Central Uganda: Day 4 – Jinja Story
No journey today. The groups will come to us. The Recording Site Our hotel is lovely. From the rooms we can see the Nile. We are surrounded by high green plants and flowers and the sounds of birds and the occasional monkey. The staff has been warm and helpful and offered the hotel today as our recording studio. We have been able to set up the computers in the kitchen of one of our cottage rooms and have the groups either perform on our dining pat…
Before They Pass Away News
…portant than ever to understand, respect and celebrate the world’s indigenous cultures and remaining tribes, before it’s too late. To find out more information about Jimmy’s work visit http://www.beforethey.com/. Do you know of a music group that Singing Wells should be working with? Tweet us or Facebook us with your ideas. Photos: by Jimmy Nelson…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…is someone’s name, meaning Paul, son of Wawanyera. Paul was a chief. He visited certain places and found they had made him party with lots of food and drink. He actually 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 reco…
Central Uganda: Day 2 – Kampala to Budaka Story
…unty, to a small village near the Budaka Progressive School. The Recording Site: Given our early departure we arrived before our groups were ready to perform so we had plenty of time to set up, interview the group leaders, the school head master, etc… The site was on two levels. Our ‘stage’ was on the lower level, with two small brick single story homes and a little kitchen cleaning area. On the second level to the right of the houses was a hill,…
Central Uganda: Day 1 – From Entebbe to Kidinda Story
…g with “Influences” sessions on our last day. The Journey to the Recording Site In three cars, we drove from Entebbe towards Kampala and then took the road southwest toward Masaka. We turned north at Kammengo onto the Mbarra Road to Kindinda – the trip was about 110 kilometers. From Kindinda, we turned right at a trading center and went another 10 kilometers into the fields, to a small village called Kidinda. The Recording Site: The village had on…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
…d I’ve spent the last few weeks listening to pretty much every song on the site, getting to know the amazing traditional music of East Africa! It was tough to pick, but for my first blog post I thought I’d share my top 5 songs so far. 1. Otacho Young Stars – Amilo Love The Singing Wells team first encountered the Otacho Young Stars group on a trip to record the music of the Luo in Western Kenya in December 2011. They were later invited to Ketebul…
Singing Wells is on Bozza! News
…heir fans throughout Africa. The platform is available to emerging and established artists from around the continent and can be easily accessed by visiting www.bozza.mobi from mobile phones and PCs.” Thabiso Mohare, Head of Brand & Marketing…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…are the collections with the most relevant collections to East Africa. The site also provides little case studies of people who have used the British Library Sound archive for research, one of which is by a PhD student looking at traditional Ugandan music, who used to Klaus Wachsmann archive to further his research. The British Library has approximately 3.5million sound recordings in total available to listen to onsite, with a Reader Pass. However…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…=article&id=1279:wachsmann-klaus&catid=93&Itemid=226 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Wachsmann S. Nannyonga-Tamusuza, T. Solomon, 2012. ‘Ethnomusicology in East Africa: Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond’. Kampala: Fountain Publishers David Fanshawe http://www.africansanctus.com/index.htm http://www.fanshawe.com/index.html Mary K. Oyer http://www.goshen.edu/music/department-home/oyer-archive/ Peter Cooke http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/petercooke/b…
Report from Womex 2013 News
…p 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 project over the course of the 4 days. Here is a picture of us all at our stand: And Finally… We were intrig…
The New Singing Wells website News
…you can easily find the information you’re looking for. And finally… Please get in touch with us via Twitter or Facebook and let us know what you think of the new site! Our thanks go to Wes Burden and the team at Nebulo Strata who worked tirelessly on the site. …
Group of the Month – Watmon Cultural Group News
…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 – 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 c…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…groups and groups to sites and sites to days. We average about 20 songs a site and just over 1.5 sites per day. Just getting the right spelling on to a clapper board of a song and getting that recorded elsewhere against a take list takes time to master. Third, we then need to very quickly produce 3 camera videos. So during our car rides, we’re linking a group and song to the ‘bounce’ (final audio) and the three videos used in that take. Time sign…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…osity of the performance. We then move to our second ‘set’ or angle on the site. Locations are chosen aesthetically, based on what is available. Other considerations include any useful shelter (it can rain suddenly and heavily) along with the direction of the sun and any sources of noise. Once we have set up for the next group, we begin again by doing a sound check to set the mic gains and the record levels. We then name our audio files so that th…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…e landed in a field, pock marked with cement block buildings. Not the best site. But in the middle of the field was the most stunning tree that cast a hundred diameter shadow. We set up under its branches. As we did, from all directions, came a team of children and a team of performers – 6 groups with 20 members in each – and another 100 children. By the end, these two teams were joined by another group of 100 adults from the surrounding village….
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…ti Wachsmann, K. Trowell, M. (1953). Tribal Crafts of Uganda. 1st. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ‘Traditional Instruments’ of the Uganda People’ (2012), Face Music, Available: http://www.face-music.ch/ ‘EgpytSearch Forums’, Wysinger, M. (2008), REAL Ancient Egyptian Music and Dance , Available: http://www.egyptsearch.com …