ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…oard continue to be wonderful ambassadors of Singing Wells, introducing us to interesting and interested people who we can talk to about the project. Earlier this month I was their guest at the World Travel Market at Excel and I met representatives from a number of organisations and companies in the travel and tourism industry operating in the East African counties we are visiting during our field recording trips. I met Nigel Vere Nicoll, Chief Ex…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…team. Andy’s notes are also published in our new book ‘Singing Wells – The Story So Far’, newly available in hardback. Click here for more details. A typical field recording day A Singing Wells day in the field usually starts with an early breakfast after which the team assembles at the vehicles with the mobile recording equipment. Typically the team is ten people – a mix of technicians from both Nairobi based Ketebul Music and London based Ab…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…on that I spent some time working with the GIS department at Harvard in Boston specifically learning how to use the mapping software, and I also attended GIS classes given at Harvard. I then brought the idea to Singing Wells when I began work in the summer of 2012. The Virtue Foundation – Ghana – Yellow Fever Immunisation Why do you think it is the best way to display data? When displaying data it’s no secret that people often understand it bette…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ney, mobile phone cards and other sundries and headed out. The William car stopped to pick up Akello, a lovely Ugandan singer/songwriter, who is joining the group as our Influences artist. The Emmanuel car headed into Kampala to pick up our press badges. We then headed off to Gulu at around 2PM (yes, we tend to spend a lot of time getting mobile phone cards!) and headed out on a 360 km drive to the town of Gulu in Northern Uganda. Within minutes w…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…imilar concerns. Some of us had travelled through East Africa and we were astounded by the quality of the tribal music, but equally surprised to find how hard it was to access the music back in Britain. As the founder of Abubilla Music, I set out to find partners in East Africa who were committed to preserving the music. Through a series of e-mails that travelled the world, Tabu and I were brought together by Joyce Nyairo, then of the Ford Foundat…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…Patterson while he was here and together they conducted a number of interviews with Kenyan musicians who are now based in the UK. They also had the chance to visit Kenya House in Stratford as a guest of our friends at the Kenya Tourist Board. Here’s Bill’s article published in Business Daily Africa: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Where+the+world+got+real+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/djb5mf/-/index.html Photos from Kenya Hou…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…data and shapefile as a new shapefile. Display the data. Prepare the data To demonstrate I’ll be using some nonsense data about the number of unicorns in each county of Britain, but if you’ve been following along using a different country and your own data then carry on with that. If you want to make your own nonsense data then this site will generate you some random data. Select CSV (basically Excel) as your Result Type and number range as your…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…mailed many times. It’s good to meet at last. The flight to Kigali makes a stop-over in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi. I suddenly realize that by the end of the day I will have been in four different countries – Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. I am already struggling to believe that I am in East Africa when 24 hours ago I was in South West London and this makes me want to pinch myself even harder to make me realize it’s actually me here, do…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…ve. 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 this map HTM1 (How To Map 1) and have saved it in a folder called How To Map 1, so the address where it is saved is C:\How To Map\How to Map 1. To get our country outline into ArcMap we need to Add Data. To do this either click File > Add Data > Add Data or select t…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…laughtered in about four weeks while the UN, the Belgian and French forces stood by. They had been warned on the specifics but did nothing. This wasn’t gas chamber horror – this was one child at a time, one machete at a time horror. Blood was all over everyone’s hands. The genocide was primarily the Hutu’s against the Tutsi’s, but really all that is a nonsense. While the tribal names had been around for centuries, the modern ‘brand’ of Tutsi and H…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…for our trip to Kisoro. We have lots of music, lots of video and lots more stories to tell. But we want to keep disciplined and report daily, so forgive us if we can’t give you everything at once. Over the coming weeks, these blogs will be filled with the music and videos and far more background on the project and the Batwa. For now leave for Nairobi again and then, on Sunday, travel to Western Kenya for the next series of villages and more music….
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…e performance and a secondary crew focused on Selling Wells, archiving the stories of the music and the artists. TO: The pilot was a success and proved we were right – take the studio to the talent not the other way around. This trip also confirmed that this mission is critical. As Steve said, the music was beautiful and the artists fantastic. But they were also older and no one from this generation was actively participating. There’s a complete d…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…Samburu, Turkana, Gabbra, Dassanech and Borana present their respective customs and living conditions, spectacular traditional costumes, arts and crafts, dances and music to each other and to visitors. Combined with the stunning geographical characteristics and the very limited general knowledge on the Lake Turkana region, the presentation of the cultural traditions makes the Festival a unique and fascinating experience for everyone involved.’ St…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…The Chairman and owner of GPS 4 and half hours and 322 km later, we made a stop in Voi town for lunch. Everyone had some food apart from Tabu. I have known Tabu since 2005, and I can count the number of times I have seen him having a meal on 1 hand! After refueling car number 02 (it must have been guzzling the fuel because of the AC), we set off for the second leg of our journey, Voi to Mombasa. Salif Keita’s ‘M’bemba’ CD and Winyo’s in production…