Day 9 (AM): Ketebul Studio – Influences session for Cheri Story
…op and Johnnie to get the basic song structure down and put on a vocal ‘Chorus.’ Stanley wants the song to be a classic love song and the his vocals are really beautiful and sincere. We then asked Nyerere Wa Konde to come in and work on the verses. We asked them to find their best love song that fits the beat and recorded them. Their musicality is amazing and the lead was able to introduce a whole new melody over Stanley’s song and deliver it as B…
Meet our ‘Influences’ artists News
The Influences series from Singing Wells involves contemporary East African musicians collaborating with the groups and artists we discover during our field recording visits. The result is a unique fusion of contemporary and traditional themes. Here we introduce the artists who have created Influences songs for Singing Wells…… Winyo Shiphton Onyango adopted his artistic name ‘Winyo’, which is a Luo word (a tribe from the Lake Victoria region of W…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…y in the villages, some audience believes the song is pointing at them, accusing them… Kirori: This is the band leader’s song and is a song in three verses about a girl he met in early days. In verse one, he tries to flatter her but she dismisses him as a little man of no consequence. In verse 2, they meet years later and our hero has a little money. He’s able to buy the young woman some perfume and she essentially says, ‘I’m yours.’ In the third…
Akello sings ‘Influences’ songs for Singing Wells News
…y invaluable acting as a translator when we visited the Acholi communities in the area, but also performed some of her songs for the Influences series, accompanied by the local music groups. ‘Wan Wilobo’ performed with the Rubanga Kingom Awach Boys With just a few minutes to practice, Akello performed this song backed by the Rubanga Kingom Awach Boys playing the ‘likembe’ – a thumb piano. ‘Awinyo’ performed with the Adungu Cultural Troupe …
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…place during the launch of water project by Bwindi Mgahinga Conservation Trust where the Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda was the Chief Guest of Honour. In addition, this group has managed to set aside Saturdays of every week to meet and make practices on their cultural music and dance in order to meet its target “staging music shows” as the future plans of the group. GATERA Group Gatera men and women group takes the highest position in…
Hannah interviews Evelyn Ojok – Acet, Northern Uganda News
…as this community has served as a valued resource for the women involved. In the conversation we had below she tells their story.. Tell me about your group: Ume Udoko Mit started to sing together before the war, but we had to stop during the war because most of us were moved to IDP camps where we had little time to rehearse together and the conditions were too bad. Now we sing and dance together all the time, we are only women (our style of ‘…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…u must dig in the field before you can eat. The lyric in swahili in the chorus: “tula kula kua jembe” means ” through our work in the field we can eat”. It is based on the traditional ideology that hard work should always come first. After hearing this set we asked them to do a Magic Moment and then join Akello for Influences to sing ‘Awinyo’, which sounded magical. Our second group was Watmon Cultural Troupe, which was a large dance act of men an…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…ostly because we are driving on the road in pitch black to Kampala and are using this blog to distract ourselves from the terrors occurring outside!). Behind the scenes, Singing Wells is all about finding the right 3 or 4 repeatable models that will drive our success. If we can get into the right routines, we can learn more and more from each trip and get better and better. For the March Pilot in 2011, simply getting audio equipment to work in the…
How music archives can help communities News
…a good time to reflect on the importance and relevance a project such as Singing Wells. Why should we record and archive traditional music? Our objectives are not about archiving music for the sake of it. We do not see ourselves as ‘fossil collectors’, merely recording the music and dance performances of traditional groups and then archiving it in sound libraries where it might become largely inaccessible to most audiences, including the…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…’, an education song in English telling people to value and work the land, using it to solve their poverty. https://youtu.be/jvL-_gQ8BHA The fourth song was Yesu Alisema, essentially, ‘Jesus said’, which is another gospel song. https://youtu.be/h3PLpGb59A0 Their final song was Uganda, Land of Freedom, which was the song that saved the village multiple times. https://youtu.be/VRBYf6d8dp4 We loved the song so much we had them perform a ‘Magic Moment…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…t of blankets with eggs, but sometimes sunglasses, nails, electic sockets, rusty tools, clay pots, cutting boards or meal grinding tools, etc… Behind the blankets are stacks of wood, bed frames, gates and other big objects, including massive pipes. Dogs, goats and pigs are everywhere rooting in the piles of garbage left over from yesterday’s market. God help you if yesterday was cabbage day (very pungent).. And then there’s the mud. We love Uganda…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – night recording at Fort Murchison Story
…– our friend was a musician in a band, not some studio session guy ‘mailing in his over-dub.’ Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. https://youtu.be/IktMw1iNcq4 https://youtu.be/Hk5DlFHa8Lg And with that, brushed the bugs from our hair and clothes, pulled some beetles from the camera bags and had dinner. Tomorrow is a driving day as we head to our next location… Jimmy (Fort Murchison, near Pakwach)…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…lfour and the Kenya Tourist Board continue to be wonderful ambassadors of Singing Wells, introducing us to interesting and interested people who we can talk to about the project. Earlier this month I was their guest at the World Travel Market at Excel and I met representatives from a number of organisations and companies in the travel and tourism industry operating in the East African counties we are visiting during our field recording trips. I me…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…rea. Their leader is Cwinyaai Atya, Richard. Their first song was Tambara, in the Osegu style. It is all about a stubborn girl who doesn’t want to marry early. Here they are, dancing in glory: The second song was magnificent, called Oramba, the name of a hunter, in the style ‘Aliku’. This style is traditionally performed around the fire, as a celebration of the hunter’s coming back from a successful kill. The whole story is about the village not s…
Reporting back on recording trip to Kisoro, SW Uganda News
The Singing Wells project in Kisoro was a great success. Over three days in Kisoro, we recorded the songs and dance of six Batwa communities and in doing so learned a great deal about their history and their lifestyle in 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 ‘I…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…who will also pound the tub for the kick drum and then use a little metal brush as a tom. There are then lots of men with big sticks with metal on them which sound like a snare. All the men sing back up and become a beautiful chorus. 20 folks playing Likembe give you the soft rhythms of Calypso, but as Tabu pointed out, it is more accurate to say Calypso sounds like the soft rhythms of a good Likembe band. Here’s a quick sound clip of the band… He…