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 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…other detector ourselves (#2) Once through this line we lined up for Kenya airlines. We are our own queue and it took a while to check in our 23 bags and convince them to let us carry our 11 carry on bags… Once checked in we then waited in visa line. No issues. By this time the flight is calling for boarding… There’s another line at the gate to go through Kenya security. Big queue and one very angry mzungu who was fed up. We all had to take off ou…
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 Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…a Band at the Soroti Hotel and he led us to his village, Obuell-Lira, a 30 minute drive down rich clay roads. On the way, Joshua told us about the history of the group, which was founded in 1982. The group and its song Uganda Land of Freedom is legendary in the Teso region (the name for the collection of villages around us). Joshua While you read the rest of this, why don’t you play the Magic Moment of the band as a good soundtrack to their story?…
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…
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…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…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 we were deeply immersed in the ‘classic’ East African road scene: big tall white bags of coal, with grass helmets, bricks in various stages of manufacturer (either drying or firing), pyramids of potatoes, tomatoes on patches of blankets under trees, tiny goats tethered near…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…with us: 2 Apple 17″ 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 Microphones2 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 Think…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…to check in to BA flight 63 to Entebbe. After quick breakfast, we did last minute shopping for essential supplies (alcohol, sunglasses, papers) and then took the train to C57, where we boarded our flight and left pretty much on time. Jimmy sat next to Andrew who lives in Kampala and married to a Uganda woman with whom he’s had a one year old son. He was passionate about West African music and did a paper on drumming in Ghana. So Vicki switched sea…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…frica, meaning that within the huge range of instruments there were also a number of different names for them. This became very interesting to discover however, and over time that information could gather on the map, making it more comprehensive. What did you find most interesting about the data you collected? What stood out for me was the huge range of instruments used, and the huge range of percussion instruments available, which you don’t reall…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…for London 2012. In addition, over 300 foreigners train here, mostly from Europe. We went to the main training centre and interviewed a project manager about why so many people travel all this way to train on the red dirt roads around Iten. She answered: “First, the altitude (roughly 2300 meters) is perfect – right at the peak of natural altitude where you can still train hard, but so high that the lungs are pushed to the limit. Second, for such…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…ru and Eldoret on the way. Last night, we agreed a late fee of 1,000 bob a minute for anyone arriving at the studio after 9 am. Money talks and the whole crew were there by 09.00. Everyone. That‘s the good news. The bad news was no one brought a key for the studio, forcing Tabu to have to drive home and back. We left an hour later. Drive good, but long (roughly 400 kms) with a few little thunder storms and the normal fun with roadworks and trucks….
Singing Wells – Origins News
…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.’ We have developed a three year plan to record a wide selection of important…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…ul Music’s founder, arrives at the Fairview to meet us. He’s made the last minute arrangements for my flight to Kigali today, 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…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…med 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/-/djb5mf/-/index.html Phot…