Reporting back on recording trip to Kisoro, SW Uganda News
…s message from Henry Neza, UOBDU Capacity Building Officer and our liaison contact with the Batwa communities while we were in Kisoro. Dear Victoria, The Batwa of Kisoro as a result of your visit felt an international belonging and recognition. Through the generation of money by the Abubilla Music team to the Batwa who performed their cultural dance, the Batwa managed to acquire things like goats, clothes, seeds, utensils, beddings and tarpaulins/…
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…
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…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ation, however. Generally good, paved roads, with a painted lines down the center and plenty of space for bikes, cows and children to wander on the shoulder. The big horrible trucks that have haunted us in trips past were rare and passing was generally safe. Still, each of the cars counted about 5 ‘brushes with death’, any one of which would be a lifetime of stories for London. We drove. We ate our packed lunch. We drove. We drove. And we raced fa…
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…
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…
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
…t 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 private van from Kisoro to Kampala, arriving in Kampala the same evening. They spent the night in Kampala and left the morning of the 1st of December and arrived in Nairobi in the afternoon of the second. ‘They’ were five lad…
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 & the Diamond Jubilee song News
…nal stringed instrument called the nyatiti. We are delighted that Gary did contact Ayub and that he features on ‘Sing’ written especially for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee: It was great to see an article about our involvement on Take That Daily, a fan website for all things related to Take That and Gary Barlow. Click here to go to the article. Our post from March 23rd 2012 Our friends at the Kenya Tourist Board UK & Ireland have added a feature…
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…
Interview with Fifty Cows – fixer for Singing Wells News
…ing the recording of the Kalenjin tribes in March 2012. He was our liaison contact with the music groups. Kathy interviewed him – here is his story… The Interview Fifty Cows is a Merekwet, part of the Kalenjin tribes. He organised for us to see singers from the Merekwet, Pokot and Tugen tribes. These are all sub-tribes of the Kalenjin. He was born in 1976 and grew up in a Merekwet village. His father was Merekwet and his mother was Pokot. Hi…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…n music. Bado’s music is great, propelled by his wonderful voice, but it’s American-sounding and could have been produced in LA. We asked him to do a song and he started singing one of his about a guy essentially asking a girl to be his… very urban hip hop and something you’d find in most major cities. Tabu suggested that his dad join him and in traditional voice act as the girl’s father warning her of the danger of seduction. Winyo joined to cont…
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…ecessary expertise and equipment to do full field recordings (up to 8 microphones and 3 digital cameras) throughout East Africa. PROJECT BENEFITS TO EAST AFRICA : We are on a journey. When we started, we knew the critical importance of capturing the cultural legacy of East Africa with tribal music, before it was lost to all of us forever. We were reminded of the importance of this in December, when one of the most extraordinary musicians we’ve rec…