Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…The Music Elimu Cultural Promoters Our first group was the Elimu Cultural Promoters from the Tugan tribe. They are a collection of women from little villages scattered around the Kabarnet area and they want to promote good values of culture and education. They were all dressed in brown, almost terracotta, outfits looking like the red clay we love so much. They make all their own costumes and sew on all their own beadwork. They wear a belt of 5 ro…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…dship, food and alcoholic drinks are served during this ceremony. Only the best dancers will get partners, so there is a lot of competition during the dancing. Now it is performed during weddings and learnt at school: 4. We will then record a group performing the Dingidingi, usually performed by the young girls of the Acholi, and their movements are meant to imitate birds. The girls dance to attract the young boys, so the dance is usually held on…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…e River Nile and where the tribe originated from. They came from Israel to Egypt along the Nile to the Sudan. This occurred in the 18th century. The women have white dots on their arms and faces representing the soil and harvest. The white paint comes from a special kind of soil and only one person in the tribe keeps this soil as the custodian. Their aprons are made out of goat or cow hide and signify prayers and blessings to the rain the river th…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…n nomadic tribes is about the dance/vocals not the instruments, because at best you could carry a horn during your endless movement. Sila Dancers Lomut Traditional Dancers This groups walked 120 kms from their town in Lamut. They were a younger group, tall and thin, divided between male and female dancers. They performed explosive short dances, each with a clear story dramatically acted out. They were dressed in striking blue costumes. We recorded…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…iet, a guitarist with a wonderful acoustic guitar with a lot of miles. His best song was ‘Sigerer’. Kathy interviewed him about all his songs and this is a classic (to go to Kathy’s Blog on Songs from Day 1, click here). Sigerer tells the story of two bulls in Teriet’s family that we were stolen and taken to Uganda. The family dog was able to follow the scent and led a posse of 20 armed men 75kms to a butchers where sadly one bull had been killed….
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…esse on piano at the Ketebul Music studios This track is also on our album Best of Singing Wells 2011 Jovah – Ye Warararaye by singingwells We asked Pato whether he always knew he would be involved in music. “No, but from high school I knew I was going to be working on videos. And music is my life. I started listening to Joseph Kamaru when I was growing up in the Ngara Estate, another part of Nairobi. He was the biggest Kikuyu artist around and wo…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…inents. Tabu Osusa founded Ketebul Music in 2007 with a goal to record and promote traditional East African music. Tabu laments the fact that the music heritage of the region is being eroded. He says, ‘For reasons I can’t fully explain, contemporary East African music has lost touch with its tribal roots. Our most popular musicians find far more inspiration in western music than they do with East African music. I worry about this. As a people, we…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…odd gifts. In the end I gave everything to Alice, asking her to decide how best to distribute things, suggesting one of the schools in Kisoro perhaps. Our session with the Birara had extended longer than we anticipated so when we arrived at the next community we were too late to start recording. Instead, we headed back to the Traveller’s Rest for a late afternoon recording session with Francis and the Birara lead vocalists who had joined us on the…
How to Map 1: Housekeeping News
…sed to be following and it loses the data. It’s remediable, but a pain, so best to avoid doing that. The point of all this is: keep your GIS folders and files obsessively well organised, and keep them all on the C: drive. When this is applicable later I’ll mention it so you remember. A note about shapefiles I just mentioned shapefiles and seeing as they’re what we’ll be using for the whole of this process, I think I should explain myself. Initiall…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…e here to focus on the Nyatiti, the core Luo instrument – as played by the best players it is a bass, drum and rhythm guitar combined. And we saw some of the best players. We want to remind you first of what a Nyatiti looks like and also of it’s beautifully haunting sound, played by the most famous Nyatiti players of all time, Ayub Ogado; here he is with Kothbiro: The Music Groups We saw three groups: two Nyatiti groups sandwiching…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…Michele’. Age: 26 months. Favourite food: chips (they all loved chips the best). Favourite game: Chasing her brother down the hill. Last Memory: Seeing her Mother hacked to death. Cause of Death: Smashed against a wall. There are about two dozen cubicles. Two dozen Micheles. Each story as horrible as the one before. As you can imagine, we boarded our flight to Nairobi somberly. We reflected on all the people we met on the long drives through Rwan…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…w leave for Nairobi again and then, on Sunday, travel to Western Kenya for the next series of villages and more music. All the best The Singing Wells Team…
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…ted, and ready to call it a day. Just in time to be shocked by the world’s best bassist.. We opened the ‘Hotel Studio’ for the Kisoro Hill Community who started with wonderful dance and song. But then, they switched gears and set up a smaller group of ‘bass’ and guitar and absolutely blew us away… They started as wonderful large group moving through a set of songs, including ‘Imparake Yagahinga’, the National Park song, which is a staple of the Ba…
Christine Kamau – “The Jazzist” News
…ge of support from Afro-Jazz trumpeter and composer, Christine Kamau….. Hello Victoria! Thanks for getting in touch! I have checked out you project…it’s great that you are dedicated to keeping indigenous music alive..#very best wishes and I hope we can keep in touch. Christine BBC Africa Beats: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17831507 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thejazzist Reverbnation: https://www.reverbnation.com/christi…
Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…s’ sessions with her. Until the music is ready, with think this village is best described through pictures: We arrived, greeted by lots of men and boys going back and forth to market, including this chap (later we’ll write on a blog on all the things folks carried on their head and bikes). And there’s always the wonderful backdrop of the Virunga Mountains. And the inevitable narrow path leading up to the village…. And after a relatively short cl…
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…ble to take the studio to them, working in their environment to capture as best we can the music and dance of their community. It is important to note that these sessions are incredibly important to these communities. It is no exaggeration to say that most of them live to dance, live to sing. When we come to record them, we come to honour them, to listen to them as they tell their stories. But that is not enough. We said when we started this proje…