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…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…tions, thanks to them for their seriousness and dedication. BIRARA group This is one of the communities that is still cherishing music and dance as the Batwa culture it is still leading and very creative. The community members also share the knowledge on culture and pass on the knowledge to the young ones in order to promote and preserve the Batwa culture which includes music and dance. KANYABUKUNGU group As the Batwa group that benefited from t…
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
…hentic, was called ‘Africa Na Jembe‘ which talks about the Ugandan’s emphasis on being deserving. The song says that first you must dig in the field before you can eat. The lyric in swahili in the chorus: “tula kula kua jembe” means ” through our work in the field we can eat”. It is based on the traditional ideology that hard work should always come first. After hearing this set we asked them to do a Magic Moment and then join Akello for Influence…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…when I started at Takaye Primary School. In the group, my role is percussionist and I play the four drums of the Sengenya. I also dance and wear the shakers . And also I play the Chapuo, this is the small drum and the Upatsu (cymbol). I don’t feel ashamed to play this music. I don’t feel ashamed that I have an amazing teacher, my grandfather. He’s taught everyone, including Kaboge Chagalla (a famous Nairobi percussionist) and Mwatela Kamanza (pic…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…ting 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 Executive of the African Travel & Tourism Association and explained a little about Sing…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…have two mobile recording units, each capable of recording 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…
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…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…which layers of information have been embedded. When accessing the map, this is what your screen would look like. The map, which you can access here, is a result of a platform developed by Harvard University. WorldMap is a great platform for a project like this for several reasons. It is free and open source which means any researcher can work with the source code to extend and improve its functionality, so it is constantly developing and improvi…
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…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…rist 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 House …
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…l. Now we can start using the real functions of ArcMap to display information on the map so you have a visual representation of your data. First of all, a recap of what we’re going to do: Prepare our data: ArcMap can be tricksy if your data isn’t properly organised and formatted so it’s worth sorting that out first. Import the data into ArcMap. Join the data to the country outline shapefile. Export the joined data and shapefile as a new shapefile….
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…y, so I’m very grateful to him. We’ve never met before, only spoken on the phone and emailed, but he’s so welcoming I feel I know him already. The complete Singing Wells team congregates at Nairobi airport. After many months of planning the trip, this is the first time I actually put faces to the names. Steve has been integral to the planning – preparing the budget down to the last shilling and organizing the logistics of taking a team of 10 to Ki…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…lly this will be the outline of a country with its administrative areas. This is known as spatial data. Downloading the outline There is a free online source for spatial data at http://www.diva-gis.org/. To get your spatial data you click on Free Spatial Data in the top-right corner. On the Free Spatial Data page click on country level data. On the Download Data by Country page, select the country you need and make sure the Subject is Administrati…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…ld probably make it back to Nairobi at the same time we did. We called him on Monday the 28th of November, hoping he could make it to Nairobi by the 2nd of December. It is a sign of Henry’s amazing devotion to the Batwa cause that he said yes to such a request. First, their travel story. He was able to contact all the singers on the 29th of November and he arranged all travel papers by the 30th. They then left the morning of the 30th and travelled…