The Boy with the Headphones Story
…ommunity began to arrive on the ‘stage’ and we were ready to start. The recording session was an extraordinary one, full of energetic dancing and wonderful, joyous singing. By the end of the session everyone was joining in with the performance. We had attracted a large audience of local people who had gathered on the hillside, including, of course, this group of three young Batwa boys who were intrigued with all our recording equipment. Andy invit…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…. In the past, one or two of them might have been invited to a local town for a simple recording. Singing Wells allows 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 tale…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…the band leader promise to sing in his funeral. Thanks to Bado, the son, for working with his father to give the background; here’s Bado, with Patrick, who we’ve known since the founding of Singing Wells: At about 1900, Tabu broke away with Hannah and Andy to go to a concert while Jimmy remained with the core group to continue recording. The recording group stayed until about 2130 at night, long after hotel restaurants closed, so Pato and Steve…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…kello who headed back to Kampala, then our drivers William and Emmanuel, then to Vicki who headed off London. The rest of us will leave tomorrow for Nairobi and more recording… Jimmy Entebbe…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…owever as a community that has no other income, anything they work for is for buying food for their families since they stay in town with no land. MPERWA and KABAHENDA group Both communities are slow and this has caused them remain behind in performance and making savings especially from their cultural performance but the group can easily be mentored and catch up. Apart from being slow, their music and dance is as good as that of other Batwa gro…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…, but generally perform music in the style of Acholi, as Watmon is originally from Kitikum, not far from Gulu up in Northern Uganda, and moved down to Kampala during the war. We love the instrument they played, the Nanga (below) so much we asked if they would join us in Entebbe to record more songs with Akello. We asked them to come with us to our next stop: our hotel in Entebbe, purely because we were desperate to have more time with the stunning…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…that the singer is taking his songs on the road. They shouldn’t be jealous or worried – he remains part of the village, but others need to hear his music. It is now almost midnight and we’ve recorded some fantastic music. The hotel restaurants are closed again, so we will be taking this group out for some food and then open up the studio tomorrow for the last day of this trip. We have asked the leader and his grandson back tomorrow for more discus…
How music archives can help communities News
…eld reports). In the mid 1960’s an ethnomusicologist called Peter Cooke recorded oral histories of the Batwa tribe in Uganda, who were, at that time, a community of forest dwelling hunter-gatherers. Cooke’s recordings were subsequently archived at the British Library. The recordings were recently found by Chris Kidd, a Ph.D. student who was working for the United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU). Chris took the recordings back…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…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 Singing Wells and our aims to record and celebrate the cultural music heritage of East Africa. It se…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…inging Wells – The Story So Far’, newly available in hardback. Click here for more details. A typical field recording day A Singing Wells day in the field usually starts with an early breakfast after which the team assembles at the vehicles with the mobile recording equipment. Typically the team is ten people – a mix of technicians from both Nairobi based Ketebul Music and London based Abubilla Music. We are invariably joined by a local ‘fixer…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…lt 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 improving. It’s also web-based so it’s easy to access and share, which is exactly what we want in order to carry on building the Singing Wells community. Rosie has mad…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…el at around 1910, only 10 minutes or so after our target time. We pulled into the Acholi Inn, unloaded all the equipment to our rooms and quickly feel into a dinner of Nile Specials and Chicken, Pork or Fish in various sauces, accompanied by various carbs, including Posho (the Ugandan version of Ugali)… Then to bed. We’ve arrived. Tomorrow is music. Jimmy (Gulu)…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…. In the past, one or two of them might have been invited to a local town for a simple recording. Singing Wells allows 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 tale…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…Music’s ‘Kenya @ 50’ music documentary. He teamed up with Andy Patterson while he was here and together they conducted a number of interviews 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…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…an 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. Display the data. Prepare the data To demonstrate I’ll be using some nonsense data about the number of unicorns in each county of Britain, but if you’ve been following along using a different country and your own…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…m and treat them as third class citizens. Local farmers exploit the Batwa for cheap labour, using them as porters to carry things for example. And the men often exploit the girls sexually. If there is a pregnancy the girl may be excluded from both communities. She might move to the town but she has nothing. It often ends in prostitution for her. Me: What does the future hold for the Batwa? Henry: At UOBDU we are working with other NGOs to establis…