The Batwa Community Story
…their communities and help them reclaim their traditional way of life. The United Organisation for Bawta Development (UOBDU) was founded in 2000 to address land problems and develop sustainable livelihoods. UOBDU has identified four key areas of support: land & housing; education and adult literacy; income generation and forest access & benefit-sharing. By way of example, the Batwa Cultural Trail is a recent initiative launched by the Uganda Wildl…
The Key to Sustainable Aid in Africa? Perhaps we should follow the music. News
…that music was more important than helping a starving family or providing basic medicine to a child. Part Two: An Emerging Hypothesis: Music REALLY Matters and is the Soundtrack for Delivery of More Urgent Aid And on one level, of course, this remains true. As we consider any ‘triage’ of African problems, of course we want the next shilling, dollar, pound or Euro of support to help that child. Music can wait. But at another level, we’re no longer…
Fiona’s story Story
…Fiona has been able to attend junior school through the sponsorship of the United Organization for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU), an NGO based in Kisoro. She is a wonderful role model for the Batwa community and is proving that, with the right opportunity, Batwa children can achieve the same educational goals as any other child in the district. Everyone is hoping that Fiona will be able to continue being sponsored through her senior school y…
What people say about Singing Wells News
…f a friend, brought the Singing Wells project to my attention and I decided to reach out. We are producing a documentary film called The Last Hunger Season about 4 Kenyan farmers who are growing their own way out of poverty. The film (in advanced post-production) accompanies a book by award winning journalist Roger Thurow and is designed to amplify his ongoing world hunger activism. We are in need of great music that compliments the project and wo…
Day 9 (AM): Ketebul Studio – Influences session for Cheri Story
…ked today: Jaybee first worked with Stanley, Bishop 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 n…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…recorded the lead singer and group leader Nyerere wa Konde, backed by some basic percussion and Bishop and Johnnie on bass and guitar respectively. The singer and percussion were in the main studio and bass and guitar were in the control booth. Macadem was in the control booth and helped Johnnie and Bishop find the right rhythms. After these core tracks were done we then added the shaker (in this case broken glass shaken in a straw bowl) and backi…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…rted so we can recover quickly. Fourthly, we need to run our blogs and Facebook entries ‘live’ during our trips, when we get the most interest in Singing Wells. This requires the refilling of all photos to groups and villages so these can be used in different file sizes for ‘road posts’, formal trip reports and then latest versions of the Singing Wells book. And finally, we need to be able to archive EVERY THING. We feel it is very important that…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…oject to record the music of the Batwa in Kisoro, Uganda in December 2011. United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU) Narrative Report on the Promotion of Batwa Cultural Music Since April 2012, UOBDU started implementing a project responsible for promotion of Batwa cultural heritage, supporting the performance of music and drama to local audience and to allow UOBDU to monitor and update the performance of the groups visited by The…
How music archives can help communities News
…were recently found by Chris Kidd, a Ph.D. student who was working for the United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU). Chris took the recordings back to Uganda and re-introduced them to the Batwa people who had since become a poor, landless and disempowered community following their eviction from the forests due to the gorilla conservation project in the mountainous south west region of the country. In particular, Chris played a r…
Singing Wells – The Story So Far News
…ging Wells project and buy a copy! You can buy a copy of the Singing Wells book at the Blurb Bookstore – just click this link: Singing Wells – The Story So Far The profits we receive from the sale of each book go directly to our UK charity The Abubilla Music Foundation which supports the Singing Wells project. Your donation will help give much needed financial support to tribal music groups in East Africa. By supporting these artists, we can help…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…retty flowers and strange guinea fowl pottering about. The two groups were united around 10 with our two drivers William and Emanuel and set off for Kampala. As promised Kampala traffic was a nightmare. The William Team (Jimmy/Pato and Hannah) tried to take a short cut, but the road was closed and we ended up winding through some very poor areas around Kampala with a truck not designed for essentially footpaths. All the time, the high rises of Kam…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…from four microphones plus other sources at a high resolution to Apple MacBook Pro laptops. The benefit of the systems we have chosen is that they can run off the battery power of the laptops if we are in the situation where we do not have a generator (or there is a power cut mid-session which happened to us when we recorded to the Batwa at the Travellers Rest Hotel in Kisoro, Uganda!) We can also combine the two recording units into one to incre…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…ation to make the map a very useful source of information. By creating the basics, as we have, the broad tribal and musical structure of East Africa is there, now we can only add to it! There was also the difficulty of classification. There are hundreds of different language groups and dialects between tribes in East Africa, meaning that within the huge range of instruments there were also a number of different names for them. This became very int…
Day 7: In Nairobi – sponsors, blogs and strategy Story
…isits, including all our song translations. Kathy brought back a full work book of notes. We have realised the growing importance of our ‘field interviewer’ who now spends as much time with the groups before and after their recording sessions as we spend with them recording. We are investing increasing time in group histories, background on costumes and songs. We then said goodbye to Kathy that evening as she flew back to London. Jimmy and Hunter…
Acholi Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…i comprised the majority of manual laborers and military. This damaged the economy of northern Uganda, and, following the country’s independence in 1962, political and cultural turmoil lead to the formation of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a terrorist movement lead by Joseph Kony that ravaged Northern Uganda in the late 20th century and early 21st, and has since moved on. As a consequence, the Acoli are now emphasizing the importance of musical, d…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…ove of cattle to a new level. 50 Cows is a local journalist and student at United States International University (USIU). The Music Groups Ben Kisinja First up for recording was Ben Kisinja, a wonderful guitarist in the typical Kalenjin style. Tabu describes this style as very traditional and the way of singing is very unique to the Sabaot clan of the Kalenjin. The guitar is called a burkandit, and is a homemade guitar somewhat resembling the Nyat…