Central Uganda: Day 5 – Jinja to Kampala Story
…that she should never play in the rain. Amagombe: This is a song about the death of the leader’s father. He wrote it after his father’s death. 95% of the song is about what his father told him before he died. Ebibira: This song talks about the dangers of deforestation. The forest is where the spirits of the fore fathers can rest. If you destroy the forests, you destroy their homes so they will be loitering around and the living won’t have any peac…
Central Uganda: Day 4 – Jinja Story
…s moments, only some of which had to do with the music. The group then divided roughly along age lines on the fundamental issue of fish vs. sleep. Tabu, Jimmy, Andy and Vicki voted sleep and we had food delivered to our cottages, ate and went to bed early. Steve, Patrick, Jacinta, Nick and Robert voted fish and went off the local casino for ‘the best fish in Uganda.’ Tabu was smartest of all, of course, and convinced the kitchen to cook fish in th…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…tually visited his brother in law who was jealous of him as a chief. So he decided to poison him. Sinairi Mukhana: The person who killed Paul was a Wanyera. He had killed a chief because he was jealous of him. During the burial he pretended to be sad, but the family members of Paul recognized what was going on and organized to murder him. It’s a song about retaliation. Tabu said of Mazune, “I think he is amazing. He has one of those older traditio…
Central Uganda: Day 2 – Kampala to Budaka Story
…different poses which made drumming and keeping the beat progressively harder – it ended with him on his back, feet over his face, still drumming. Lwaki Ndamba: This song is roughly translated to “Why do I have to suffer?” A woman can’t have a baby so husband beats her and sends her to witch doctor who ensures she gets pregnant. She then returns to husband, who has been off drinking, and reunites. The performance was wonderful and, as was quickly…
Central Uganda: Day 1 – From Entebbe to Kidinda Story
…lightly worse than ‘cut ears.’ Nandi Kulamudde: This is the story of the older, dead king, talking to the new king. He offers to help the new king but complains that first someone will need to wake him up. The Amadinda percussion reminded us a lot of the Likembe bands of Northern Uganda— very soothing and seductive rhythms. For the last two songs they were joined by Passy Nassonko the lead female singer of the Kika Boys Cultural Troupe (our second…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
…s Kirarire and Authi. The lead singer wears Murungi, an ornament on both sides of the arms which is worn by the initiator/circumciser; it signifies a man of respect and authority. This one made it onto the top five because of the incredible clothing and dance moves. 4. Kumbuka Asee – Itinga These guys are some of my favourites. Again, great moves, great outfits and great rhythm. The group is led by Margaret Mbia and plays in the musical style of K…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…e queries on a very regular basis from individuals and institutions worldwide. Orders for copies of recordings are also quite frequent’, demonstrating how their IUCAT system – which lets researchers know about their holdings – is having a positive impact on access. However, it is of course restricted by certain stipulations put on these recordings; for older field recordings, whose artists may not have discussed the availability of their material,…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…and, at this time, only had the recordings that Hugh Tracey had made a few decades before, which were from all over Africa. When asked about the importance of recording traditional African music, he states ‘It was crucial to me to be able to direct the attention of young Ugandans to their own musical traditions: so often at weekends my wife and I drove off with students from different parts of the country to sample the music of their own local vil…
Report from Womex 2013 News
…– via the British Underground and our membership with the Association of Independent Music. Horizons joined up members from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. We were pleased to be sited next to New Zealand across the way and next door were South Africa! Podcast Andy recorded a few snippets of audio for an upcoming podcast – which will feature on the site soon. The Team A big thanks to Mike and Louise who were marvellous evangelists for the p…
The New Singing Wells website News
…e our recordings of East African Traditional Music. Here are some of the added features of the new site: Stories Most of what we do is story-telling, in the music that we record, the pictures we take, the people that we meet and the journeys that we make – so we have split our stories into easy to read and find sections. Find them via the menu bar. Podcasts Our podcasts are now displayed with the full track lineup and listen, watch and group links…
Group of the Month – Watmon Cultural Group News
…rica. Our first group of the month is the Watmon Cultural Group. We have videos from our Uganda 2012 trip, as well as recordings made in both Naguru and at the Entebbe Airport Guesthouse, where due to the generosity and patience of the manager Jan Willem and the other guests, we set up a recording studio in the garden. You can join us on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/singingwells and on Twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/singingwells –…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…chens closed. Given that we forgo lunch as a rule we find ourselves highly dependent upon night time eating. Just over the sounds of speeding trucks and crashing bikes on the shoulders, you can begin to hear the faint rumblings of our tummies. Two lane nice road ended. Terror returns. Rumbling tummies and thoughts of food recede as desire to live takes over. Our driver has reported we have crossed the Nile. Let us try to explain what that felt lik…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…uces the setup and breakdown time and maximizes the time for recording. We decide on two or three different ‘backdrops’ for the performances and park vehicles in the centre so that we can easily rotate the setup while leaving the back end of the audio equipment setup in place. We have two mobile recording units, each capable of recording from four microphones plus other sources at a high resolution to Apple MacBook Pro laptops. The benefit of the…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…hen brought on Oriang’ Kinene who sang Dano Lworo Donce Lobe. Here’s the video for Dano Lworo: …and the video for Donce Lobe: Finally, Andy started our video on ‘We Are All One’ which will be our 2013 Fund Raising song. By this time, as mentioned earlier, we had about 350 or so people around us, so we filmed Andy entering and exiting this rather large ‘Set’ and performing the chorus. Akello and Andy then led the 350 singers through ‘We Are All One…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…n their faces also represents the soil as with the Sagat. Their songs included: ‘Sinendet’ : this is the name for the grass they wear around their necks. This is used to bless all ceremonies. The song is used as an entrance song. ‘Seen’ : this is the name for a traditional cup in which is put a special honey drink called Kipketin. ‘Cheruto’: this is a lady who is married elsewhere and was given cows as a dowry. She refused the cows which is highly…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…el) as your Result Type and number range as your Data Type. When we downloaded the country outline of the UK, we downloaded three shapefiles of different administrative levels, called 0, 1 and 2. Administrative level 0 is the outline of the whole of the UK. Administrative level 1 is the outline of the countries within the UK – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Administrative level 2 is the outline of the counties of those four countri…