From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…d our Ugandan driver what he thought of the memorial. He said he now understood how his dad died – he was a Ugandan working in Kigali the day the slaughter happened. He is most likely buried in the mass grave along with 250,000 others. Nairobi: Observations and Reflections Arrived safely in Nairobi late Friday night and had an incredibly quick 20 minute drive from airport to hotel, entirely due to the police closing all the other roads for the Pre…
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…ng. The musician simply ‘beat boxed’ into the pot. And we soon figured out how to mic it (note the green cable). Also, take a look at the shaker in his right hand – a tomato soup can that works as well as any we’ve seen. So, hats off to our wonderful guitarist and his fully home made guitar, with wire strings and frets. And a special thumbs up to the magic bass – a clay pot and a ‘beat boxer’ providing one of the coolest bass lines we’ve ever hear…
Day 5 (PM): The ‘Togetherness Group’ from Kanyabukunga Story
…hich include a Batwa song called ‘Abagyeni Beza’ which is in praise of visitors to the community, telling them that they are beautiful. A lovely song for us to hear! https://youtu.be/MIxv2AOZ7XU https://youtu.be/iYuE_b8lzF8 https://youtu.be/bApTXsrdZ3A https://youtu.be/nh9LxM8OrfE https://youtu.be/CPJ5H7XvdT0 https://youtu.be/qQK5NiF7aSk ‘Abagyeni Beza’ https://youtu.be/7i3F5hPSPg8 The afternoon session wraps up at about 5pm. We say our farewe…
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…’ sessions, where Winyo and other artists work with a sub-set of the tribe to create a new song. This is an altogether different way of recording and something very new and often scary to the tribal artists. They have to wear headphones to hear other instruments we recorded earlier. They have to sing into a mic. Often they are asked not to clap. Often they are asked not to dance while they sing. We do it to focus on sound quality, but we are fully…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…serve the musical legacy of East Africa; we are trying to make it relevant to today’s artists. Our ‘Influences’ sessions seek to demonstrate the extraordinary power of this tribal music in relation to today’s music. Chief Sound Engineer: Commands the audio team and is in charge of input for all sessions and for completing all finished audio for that day. Assistant Engineer: In charge of set up/breakdown of set and assisting Chief Sound Engineer on…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…y of Culture and Alliance Francaise. We picked artists from all over Kenya to create an album. This is first move to culture things. Tabu was on the committee for Spot light and he would go out to select folks for the later recordings but the recording happened at the Go Down Arts Centre. The Spot Light series brought up the whole richness of Kenyan music. Some of the groups were very large, but because of budgets we could only bring a small numbe…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 continued…. Story
…The Group prepares for their performance… Sengenya The most energetic group by far, brought the house down, with wonderful dancing. Led by Munyaka Chimega, they danced in the style of Sengenya (which bears their name). Non-stop dancing, multiple songs and they didn’t want to stop (but we ran out of video!). Fantastic energetic dancers that we’ve only captured on video…. …and all the kids joined in… https://youtu.be/m0eG1EcIpNM The kids By now…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…s. We must also work to make the songs, the heritage, the culture relevant to today’s artists. Part of that mission then is to help create an East African musical identity to rival the South and West African successes. We had a taste of what this could be on March 29th in Sati, when Winyo joined Bado and his father, Nyerere wa Konde, to do a new song. Bado participates in his dad’s group, but separately records his own music. Bado’s music is great…
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…t we called ‘Influences’ sessions, where we work with local tribal artists to create more contempory songs. Read more here. The first video is a good example of us working on ‘preservation’ and the second is a taster of more contemporary music, which we have used for fund raising (they look the same because they share a screen shot, but they are different!) Lake Turkana Cultural Festival, Kenya: The Ketebul Music team travelled to Lake Turkana…
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…s, b) we can bring contemporary artists and traditional musicians together to create wonderful new music and c) we can distribute these recordings through a set of multi-media channels, including our Influences series, to give today’s musicians access to the rich cultural heritage of East Africa. The Singing Wells Project The Singing Wells Project is jointly led by two organisations: Ketebul Music and Abubilla Music, and its sister organisation, t…