Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…ilometers from Mbale to Nakisene (from Mbale south toward Inganga, turning East toward the Kenyan border, just before Buggiri, we turned toward Idudi). The Recording Site: The village was far off road, along a dirt path perfectly suited to cows and motorcycles, but slightly more challenging to big vans of the four wheel variety. But, as always, we made it to the location, passing lovely red-mud huts along the way. The village was a large one, prob…
Happy new year from Singing Wells News
…that you’ve been bringing in the year by listening to lots of traditional East African music. Before we start posting exciting news about the upcoming year, here’s a quick recap of what we got up to in 2015: 1. We went discovering the lost music of the Ugandan Kingdoms In Nov/ Dec 2015 we travelled between Kampala and Jinja in Uganda in search of the lost music and musicians of the royal palaces. We posted regular updates about our journey and th…
We’re discovering the lost music of the Ugandan Kingdoms News
…far has taken us to the capital of Uganda – Kampala, over to Jinja in the east and back in search of musicians who haven’t played in the royal palaces since they were children. We’ve been posting regular updates about our journey which you can 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…
Singing Wells surpasses 500,000 YouTube hits! News
…and Uganda, including visiting the tribes of the Kenyan Coast, Central and Eastern Uganda, our work to share the music of the Batwa community and the Luo community. We’ve told the story of repatriating Kenya’s music heritage after 50 years and celebrated magic moments – where we’ve found an extra-special artist on our journeys and recorded their work. To celebrate our 500,000th YouTube hit, we’ve put together a selection of our most popular videos…
Sponsor a Singing Wells recording session News
…’ve been planning our next trip to record more of 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…
Rediscovering Afropop and its influences News
…ecording and preserving this music it can continue to inform, inspire and influence a new generation of artists to carry the traditional music of East Africa into their songs. Listen to our bridge artists now. …
Discussions on music and culture with a young Kenyan News
…mainly modern, western-influenced music. Do you listen to much traditional East African music? I have heard it before, I might come home and my dad would be playing it on the radio for instance… but I don’t like it. Put yourself in my shoes — imagine your parents playing old-school church songs, chances are you’re not going to like it. It’s not really popular with young people generally. Why do you think that is? Well, we’re adverse and stubborn….
Meeting Ketebul: an interview with Tabu News
…important? Singing Wells is important because we’re trying to capture our East African heritage. Many of the musicians we record from remote tribes are old and we run the risk of the traditional music in Kenya dying out, we don’t want to see that happen. Further, most recording studios are in the city: Nairobi. It’s not possible for those living in the villages to come here, so if we don’t go to them to record, these guys may never be heard and t…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
…h every song on the site, getting to know the amazing traditional music of East Africa! It was tough to pick, but for my first blog post I thought 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 serie…
Singing Wells is on Bozza! News
There’s now a new way for audiences to discover and 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 easil…
Current Leading Figures News
…13’, was released recently. His extensive background of involvement in the East African music industry can be found on his About Page at Ketebul Music and his thoughts on some of the central issues surrounding East African music are here in his interview with James, with more to be published on Singing Wells soon. He also gives insightful commentary on the artists that we record, in our field reports. Wolimbwa Julius Julius founded the Elgon Ngoma…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…o giving some background on the culture and history of the recording. From East Africa, they have a 60 minute episode on Kenya – you can listen to recordings of the singer Suzanna Owiyo in Nairobi, the rain songs in the north of the country which frequently suffers from terrible drought and the Massai who sing of the dangers of cattle raiding – and two others on Uganda; one featuring the Bugandan Royal Court Music and the second is about the Busog…
Archiving Guidelines News
…nformation for smaller would-be archives, such as those wishing to archive East African music, concerning both the digitisation of audio or the online storage of the data. It cites two viable options for open repository software, which are basically softwares that allow organisations to give access to their data. The first is DSpace, “very popular and widely adopted repository within the higher education and research sectors, although knowledge of…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…is 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 for ten years, from 1978. He is stated to have recorded hundreds of tribes and is commended for forming close relationships with them, which allowed him to gain permission to record their music. Mary K. Oyer, b. 1923 Mary Oyer graduated from G…
Tracey Instrument Collection News
…endongo is a type of lyre that can be found in many variations throughout East Africa and is considered the national instrument of the Baganda people. It is specially a Kiganda bowl lyre, with the face of the bowl covered with the skin of legavaan and laced to cow hide at the back. Klaus Wachsmann speculates that the instrument came to Uganda with the Luo people from Sudan in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and, after passing through the…
ILAM, Repatriation and Jimmie Rodgers/Chemirocha News
…l music we are recording – most notably the massive influence of gospel on East African music, which, in turn was created in large part by Black-American music, directly inspired by early African village music. We listen to the likembe music in Uganda and here the steel drums of Calypso music. We listen to Benga blues and here the music of Cuba, demanding that we look further into the circles travelled between musicians between the Congo and Cuba,…