The Key to Sustainable Aid in Africa? Perhaps we should follow the music. News
…g sustainable support for villages in Africa is not easy – and there are a lot of folks trying (see here for some of the issues). But it is better to start at the source. An important proxy for the health of a village is a strong, vibrant and young musical troupe… We have now travelled to over 50 villages throughout Kenya and Uganda recording over 7 hours of songs that have been mixed, mastered and posted for all to hear. And while we have not don…
A recording studio which fits into the back of an SUV Story
…ing with us: 2 Apple MacBook Pro 2 MOTU Traveler MK3 Audio Interface 4 Headphone amps 8 Sony MDR-V600 headphones 2 Shure mics & stands 2 Rode Lavalier omni-directional mics 2 Rode NTG-1 condenser Shotgun mics 1 Matched Pair of AKG C414 XL Microphones 1 Matched Pair of Rode NT5 Microphones 2 Rode professional boom pole 1 K&M telescopic mic stand/boom 1 Canon EOS 7D 1 Canon EOS 60D 1 Canon EOS 5D 1 LED video camera lights 1 Flip HD video camera Thin…
What people say about Singing Wells News
…tor of Contemporary Cultures & Immigration, The Manitoba Museum “I found a lot of helpful information on the Singing Wells website and it helped a great deal in being able to hear what the instruments sound like when played and to see pictures of how they are held, etc. It sounds like you have a wonderful project. I would welcome any assistance you could give me as I am excited to share this wonderful collection with our visitors.” Babra Bwisho, S…
The New Singing Wells website News
…rs may be viewing the device on iPads, iPhones, tablets, netbooks, Samsung phones etc, so a lot of work has gone into making our site accessible on these devices. Albums We have now curated 4 albums, representing the music from 4 of our field trips to East Africa. We’ll be updating this as we curate more albums. You can listen to each of the albums in full and then purchase them in the knowledge that all of your money will go back to the performer…
A quick summary of the Singing Wells Project News
…e’ve tried to do in our annual fund raising videos: 10. Singing Wells is a lot of hard graft with spectacular rewards… So who are we? We are the music of East Africa – over 100 tribes in 40 villages so far. We are a joint project sponsored by Ketebul Music and Abubilla Music. We are a group of sound and video engineers who travel to villages with no electricity and running water and record their music with 12 microphones and 3 digital cameras. We…
73,603 views on YouTube News
…ls YouTube channel……73,603 views and still counting! It’s not a meaningful number in itself (like a nice round 100,000 – our next target) but it does mean more and more people are finding us and enjoying what we are all about – bringing the more traditional sounds of East Africa to an enthusiastic audience. Thanks for watching! Our top 3 video hits In third place, this is the Nyerere Wa Konde Music Club from Sita Village, Gede in Kenya’s Malindi…
A new type of city Story
…hat the capital would be like; this image speaks a lot about the city. The number of ‘proper’ buildings were few and in only the small centre. It was hilly and most of the roads were not built for vehicles. The shops were small shacks mostly and at night stayed open, lit by candle light. There were animals everywhere and make-shift houses, which starkly contrasted to the taller office buildings you could see in the distance. Despite this unconvent…
The Boy with the Headphones Story
…hen we travelled to the Mperwa Batwa community. Consisting of just a small number of families, the Mperwa have settled on a small area of borrowed land just a few kilometres from the town. At first glance the setting appeared to be spectacular, with the lush valley and terraced hills of local farms as a backdrop and the magnificent Virunga volcanos in the distance. But we were quickly struck by the impoverishment of this small community. As we a…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…s 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 talented musicians to my Nairobi friends.’ In addition to our field visits, we have developed an online Music Map of East…
Day 9 (AM): Ketebul Studio – Influences session for Cheri Story
…y are willing to give her anything. They see her and want to give her the clothes offer her back. Macadem was then inspired. The song was so sweet and ernest we encouraged him to come and sing an ‘anti love’ verse over it. He sings ‘Love don’t love me’ and talks about a woman who he offers everything to and she gives him nothing but takes all. We’ve been told the Swahilli doesn’t fully translate. He’s roughly saying ‘you’re good for nothing’ but v…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…feathers have been replaced by chicken feathers. Traditional axesa are now cheap wooden replicas. This is not the performers fault – the traditional costumes are expensive and hard to access sustainably. This requires government intervention and while we say committed performers it is clear they are struggling. On the positive side, I was incredibly impressed with how well the village elders have engaged the next generation. Every village had a gr…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…t of other Batwa groups and can easily catch up. These groups still need a lot of encouragements plus some special talented people who may help them do a lot of practice. Achievements Through UOBDU monitoring, each group set a day in a week for making practice and this has improved the performance of the groups. During the implementation of the project UOBDU has been able to secure space in different occasions for different groups to perform and…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…ocal stores on big speakers). We listened to a few different tracks on his phone, and I narrowed my favourite Ugandan pop tracks down to ‘Apple’ by Bigtym and ‘Guns & Bomb’ by Bebecool.. Odika Constantine, son of Watmon, is in his 30s. He was abducted by the LRA from his home in Kitgum District when he was just 17. He was held as a soldier in the bush for 6 months until he managed to escape. He described the day it happened: the rebels arrived to…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…e carved into a hill, with rows and rows of streets below us, and an equal number of streets and houses piled up above us. There were cars, motorbikes and taxi’s driving past and planes flying overhead. Everything was for sale by everyone who walked by. No sleeping cattle. No flower beds. But, as always, there was wonderful music. The first group was the Adungu Cultural Troupe, masters of the Adungu. We had interviewed their leader on our ‘recce’…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…music. Nothing replaces a great take of great musicians. You can forgive a lot with a great song. You will be happy to know we’ve just passed Jinja and are roughly two hours from Kampala on a well paved two lane road. We have moved from sheer terror that we will be run off the road by Mac trucks to a growing lack of confidence that we will arrive in Kampala before the hotel kitchens closed. Given that we forgo lunch as a rule we find ourselves hig…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…with his father’s group and then he founded this group in 2007. They use a number of styles, most notably Sengenya, which we covered fully in our March 2011 field recordings in Malindi. We interviewed Swalhe Mwatela Massai and his grandson, Ali Tungwa : Q to the grandfather: In contrast to Uganda, we have seen many villages in Kenya where the traditional music is only played by the older generation. And yet your group is so young and vibrant. Ho…