Kenya’s Amazing Musical Instruments News
…. When well-played, it takes on the role of the “fiddle” found in Irish or American country music. The Orutu is a one-string instrument played with a bow, whose notes are created by finger pressure against the central stick, producing the effect of ‘fretting’ notes. Watch here as the Aloka Ohangla Group plays “Nyar Karapul” (the Orutu is on the far left): Nyangile The Nyangile is a Luo instrument whose name literally means “box.” To play it, a mus…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…tional African song, Malaika. American Farewell: After this they performed American Farewell (originally called “Wimoweh” and popularised as “A lion sleeps tonight”). Altawale. This was a great combination of heavy brass, traditional drums, marching band drums and a good old fashioned American Marching Band Twirler, straight from Music Man. Here’s their music: We loved what Julius had created. First and foremost he was giving these kids stability…
Happy new year from Singing Wells News
…palace down. Here’s is Musisi’s incredible story. 3. We checked in on the preservation of the Bigwala trumpets The Bigwala is a trumpet-style instrument made from gourds. Singing Wells has been supporting the work of James Isabirye to preserve this fantastic traditional instrument, so in 2015 we went back to Uganda to check on the progress of the project. 4. We learned about the art of drum making During our 2015 trip to Uganda, we had the privile…
Sponsor a Singing Wells recording session News
…story of Uganda’s Royal Instruments, identifying key talent and inviting them back to Nairobi for recording sessions at our partner Ketebul’s studios, and travelling into eastern Uganda to record several tribal groups in the region. Check out our previous work in Uganda. Now we’re looking for sponsors to help fund our important work discovering, preserving and promoting this traditional music. Find out more about donating to Singing Wells and spo…
ILAM, Repatriation and Jimmie Rodgers/Chemirocha News
…immie Rodgers music was inspired by and build upon the influences of Black-American music, and it is only fitting that his work filtered back to Kenya. We find this circular tale in all music we are recording – most notably the massive influence of gospel on East African music, which, in turn was created in large part by Black-American music, directly inspired by early African village music. We listen to the likembe music in Uganda and here the st…
James Isabirye and Tabu Osusa Discuss East African Music News
…sounds vulgar – some Kampala teen-ager singing F this and F that in a bad American accent. Why is this good? Why is it unique? Why is it art? What they should do is learn about their culture, their identity – it is so rich, so wonderful, so new and exciting for others. If I’m an American or English person, when I hear a Ugandan I would want to hear something new from their culture – why do I want to hear t hem cursing about the police in Los Ange…
SWP Uganda 2013 – our proposed itinerary News
…ory of how music by Nile Beat and the Muwewesi Xylophone Group was used by American banjo player Bela Flack, whose album ‘Throw Down Your Heart: Tales from the Acoustic Planet’ won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album. Day 7 & 8: Music of the Baganda and ‘Influences’ After five days travelling in the field we will head back to the city for our final two days of recording which will focus on the music of the Baganda and also the…
Group of the Month – Watmon Cultural Group News
…s – if you do tweet any links, please use the hashtags – #gotm and #singingwells We’ll update this page with any new items we add to the site over the course of the month. Check out the featured content links below to find the Watmon Cultural Group page from our Musical Map of East Africa….
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…ful record producers end up in a remote Kenyan village, teamed with me, an American businessman, and a sound engineer from Gateshead? The Singing Wells project is a result of a chance meeting between two music labels on two separate continents. Tabu Osusa founded Ketebul Music in 2007 with a goal to record and promote traditional East African music. Tabu laments the fact that the music heritage of the region is being eroded. He says, ‘For reasons…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…e lined up for Kenya airlines. We are our own queue and it took a while to check in our 23 bags and convince them to let us carry our 11 carry on bags… Once checked in we then waited in visa line. No issues. By this time the flight is calling for boarding… There’s another line at the gate to go through Kenya security. Big queue and one very angry mzungu who was fed up. We all had to take off our very dirty boots which was unpleasant. Final line up…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…often can you use that joke? It is 20:37 and we just passed a police road check. He asked how the road was. We explained it was very dark and very scary and too many things were happening on the shoulder and we didn’t like all the trucks coming at us in our lane and we wished the road stopped chewing up our tires and we felt like it was a long way to Kampala and… He rolled his eyes and waved us on… It is 21:01 and we just passed another police ch…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…irst track to check the microphone gains and record levels. The video team check their shots and talk about who will be covering which part of the footage. Then, once we are setup, we begin to record the performances. Takes are logged by the day, so the first take of the day becomes take number one. Note taking and logging is incredibly important as one recording trip can involved eight or more groups over a four-day period. Once we have finished…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…on Gang (Vicki, Hannah, Andy and Jimmy) all met at Terminal 5 at 0930AM to check in to BA flight 63 to Entebbe. After quick breakfast, we did last minute shopping for essential supplies (alcohol, sunglasses, papers) and then took the train to C57, where we boarded our flight and left pretty much on time. Jimmy sat next to Andrew who lives in Kampala and married to a Uganda woman with whom he’s had a one year old son. He was passionate about West A…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…ful record producers end up in a remote Kenyan village, teamed with me, an American businessman, and a sound engineer from Gateshead? The Singing Wells project is a result of a chance meeting between two music labels on two separate continents. Tabu Osusa founded Ketebul Music in 2007 with a goal to record and promote traditional East African music. Tabu laments the fact that the music heritage of the region is being eroded. He says, ‘For reasons…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…(that’s basically the data that makes the shapefile look how it does), and check the names of the counties. To do this open the map, which is saved at C:\How To Map\How to Map 1, or wherever you put it. Then right-click on GBR_adm2 and select Open Attribute Table. This will open a box with the attribute table in it, which should look like this. The column called NAME_2 contains the names of all of the counties. Unfortunately I have yet to figure o…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…of children, one of whom walks directly ahead of me, turning frequently to check I’m OK. Henry asks him his name. He’s called Nicholas. We tell him my daughter is called Nicola and he finds this hilarious. He asks my name and spends some time repeating it with his friend Dorothia, giggling when I try to correct his pronunciation. When we are near the bottom I can see Nicholas has been eyeing up my water bottle. It’s still half full and I offer it…