ‘backdrops’ for…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…) and the Gwara (calabash or tambourin with Samba drumming, in this case a tortoise sized shell that they hit with a brush of wire). In addition, one of the groups featured the Uvure, a wonderful horn. The Uvure in action… Omee Odokomit Our first group was Omee Odokomit, who played Apiri style. The group is led by Evelyn Ojok and was formed in 1981, disbanded for the war and reformed in 1999. The leader summons the band to practice by playing drum…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…lot of time getting mobile phone cards!) and headed out on a 360 km drive to the town of Gulu in Northern Uganda. Within minutes we were deeply immersed in the ‘classic’ East African road scene: big tall white bags of coal, with grass helmets, bricks in various stages of manufacturer (either drying or firing), pyramids of potatoes, tomatoes on patches of blankets under trees, tiny goats tethered near the road side to pick at a fresh patch of gras…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
To help us gain as much insight into the role of music in the areas we visit, we want to know as much as possible about the tribal and musical structure of East Africa. Over the last few months The Abubilla Music Foundation worked with Tati Kalveks and Rosie Balfour-Lynn to do this research. It was directed using WorldMap, an interesting way of visually displaying data. Here is a shot of the map below, the highlighted regions are the areas in whi…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…bags were gratefully recovered and we took a taxi for an 8 minute journey to the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe, where we were greeted by our old friends, Jan Willem Van De Kamp (the owner of this hotel and the Travelers Rest in Kisoro), Charles and Simba (the Rottweiler who feast on Kisoro locusts during our locust attack). They ran a lovely hotel and greeted us warmly with Nile Specials! We handed off a pile of Batwa DVD’s for them to take back to…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…ere originally from the Nile River Valley and migrated down the River Nile to the Lake Victoria region after the Nubian peoples. In Egypt (particularly around the valley) you can find many instruments that date back over 5000 years, many, like the nyatiti, are also found in Egyptian hieroglyphs (right). The Luo people are related to the Acholi people of Uganda, a tribe we will come across in our next field visit. They play a similar instrument cal…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…(The Tribal Structure of Uganda) Lira: We will then visit Lira and listen to the music of the Langi tribe. Go here to learn more about The Langi. Unfortunately Steve and Patrick were told that the music in Lira is in decline and finding groups might be difficult. Part of our quest is to encourage the playing and sharing of local music. Luciky we have managed to arrange to see the Lango Cultural Group and the Deno Cultural Group whilst on a visit….
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…(we run a very tight shop, thanks to Steve’s leadership), we welcome Ben into the studio to record. The Otacho Young Stars stayed the morning as well. We had a full crew to support Ben – Johnnie and Bishop on guitar, Nina and Winyo on vocals. Watch this space. We also continued our work to capture new artists for Missing – Global Remix, our 2012 fund raising song. We had Prasad Velankar, a wonderful Indian percussionist join us to put on new percu…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…cians we were discovering were often so good, we needed to bring them back to the Nairobi studio. That led to 10 Batwa musicians and 5 Batwa babies travelling from Kisoro to Kampala to Nairobi and recording some great songs over the course of four days. We now want to repeat this for every field visit and decided to invite the Otacho Young Stars, the great find of our field visit to record the Luo, and Ben Kisinja, the great Kalenjin musician we r…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…two hotels (Eldoret Club and Pine Tree) from 8am to about 9.30am. The tyre had a damaged tube that just wore out. We reassembled and headed off for a spectacular trip from an altitude of 2,800m down to 1,114m at one of the floors of the Great Rift Valley. The roads were more winding and steeper than on our trip to Rwanda last November but there was no rain and there were guard rails on the roadside which made it all feel safer….
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…. In addition, over 300 foreigners train here, mostly from Europe. We went to the main training centre and interviewed a project manager about why so many people travel all this way to train on the red dirt roads around Iten. She answered: “First, the altitude (roughly 2300 meters) is perfect – right at the peak of natural altitude where you can still train hard, but so high that the lungs are pushed to the limit. Second, for such high altitudes,…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…the location picked by 50 Cows, the fixer, but we decided it was too close to the road and asked to be taken to a more secluded spot near a village or homestead. We got what we asked for and were rewarded with a 4 km drive straight up one of the hills through homestead after homestead until we arrived at the top of hill with 360 views. The little homestead had a lovely round house with thatched roof, a rectangular hour and a couple hen houses. Cow…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…lls in Kisumu, Lake Victoria) were amazing and more modern than most music today. The Clapperboard Today was the first day we used the ‘clapperboard’. First a little background to this…… Singing Wells has always been about the music so our initial focus was on audio recording. We invested in first class audio equipment and can record using 8 mics directly into Pro Tools. But during the March Pilot programme, we realised that the visual experience…