The Boy with the Headphones Story
…hen we travelled to the Mperwa Batwa community. Consisting of just a small number of families, the Mperwa have settled on a small area of borrowed land just a few kilometres from the town. At first glance the setting appeared to be spectacular, with the lush valley and terraced hills of local farms as a backdrop and the magnificent Virunga volcanos in the distance. But we were quickly struck by the impoverishment of this small community. As we a…
73,603 views on YouTube News
…ls YouTube channel……73,603 views and still counting! It’s not a meaningful number in itself (like a nice round 100,000 – our next target) but it does mean more and more people are finding us and enjoying what we are all about – bringing the more traditional sounds of East Africa to an enthusiastic audience. Thanks for watching! Our top 3 video hits In third place, this is the Nyerere Wa Konde Music Club from Sita Village, Gede in Kenya’s Malindi…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…s for the whole group to perform, singing and dancing in front of ten microphones and three digital cameras.’ Video engineer, Patrick Ondiek, adds, ‘I love producing the final videos and getting phone calls from my friends asking me ‘how did you find these musicians?’ I feel like I’m on the cutting edge of music, bringing these talented musicians to my Nairobi friends.’ In addition to our field visits, we have developed an online Music Map of East…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…anted to make sure we recorded their shakers, the Kayamba (hand shaken idiophones with dried seeds inside), the Lungo (broken glass moved in a big bowl) and Ndema (2 brass rings played in ringing and muted tones). In the Rift Valley, where the people are more pastoral, we really focused on their voices and I wanted some one to play the burkandit (a handmade guitar). In Nyanza, we focused on the Orutu, the Nyatiti and the Ohangla (drums). In Kisoro…
Winyo performs with Batwa musicians for ‘Influences’ News
…airobi. For more about this story click here. …
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…ocal stores on big speakers). We listened to a few different tracks on his phone, and I narrowed my favourite Ugandan pop tracks down to ‘Apple’ by Bigtym and ‘Guns & Bomb’ by Bebecool.. Odika Constantine, son of Watmon, is in his 30s. He was abducted by the LRA from his home in Kitgum District when he was just 17. He was held as a soldier in the bush for 6 months until he managed to escape. He described the day it happened: the rebels arrived to…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…e carved into a hill, with rows and rows of streets below us, and an equal number of streets and houses piled up above us. There were cars, motorbikes and taxi’s driving past and planes flying overhead. Everything was for sale by everyone who walked by. No sleeping cattle. No flower beds. But, as always, there was wonderful music. The first group was the Adungu Cultural Troupe, masters of the Adungu. We had interviewed their leader on our ‘recce’…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…with his father’s group and then he founded this group in 2007. They use a number of styles, most notably Sengenya, which we covered fully in our March 2011 field recordings in Malindi. We interviewed Swalhe Mwatela Massai and his grandson, Ali Tungwa : Q to the grandfather: In contrast to Uganda, we have seen many villages in Kenya where the traditional music is only played by the older generation. And yet your group is so young and vibrant. Ho…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…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 Executive of the African Travel & Tourism Association and explained a little about Singing Wells and our aims to record and celebrate the cultural music heritage of East Africa. It se…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ately we all made it to super-market where we loaded up with money, 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…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…with us: 2 Apple 17″ MacBook Pro 2 MOTU Traveler MK3 Audio Interface 4 Headphone amps 8 Sony MDR-V600 headphones 2 Shure mics & stands 2 Rode Lavalier omni-directional mics 2 Rode NTG-1 condenser Shotgun mics 1 Matched Pair of AKG C414 XL Microphones 1 Matched Pair of Rode NT5 Microphones2 Rode professional boom pole 1 K&M telescopic mic stand/boom 1 Canon EOS 7D 1 Canon EOS 60D 1 Canon EOS 5D 1 LED video camera lights 1 Flip HD video camera Think…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…frica, meaning that within the huge range of instruments there were also a number of different names for them. This became very interesting to discover however, and over time that information could gather on the map, making it more comprehensive. What did you find most interesting about the data you collected? What stood out for me was the huge range of instruments used, and the huge range of percussion instruments available, which you don’t reall…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…s for the whole group to perform, singing and dancing in front of ten microphones and three digital cameras.’ Video engineer, Patrick Ondiek, adds, ‘I love producing the final videos and getting phone calls from my friends asking me ‘how did you find these musicians?’ I feel like I’m on the cutting edge of music, bringing these talented musicians to my Nairobi friends.’ We have developed a three year plan to record a wide selection of important…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…nd treat them as third class citizens. Local farmers exploit the Batwa for cheap labour, using them as porters to carry things for example. And the men often exploit the girls sexually. If there is a pregnancy the girl may be excluded from both communities. She might move to the town but she has nothing. It often ends in prostitution for her. Me: What does the future hold for the Batwa? Henry: At UOBDU we are working with other NGOs to establish p…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…med up with Andy 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 Phot…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…mn must not exceed 14 characters. The shorter the better. E.g. instead of ‘Number of Unicorns’, have ‘unic_no’. None of the cells of your Excel file can contain more than 256 characters. Make sure there are no hidden characters such as spaces or backspaces in any of the data cells. Anything upon which a join will be based, e.g. counties in this example, must be spelled exactly the same in ArcMap and in your Excel file. If your data follows all of…