Ribbe Ber (Drummers) Group
…Music of the Acholi Acet, Northern Uganda…
Uganda: music of the Batwa Gallery
Images from the Singing Wells trip to Kisoro, Uganda where we recorded the music of the Batwa. The journey started in Nairobi where the team boarded a flight to Kigali, Rwanda. From there we travelled by road to Kisoro where we stayed at the Traveller’s Rest Hotel. Our hosts were from the United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU) who arranged for us to record the performances of six Batwa communities from the district of Kisoro…
2. Naizungwe Drums – progress report 1 Story
…rk quickly adds up. Why are we making 24 drums? James answers: “The set we are making comprises 24 drums of big, small, medium and small sizes. We decided to make many because we 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 – h…
1. Introducing the Naizungwe drums Story
…starting this project: “I led the revival of entenga royal drum music of Buganda kingdom. At the time of doing this, I received an audio recording from Peter Cooke, telling me of his recording on his first field trip in Uganda in 1967. The multi-rhythmic texture of the drumming, Basoga traditional yodeling and humming plus the poetic recitations can no longer be heard anywhere. As a child I heard the likes of Kamu Kasata and Ndhote singing like t…
Day 2: Sunday, 2017 February 19th Story
…en 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’ songs of instruction, or the rites of passages of women preparing for adulthood. We encountered these in three separate villages a…
Day 1: Saturday, 2017 February 18th Story
…ls, you will know that we’ve been working for seven years now in Kenya and Uganda. We thought we would have covered more countries by now, but we have been blown away by the richness of the traditional music in these two countries, so we kept going back. We are very excited now to start our work in Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo on this trip but also recognize this is tip of the iceberg. We think we will be spending next 3-4 years coming back to Tanza…
A Report by Professor James Isabirye – Indigenous music learning in contemporary contexts: Nurturing learner identity, agency, and passion News
…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 University, Uganda. His research interests include: social constructivist learning and teaching, decolonization of music and general education, and the roles of indigenous practices in those processes….
Our journey to the Royal Drums: in the words of James Isabirye Story
…s evolved more organically. You’ll remember in 2013, Singing Wells came to Uganda and we started to discuss the issue of the royal instruments. At the Kampala Museum, Singing Wells, Albert Ssempeke and I talked and all concluded: we really have to focus on the Entenga, the Royal Drums of the Buganda Kingdom. If we lose these, we’ve lost something truly unique. Singing Wells then agreed to kick-start a project based on what we had done together on…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 4, Part 2 – Flutes Story
…f the Buganda kingdom, and Albert has dedicated his life to rediscovering Buganda music through his Buganda Music Ensemble. We first met Albert in 2013, when we recorded his Ensemble playing various Buganda string-instruments. During that recording, James Isabirye, Tabu, Albert and I committed to restoring the Buganda Royal Drums. Left: Richard Sewanyana, Right: Albert Ssempeke Albert is here this time to record the Royal Flutes, the Endere. He th…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 4, Part 1 – Reflections Story
…’ Entenga drums And this brings us to the Entenga, the Royal Drums of the Buganda Kingdom. While drums thrive in Uganda, these drums were lost. If drums are thriving, what is the point of focusing on the Entenga? We come away from this trip giving three reasons: They are on the endangered list. 15 drums and six musicians is a big expensive ensemble and most villages will have never heard these drums or their performances. Without intervention, the…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 3, Part 2 – Interviews with Musicians of Uganda’s Royal Palaces Story
…ganda Kingdom are made 2) Interviewing other surviving musicians from the Buganda Palace Here’s our summary of part two: We travelled to two separate villages to meet four other surviving members of the royal palace musicians: a flute player, a trumpeter and two members of a xylophone-drumming team. A note here on surviving musicians: James Isabirye continues in his quest to track down surviving members of the musician corp. The good news is that…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 3, Part 1- Drum Making and Palace Players Story
…ganda Kingdom are made 2) Interviewing other surviving musicians from the Buganda Palace Here’s our summary of part one: Part One: Drum Making The Singing Wells team was joined by James Isabirye today as we travelled to Mukono, to visit Ssebengwa Drum Makers (P.O. Box Mukono near Colline Hotel, Jinja Highway, opposite the Pork Joint). The shop is run by Abass Mirimu, a gentleman from the famous village of Mpambire which is known for its drum maker…
Central and Eastern Uganda: Day 2 – Kampala to Jinja Story
…players, verses the xylophone instrument itself. We have recorded a lot of Ugandan xylophones over the years, but this time we really wanted to understand the players themselves as the arrangement mirrors in many ways the royal drums. There are generally six players, 3 on each side, configured very roughly as follows (I say roughly, because the notes each plays depends on the song): Akubaa Obuto: meaning player of the small slabs, this musician pl…
Musisi’s Story, Part 1: The Fall of the Buganda Kingdom Story
…his own story. Musisi being recorded on camera telling his story We are in Uganda to revive the Royal Drums of the Buganda Kingdom, the Entenga. This project was the result of the work of a very large team, but at its center is Musisi, the last surviving drummer that we know of. Here is his story, in roughly his words: “My father was the leader of the flutes at the Buganda Kingdom, and as his son, I was trained to play the flutes and eventually jo…
The Return of Bigwala News
…be a promising future for this important thread in the tapestry of Uganda’s cultural history. Sources: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ugandan-music-bigwalahttps://ich.unesco.org/en/news/uganda-young-ugandans-mobilized-for-safeguarding-bigwala-music-and-dance-00251https://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1333991/bigwala-busoga-royal-music-dance…
Rediscovering the lost Royal Drums of the Buganda Kingdom: Day 1, Uganda Story
…eke in 2013, we talked about reviving the Entenga, the Royal Drums of the Buganda Kingdom. Along with flutes, trumpets, strings and xylophones, the Entenga were part of a set of ‘royal instruments’ and much of the music was lost in 1966 when the palace of the Buganda Kingdom was attacked by government troops. The palace and instruments were destroyed, the King exiled, the royal musicians disbanded and much of the music forgotten. In 2013, we consi…