Before They Pass Away News
…ways of life. Nelson’s breathtaking photographs capture how these last remaining tribes continue their lives amid a changing world. But rather than charge in and start pointing his camera at these people, Nelson had to get to know them and to gain their trust. When he met the Chukchi people, the elders told him: “You cannot photograph us. You have to wait, you have to wait until you get to know us, you have to wait until you understand us.” Jimmy…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…to keep the food away from the lazy wife and the lazy wife would go complaining to the husband. The message in the song is to not wait for everything to be done for you. Paolo Wawanyera: This is someone’s name, meaning Paul, son of Wawanyera. Paul was a chief. He visited certain places and found they had made him party with lots of food and drink. He actually visited his brother in law who was jealous of him as a chief. So he decided to poison hi…
Happy new year from Singing Wells News
…ingdom. 2. We met Musisi and heard his story Musisi is one of the last remaining drummers of the Buganda Kingdom in Uganda. He performed for the King during his time at the Buganda Palace before fleeing in fear when the government arrived to shut the palace down. Here’s is Musisi’s incredible story. 3. We checked in on the preservation of the Bigwala trumpets The Bigwala is a trumpet-style instrument made from gourds. Singing Wells has been suppor…
We’re discovering the lost music of the Ugandan Kingdoms News
…n read on our Field Reports section. Including: Some background and the beginning of our journey to discover the lost royal drums of the Buganda Kingdom Context on the Entenga royal drums we’ve been searching for The story of Musisi – a drummer from the royal palaces and the fall of the Buganda Kingdom Some information on the progress of the Bigwala trumpets – an instrument we restored on a previous field trip Interviews with the palace players an…
Singing Wells surpasses 500,000 YouTube hits! News
We’re delighted to announce that this morning Singing Well’s YouTube channel surpassed half a million views. Since 2011, we’ve been sharing our work discovering, recording, archiving and celebrating the traditional music of East Africa on this channel and we couldn’t be more grateful for your support. Our YouTube channe l features videos from our trips across Kenya and Uganda, including visiting the tribes of the Kenyan Coast, Central and Eastern…
Sponsor a Singing Wells recording session News
…the traditional music of East Africa to take place in November 2015. Our Singing Wells trips generally last about 10 days, depending on how much ground we’re trying to cover. We also organise a pre-trip ‘recce’ where a smaller team visits the country/ region in advance to pre-record groups, identify key talent and make all the preparations to ensure we don’t waste a moment on the full trip later in the year. You can find out more about our field…
Rediscovering Afropop and its influences News
…going to be the next big thing? The answer is influences; something that Singing Wells is deeply passionate about. Many genres of popular music like Blues, Jazz, Salsa and Rumba derive to varying degrees from traditional music in Africa. These rhythms and sounds have acted as influences (see more on our influences work here) and have helped newer genres form. The same works in the opposite direction of course, and African popular music has emerge…
Discussions on music and culture with a young Kenyan News
…e been talking to people about their music interests, whether the idea of Singing Wells appeals to them and what more we can do to ensure this musical culture is not lost. On a visit to iHub this week – a communal working space for tach-savvy Nairobi entrepreneurs – I got chatting to Edwin Maganjo about the Singing Wells Project. Edwin has lived in Nairobi most of his life and is an entrepreneur currently building a blogging platform. What kind of…
Meeting Ketebul: an interview with Tabu News
…aditional roots we get very excited. What kind of challenges do you think Singing Wells faces? One of the biggest challenges we face is that we don’t get our artists to perform enough to build their identity. We have great recording material but we don’t get these artists out into the market very well at the moment. We need to look for a platform to promote our stuff, whether it’s online, digital radio, TV – we need to make the music more accessib…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
…t I’d share my top 5 songs so far. 1. Otacho Young Stars – Amilo Love The Singing Wells team first encountered the Otacho Young Stars group on a trip to record the music of the Luo in Western Kenya in December 2011. They were later invited to Ketebul Studios in Nairobi to form part of our influences series. I love this song because it’s cheery and upbeat. It’s the kind of song everyone should listen to when they wake up to start the day with posit…
Singing Wells is on Bozza! News
…listen to traditional East African musicians and music groups recorded by Singing Wells. Head over to our Bozza page here. About Bozza “Bozza is a plug & play solution for musicians, poets, photographers & film makers to promote and sell their digital products to their fans throughout Africa. The platform is available to emerging and established artists from around the continent and can be easily accessed by visiting www.bozza.mobi from mobile pho…
Current Leading Figures News
…ic of marginalised people, but again is also looking for funding – though finding funds could prove to be a difficult task, as highlighted by James above. However, Singing Wells has been lucky enough to be able to make recordings of the Nile Beat Artists, which was founded by James. They performed five songs for us during our last trip to Uganda, which can be found on Soundcloud, and one of the performances has been uploaded to Youtube (see the vi…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in Ethnomusicology that include training in performance of African music. Diane Thram became Director in 2005 and, under her leadership, an online listening library has been created, in line with the cutting edge of content access, to allow anyone to listen to Hugh Tracey’s recordings, with work currently being done to also make the Dave Dargie and Andrew Tracey Collections available for online access. There…
Archiving Guidelines News
…knowledge is needed – but this guide is most definitely a great help for gaining understanding of all the issues needed be considered when setting up an online music archive. Storage of Audio Materials Guidance for the care, handling and storage of audio visual materials can be found on the Library of Congress website. The guidelines for storage aim to preserve the life of the grooved discs and cylinders, optical discs, and magnetic tape, which ha…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…no-musicologist, sound recordist, archivist, performer, dynamic and entertaining lecturer, record producer, photographer and author.’ As he was so broadly accomplished, he was involved in every aspect of the recording and archiving process of his music, which he gathered from across the world; beginning in the Middle East in 1966 and spreading through North and East African from 1969 till 1975. He later went on to record across the Pacific Ocean f…
Tracey Instrument Collection News
…ight into the traditional instruments used in Ugandan folk music. Here at Singing Wells, we have already began building up our own collection, purchasing and bringing them back to our studio in England whenever we can, and have been providing profiles for those we come across on our travels on the Instrument section of our website. ILAM houses the extensive instrument collection owned by the Tracey family, who have built on the legacy their father…