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…
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….
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…
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…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…ap and select Cancel – you want to create a new map rather than opening an existing one. This will give you the completely blank ArcMap screen. Before we do anything else, we’re going to save our map. Like all your other GIS files it needs to be saved on the C: drive. It’s also a good idea to put it in a folder of its own because it will start to collect lots of other bits that go with it and it’s always good to keep things tidy. I have entitled t…
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…
How To (Arc)Map News
…follow along (and that includes members of the Singing Wells team itself). Watch this space for future posts, and if you’re interested in ArcMap, you can find out more here. You can also check out their non-profit organisations’ scheme, which allows registered charities access to software for free. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FIRST POST…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…land’ to the Rwandan side, leaving the cars to come through separately. We check in with police and then go to Rwanda passport control to enter. This is now 7:20 or so and a big crowd is forming but luckily, as we were so early arriving,we got through okay. By about 7:40 we were done, but the cars were not yet allowed to pass, as the Uganda exit border had not yet opened for vehicles. By about 7:55 it opened and we climbed in our cars and were off…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…bloom, so we faced a beautiful patchwork of terracotta and green. These are the predominate colours of this trip. The dance site itself was no less beautiful: We then set up the ‘studio’ ready to record the Birara Dancers: The key sound engineers do a final check before we begin: Steve, Andy and Jesse do a final sound check before we begin. https://youtu.be/l-1IG790EOs https://youtu.be/u38YYaTQMIY https://youtu.be/uNeC4Dw4bu0 https://youtu.be/9F…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…r equipment (we really wanted to return with it all!). We then took Kenyan Airlines (new plane with movies!) to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, population roughly a million. We were met by our drivers Arun and John and drove through heavy rains to the Rwanda-Uganda border crossing near Kisoro. After a rather lengthy crossing, we then drove on to our final desitination – the Traveller’s Rest in Kisoro. Five quick things: Rwanda: Beautiful country kn…
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…ist (we recorded him on a Singing Wells visit to Nyanza). Paul told him to check out Ketebul. He applied for an internship and in May 2011 was hired. He loves the professionalism, equipment and teamwork of Ketebul and its mission. In the words of CNN, he says, “I like that we ‘go beyond borders’ to discover real music.” Nick’s favourite Singing Wells moment was the welcome we received at the home of Ogoyo Nengo in Rang’ala, Nyanza province. “She i…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…ravel with us arrived just as we were about to leave. I quickly helped him check in and off we were to Watamu where we were picking our fixer for the project called Deche. We had sent him on the ground earlier so as to identify the groups we were going to record. After meeting up with Deche we stopped again to pick up Bado the son to Mzee Nyerere wa Konde, singer and group leader of Mwanzele Nyere wa Konde Music Club. It was nice to see Bado we ha…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…t music performers to welcome them and also accord them the opportunity to check if their hi-tech equipment would work well south of the Equator. Blow by blow accounts of the field recordings starting Tuesday March 29 to Thursday March 31 are available elsewhere at this site, so I will just fling you here and there instead (see graphic below). For the material-gathering first step on the Singing Wells Project, which shall eventually cover the whol…