How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…you some random data. Select CSV (basically Excel) as your Result Type and number range as your Data Type. When we downloaded the country outline of the UK, we downloaded three shapefiles of different administrative levels, called 0, 1 and 2. Administrative level 0 is the outline of the whole of the UK. Administrative level 1 is the outline of the countries within the UK – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Administrative level 2 is th…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…y, so I’m very grateful to him. We’ve never met before, only spoken on the phone and emailed, but he’s so welcoming I feel I know him already. The complete Singing Wells team congregates at Nairobi airport. After many months of planning the trip, this is the first time I actually put faces to the names. Steve has been integral to the planning – preparing the budget down to the last shilling and organizing the logistics of taking a team of 10 to Ki…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…ase, GBR_adm.zip. Open it up and take a look. What you will see is a crazy number of files, none of which your computer seems to really recognise. Don’t panic. What you’re seeing is just a few shapefiles (remember shapefiles? No? Let me jog your memory). As we’re looking at the shapefiles in the C: drive rather than in ArcMap itself, you can see the six individual files which make up the one shapefile. In fact, in this case you’re looking at 18 fi…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…probably make it back to Nairobi at the same time we did. We called him on Monday the 28th of November, hoping he could make it to Nairobi by the 2nd of December. It is a sign of Henry’s amazing devotion to the Batwa cause that he said yes to such a request. First, their travel story. He was able to contact all the singers on the 29th of November and he arranged all travel papers by the 30th. They then left the morning of the 30th and travelled by…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…ontinue to tell the story of one young man carrying a generator on his head 800 metres, with 400 metres elevation. We will get T shirts made. Francis Playing Kid Golf: Francis is the music leader of most of Kisoro Batwa, knowing all the clans – he is pretty much has the final say in who sings what song. He is also the lead dancer of his group. We will never forget Francis playing what we called ‘kid golf.’ He was carrying his big spear doing his d…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…inyo. Here, they put down their track. Not at all phased by the use of headphones and mics, they take everything in there stride, performing a number of takes as the song develops. We start by giving them a simple click to follow the beat but quickly realised that their tempos are far more subtle than this. Francis comes back to set the rhythm with their natural clapping and it suddenly all came together again. Once we have the female vocals recor…
Gary Barlow, Ayub Ogada and our very own global song News
…es her job and counts down the hours from Friday evening until the dreaded Monday comes round again. The global remix of the song features musicians from Sao Paulo to London to Nairobi, with lyrics in both English and Swahili. Musical styles are mixed – from the violins in London to Brazilian drums to the Kenyan nyatiti courtesy of Ayub Ogada. You can read all about the making of the global remix of ’71 hours’ here but in the meantime, have a look…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…icrophones. This also carries the tripod for Roving Video 1. Cable Bag/Headphones: This is full of all the jacks, mic connects, headphone extenders. There’s a lot of cables. Mega Tripod: This is the bag for Pado’s pride and joy, the mega tripod for Stationary Camera 1. Project Management: How do we now set ourselves up for audio-video recording on site? Again, based on lessons from both the March Pilot and Lake Turkana, here’s the set up: Overall…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…groups were very large, but because of budgets we could only bring a small number. We had good production but we couldn’t get the whole band in their element . Gargar was an example. Huge women’s group with lots of culture things – women’s rights … we could only work with four. We realised it would be better to take the studio to them. We would get a better view and get a more authentic sound. Then Abubilla Music contacted Tabu for a project and w…
Abubilla Music release fourth album News
…ed by the Singing Wells Project’s very own Andy Patterson……. Importantly, the album also includes the global remix of an original Abubilla track ’71 Hours to Monday’ which has been released to promote the Singing Wells project and help raise funds for the 2012 phase of the project. …
Global song released to support SWP News
…Abubilla Music have released a truly global remix of an original song from their first album Six Months of Saturdays – it’s called 71 Hours to Monday and combines musicians and vocalists from Sao Paulo in Brazil, Nairobi and London. All profits from the sale of the track will be donated to The Abubilla Music Foundation to support the The Singing Wells Project. Take a look and find out the story behind the song and the SWP: …
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…o allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…ar future. I did not know how talented a song writer Jimmy was. 71hours to Monday is the title of the song they are working on, am loving it. Makadem one of our celebrity artists signed to Ketebul Music also came through and laid a verse in the song. I was feeling sad knowing very well I would be beading my love [CANON 5D CAMERA] goodbye, so when the studio session was done I escorted her, and Jimmy and Andy too of course to the airport… I would l…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…mpromising on sound quality. Mzinga were accompanied by a small wooden xylophone, the marimba. Mzinga After four captivating numbers from Mzinga, we quickly pulled down the set and set off for our second location. The drive would take us to Mombasa,where we would end up in the most interesting set of all so far. Junda. We first drove in to what seemed to be a very busy township with a very steep and treacherous gravel road to drive on. Everyone…
Testing the mobile recording equipment News
…Paulo for the new, global version of the Abubilla Music song, 71 Hours to Monday. Check out Jimmy’s blog on their progress: Quick report from Sao Paulo Next stop, Kenya. In March, Jimmy and Andy are taking the recording equipment to Nairobi, teaming up with Ketebul Music to fully test everything in the field in advance of the village tour in November. Tabu Osusa is putting together the itinerary and the plan is to travel to the coast, near Mombas…