Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…cular. Our journey took us from Eldoret to Iten, the home of Kenya’s world class athletes. The Journey Most the Olympic gold medallists among Kenyan athletes live within 100 kms of Iten and it has become the legendary source of great long distance runners. Over 1,000 Kenyan runners train here and the roads are filled with athletes training for London 2012. In addition, over 300 foreigners train here, mostly from Europe. We went to the main trainin…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…he music so our initial focus was on audio recording. We invested in first class audio equipment and can record using 8 mics directly into Pro Tools. But during the March Pilot programme, we realised that the visual experience was as important as the audio. So for our November trip we invested in two more digital cameras and worked out our new Camera 1-3 approach. Camera 1 is static group shot. Camera 2 focuses on instruments. Camera 3 is context….
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…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…ews 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 House …
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
We arrived last night in Nairobi. A flawless flight and passport control. The only hitch was actually leaving the car park which had one person taking money and doing various other things at the same time including chitchatting with passerbys. That took almost an hour. Preparations at Ketebul Music studio We came to Ketebul this morning to get ready for our trip tomorrow. Ketebul is buzzing with people getting everything packed up. Steve, project…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…at the Fairview to meet us. He’s made the last minute arrangements for my flight to Kigali today, 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 – preparin…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…page which displays the data you are about to download – an outline of the United Kingdom. Click Download. This will download a .zip file called, in this case, GBR_adm.zip. Open it up and take a look. What you will see is a crazy number of files, none of which your computer seems to really recognise. Don’t panic. What you’re seeing is just a few shapefiles (remember shapefiles? No? Let me jog your memory). As we’re looking at the shapefiles in the…
How to Map 1: Housekeeping News
Before we get down to the real business of map-making, there are some things you should know that’ll save you time later. A couple of bits of housekeeping, let’s say. Point 1: Get your files organised For some technical reason I don’t understand, ArcMap doesn’t like it when you save your files in My Documents – I think of it as ArcMap being too busy to faff around sifting through all your old school work to find shapefiles and the like, so we mak…
Music of the Kalenjin: video playlist News
…eat Rift Valley to record the music of the Kalenjin tribes people. The people from this highland ethnic group – the Nilotic – include eight culturally and linguistically related sub tribes – Kipsigis, Nandi, Tugen, Marakwet, Keiyo, Sabaot and Terik. They are perhaps most widely known as world class athletes as many of the legendary Kenyan long distance runners are Kalenjins, including Kipchoge Keino, chairman of the Kenyan Olympic Committee and th…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…th his spear. He made a par five on the ‘Crane Song.’ Willie Bembe’s First Flight: Our sound engineer Willie Bembe enjoyed his first ever flight going from Nairobi to Kigali. He was far less scared of the thunderstorms then the rest of us, but did make things interesting. He almost went to the bathroom in the galley, confusing it for a loo. During a stop-over on the route to Kigali, he almost gave the flight attendee a heart attack by trying to sm…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…er’s Rest Guesthouse: After breakfast our first stop was the office of the United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU), where we met Henry Neza, the Capacity Development Co-ordinator, and Alice Nyamihanda, Tourism Officer and the first University graduate amongst the Batwa communities. They are to be our hosts and translators for the two days – we were lucky to be joined by Precious as well, Alice’s five month old daughter. Patrick…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…r equipment (we really wanted to return with it all!). We then took Kenyan Airlines (new plane with movies!) to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, population roughly a million. We were met by our drivers Arun and John and drove through heavy rains to the Rwanda-Uganda border crossing near Kisoro. After a rather lengthy crossing, we then drove on to our final desitination – the Traveller’s Rest in Kisoro. Five quick things: Rwanda: Beautiful country kn…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…oject and met the Ketebul team in the studios for a day . Day 1: 11.11.19, Flight to Nairobi: Jimmy and Andy, Founder and Sound Engineer of Abubilla Music respectively, set out to Nairobi on Saturday for Nairobi. All good with flights, visas, bags and customs and we were greated by Tabu Osusa. Checked into Fairview, had the obligatory fries in a chip basket and crashed. Day 2: 11.11.20 Day in Ketebul Studio: Jimmy and Andy meet the SWP team at Ket…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…is worth it guys? [This is a pretty relevant question 470 kilometres into a 800 kilometre journey back from the coast to Nairobi] TO: We have no choice. We have to do something and I don’t see anyone else doing what we’re doing. We’ve got to get three things right going forward: we have to get the audio right. People need to hear the music like we’re hearing it in the field. We’ve got to get world class at this. Second, we’ve got to get the video…
Recording music & dance of the Batwa News
…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 new initiative launched by the Uganda Wildlife…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…o allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the…