FAQ’s Page
…of our material. Maybe you could help with our fundraising efforts. Please get in touch and let us know how you would like to help. Will you come and record my band? We have a schedule and a plan for the next 3 or 4 field visits to East Africa, so any groups we record would have to be within designated areas where we plan to travel. We’d love to hear from anyone with new suggestions for field visits. Can I join you on your next recording trip? Ple…
Page
…ion several artists, producers, dancers, videographers and songwriters to show how this “traditional” music is still relevant into today’s modern world. Below you will find links to the musical loops we have selected that are available to download for the project, If you are interested in joining the Global Influences Project, you can download the project brief here or get in touch with us with any questions you may have. SUBMISSIONS FOR THIS PR…
Day Zero: 6 March 2022 – Travel To Stream Story
…ing off the main revenue-generating activities of many artists. However, a number of urban-based performers were able to migrate their shows and concerts onto online platforms, reaching their audiences at their homes via live streaming. In doing so, they created new income-generating platforms, as some of these online acts allow audiences to support the musicians via M-pesa and Pay-Pal contributions. Another possibility was to sell tickets with th…
Field Recording Report by Kahithe Kiiru Story
…I – leg rattles; EFIRIMBI – a metallic whistle; OLWIKA – antelope horn aerophone; LIKHANGO – another aerophone made out of a reed attached to a wild goat horn; MUTINDI – flat two-skin drum played using two wooden sticks. Their props included spears (lifumo), shields (esikhumba), fly whisks (mukia) and clubs (eskong’o). They were wearing hats and tops made out of leather, leaves and feathers, and most original skirts which were in fact recycled umb…
Global Influences Project: Loop Library Page
…ularly impressive, with ongeng’o rings used both by themselves, and also together with the Nyangile, a wooden box topped with two of the rings, one of which is held with the feet, and beaten with a stick. You can find out more about the band here. You can watch the full visual performance of this song on our Youtube channel by clicking here. Download the loop Nyatiti Group – 158BPM Another wonderful Nyatiti group led by Okumu Korengo who is consid…
Recording Resources Page
…de some amazing musical technicians, videographers and ethnomusicologists. However, it has taken us time to really work out the best processes for working effectively out in the field. With that in mind, we have created some resources for other groups to use for working in the field. Please feel free to use the below resources for your field trips in whatever region you are based, and please do reach out to us. We love to meet others who are passi…
2. Naizungwe Drums – progress report 1 Story
…would like to have enough drums for training a new generation of players. However, the basic number includes: 1 large Uganda drum (played with short heavy beaters) 3 smaller drums (played with long curved sticks) 1 medium drum (played with sticks) 1 long drum (ngalabi – hand-beaten) All together, 6 drums. Therefore, we are making four sets of naizungwe drums mainly to facilitate learning.” Below is a video documenting the progress of the drums th…
Day 2: Sunday, 2017 February 19th Story
…young girls to prepare for womanhood, be it how to behave in the village, how to behave as a wife, and how to be a mother. The women invited Sophie into one of the huts to watch their dance in private. In Uganda and Kenya we have a lot of recordings of rites of passage, mostly around male and female circumcision rituals – happily the songs survive but not the rituals in the places we visited! But we have far less on the theme of ‘women for women’…
Day 1: Saturday, 2017 February 18th Story
…yhem, until eventually the snake emerges. From then on, the dance is about how close the pair can get to being bitten or strangled by the snake without getting hurt. Occasionally the snake is set upon the audience but one of the dancers pulls it back by the tail just before it strikes. Breath-taking. This form of performance is new to us (but, of course not to Tanzanians) and we’ve not seen it in Kenya or Uganda. In fact, ‘clown’ acts are quite ce…
A Report by Professor James Isabirye – Indigenous music learning in contemporary contexts: Nurturing learner identity, agency, and passion News
…ut in to continue these traditions. He has also written a report analysing how indigenous learning can inform modern schooling, in which Singing Well’s gets a featured mention as collaborators within his project. You can read more about that here: https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/XGBCQ8EJIVZXHMMGUZ2V/full James Isabirye is a lecturer of music and music education in the Department of Performing Arts, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kyambogo…
Fundraiser for Matthew Watmon News
…followers may be able to help us. If you are based in East Africa, please get in touch with Matthew’s brother, Constantine Odida ((MTN) +256-782-236-742 and (Airtel) +256-704-261-037). If you are based elsewhere in the world, we have created a GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-mathew-watmon The donors of Abubilla Music Foundation, who support the Singing Wells project, will match these contributions up to £1000 so we greatly appre…
Our journey to the Royal Drums: in the words of James Isabirye Story
…e drummers. I thought I was in great shape, because I knew Sebuwufu, a xylophone player who knew all about the drums and agreed to help me. Together, we found out that Peter Cooke had recorded the drums and we listened to some of these recordings. But then, Sebuwufu passed away in August 2015 and I realised I had a big problem now. He might have been the last person who knew the drums. But I remembered that Sebuwufu had heard of someone named Musi…
Ketebul Music presents Shades of Benga Online News
…amining external influences from the English waltz to Afro Cuban Rumba and how they helped mould new music styles across Africa. Rumba was brought to Eastern Africa via the itinerant Congolese musicians Edouard Masengo and Jean Bosco Mwenda who’s intricate guitar-picking styles largely shaped the present Kenyan sound, with the Benga playing a dominant role. Currently, you can get advance copies from Ketebul Music Studios or place your order by con…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Days 5-11:An Interview with Gregg Story
…t this material and could provide royalties like producers and film makers that could really make this available. We need to think about rich Kenyans and how they can support the music of their village with our help. We need to think about corporates and get them off the popular big number kick they are on and get them to work on authentic things. You guys can get better and better at producing videos, but until we make this bigger and more sustai…
The History Of Benga Music: A Report by Ketebul Music Story
…n producer to whom a myriad of Kenyan musicians owe their success. He knew how to identify talent and nurture it, and signed on musicians from different ethnic backgrounds and styles. However, most of them later fell out with him because of his brash style of management. From the late 60s, substantial stakes in the local music industry were also held by Indian-owned record retail shops and recording studios such as Assanands & Son, which moved fro…
Central Uganda: Day 5 – Jinja to Kampala Story
…es. Some musicians who didn’t even have a bicycle not have houses. We are showing you can have a musical career. We are growing our knowledge and getting better at representing the culture. Now we have city in Sweden that is starting to partner with us to advance cultural exchanges.” Tabu asked James, “Why did you want to do traditional music?” James answered, “We love traditional music of any ethnicity I understand it now in the context. We start…