Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…ng: Drove 8 minutes to Airport. About 600 meters outside airport we had to stop and all get out of van and go through a metal detector. There was a large sign telling us not to bring in pistols and rifles. The van was then searched. At airport, we had to unload bags at departures, take them by trolly to bottom of stairs. Take all bags up the stairs. Find new trolly and proceed to next stage. All this would be fairly straightforward except we had 3…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…He only managed to escape once the rebels believed he was one of them, and stopped watching him so closely. After 6 months of living as a soldier in the bush they didn’t expect him to run, and he took the chance as soon as the opportunity arose. Mostly, you were forced to walk in straight lines, with the abducted children in the middle line, so there was no way to escape. He also told us of how the rebels tried to train you into a soldier: to make…
Hannah interviews Evelyn Ojok – Acet, Northern Uganda News
…roup: Ume Udoko Mit started to sing together before the war, but we had to stop during the war because most of us were moved to IDP camps where we had little time to rehearse together and the conditions were too bad. Now we sing and dance together all the time, we are only women (our style of ‘Apiri’ in Acholi is typically only performed by the women). Today the reason there was a man playing the drums is because one of our women is sick, normally…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…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 musicians we met in the city. During the two hour drive to Entebbe we talked with Watmon and his son, Od…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…weaknesses of 1 and 2’s position). We even sorted out after a while how to stop the groups from starting the song while our poor clapper board person (Nick) was still running from the shot. Third, we then had to sort out interviews and research. We’re really good now at doing interviews on songs, villages and groups and supporting that with research. This all sounds like pretty basic things and we agree. But imagine arriving at a village that has…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…have you managed to do this? A: To get the young people involved I decided to go to schools and teach music. I compose new material with my students and come up with something they like. I watch how they dance and whether they feel the rhythms and I try to teach them what I’m doing, but I also adapt to how they feel the music. I let them take the music where they want to take it as long as it is rooted in our traditions. I just watch them dance an…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…their website under the ‘ATTA Likes’ banner! Thank you ATTA – we will keep you posted on our travels in East Africa with news, photos and wonderful music! Victoria…
Reporting back on recording trip to Kisoro, SW Uganda News
…airobi and were able to interact with the Ford Foundation. During this trip the Batwa benefitted from some materials such as clothes, shoes and money which improved on their social status by dressing like dominant tribes here. This gave them confidence and changed their behaviour. Today the non-Batwa believe and agree that Batwa can look smart if they are given the chance to compete with others in many different fields. All the best, Henry. For…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…st Hotel in Kisoro, Uganda!) We can also combine the two recording units into one to increase the number of inputs, while still working off battery power. The laptops use Avid ProTools recording software – an industry standard for recording and music production. The microphones we have chosen are industry standard models used in studios the world over but, most likely, not seen in the villages of East Africa. The equipment has been carefully selec…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ney, mobile phone cards and other sundries and headed out. The William car stopped to pick up Akello, a lovely Ugandan singer/songwriter, who is joining the group as our Influences artist. The Emmanuel car headed into Kampala to pick up our press badges. We then headed off to Gulu at around 2PM (yes, we tend to spend a lot of time getting mobile phone cards!) and headed out on a 360 km drive to the town of Gulu in Northern Uganda. Within minutes w…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…ng the Singing Wells community. Rosie has made some ‘how-to’ guides on how to add to a map yourself which you can access easily on our website too, in a few steps, ‘Housekeeping’, ‘The Map Outline’, ‘Prepare Your Data’. I met with Rosie to talk about her experience using the map for the benefit of Singing Wells. How did you discover the mapping software? I am currently reading medicine at UCL, but during my gap year I spend time doing work experie…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…s first female nyatiti player, performing infront of thousands at the 2007 STOP AIDS Concert in Kenya. She speaks native Luo and has become famous for her originality all over Kenya.. The Adungu: Origins: The bow-harp is an outstanding example of good Ugandan craftsmanship. Like the Nyatiti, the Adungu came from the traditional bow-harp or ‘lyre’ from the Egyptians. Michael Levy, a specialist in music of the ancient world, was particularly interes…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…t will soon die out, leaving videos and songs in the archives. We also had to work to make this music relevant and important to contemporary artists. A key part of a field visit, therefore, is to bring contemporary African musicians with us to perform with the tribal groups and to write new music influenced by these sessions. Winyo, a wonderful singer/songwriter with Ketebul Music, is one of our Influences artists and has been with us on three Sin…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…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/-/1248928/1480860/-/…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…will become clear later). The only way to make absolutely sure of that is to go into ArcMap and look at the attribute table of the shapefile (that’s basically the data that makes the shapefile look how it does), and check the names of the counties. To do this open the map, which is saved at C:\How To Map\How to Map 1, or wherever you put it. Then right-click on GBR_adm2 and select Open Attribute Table. This will open a box with the attribute tabl…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…mailed many times. It’s good to meet at last. The flight to Kigali makes a stop-over in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi. I suddenly realize that by the end of the day I will have been in four different countries – Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. I am already struggling to believe that I am in East Africa when 24 hours ago I was in South West London and this makes me want to pinch myself even harder to make me realize it’s actually me here, do…