A Tanzanian Effort to Salvage the Music of the Past News
A few years ago we learned about a group in Tanzania who, like Singing Wells, is working to preserve traditional music, but for them the act of preservation is quite literal – the Tanzania Heritage Project is scrambling to digitise reams of reel-to-reel tape recorded between the 1960s and 1980s, which has been literally rotting for decades in the moulding archives of the Tanzanian Broadcasting Corporation. Some has already deteriorated to the poi…
Central Uganda: Day 7 – A Magic Day in Entebbe Story
…their helicopters. This is noisy. We had to shift recording at that point to inside one of the rooms. Hot but quiet. We are also joined by bird noises (loud, but surprisingly they often keep the beat) and an occasional hotel guests that finds it surprising that there is musical recording happening next to their room. We thank them now for their patience with us. It is also important to say that today will be more unstructured. We have one formal…
Central Uganda: Day 5 – Jinja to Kampala Story
…Walusimbi was once the Global Youth Earth Day Ambassador for Africa after winning the Global Youth Earth Day Ambassadors Competition in Marikina-Philipines. Nabayaza Sumaya Baiga: She is a senior member of Nile Beat Artists and is vice president of the cultural association in my university. During her school life she was best dancer in 2007 and 2010 in high school, and best dancer in her university in 2010 and 2011. Musoke Meddy: He is a senior me…
Central Uganda: Day 4 – Jinja Story
…hen of one of our cottage rooms and have the groups either perform on our dining patio or our porch. We had three groups today and the drivers were sent out to round them up from the surrounding areas. The Bigwala Cultural Group One of this group’s primary purposes is to restore the Bigwala, the big Ugandan trumpet, to Ugandan musical culture. According to our local musical expert, James Isabirye, it was close to dead, but a Unesco project has hel…
Discussions with Peter Cooke: ethnomusicologist and Ugandan music expert News
…c. Excitingly, we also learned that Peter knew Musisi, one of the last remaining entenga players from the Buganda Palace, whom we met during our last trip in December 2015. Musisi is now working with James at Kyambogo to implement our entenga restoration scheme to preserve and promote this traditional instrument for future generations. Students practice entenga drum-chime at Kyambogo in 1968 (Musisi is furthest from the camera) Peter’s research in…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…to keep the food away from the lazy wife and the lazy wife would go complaining to the husband. The message in the song is to not wait for everything to be done for you. Paolo Wawanyera: This is someone’s name, meaning Paul, son of Wawanyera. Paul was a chief. He visited certain places and found they had made him party with lots of food and drink. He actually visited his brother in law who was jealous of him as a chief. So he decided to poison hi…
Happy new year from Singing Wells News
…ingdom. 2. We met Musisi and heard his story Musisi is one of the last remaining drummers of the Buganda Kingdom in Uganda. He performed for the King during his time at the Buganda Palace before fleeing in fear when the government arrived to shut the palace down. Here’s is Musisi’s incredible story. 3. We checked in on the preservation of the Bigwala trumpets The Bigwala is a trumpet-style instrument made from gourds. Singing Wells has been suppor…
Central Uganda: Day 1 – From Entebbe to Kidinda Story
…ndinda, we turned right at a trading center and went another 10 kilometers into the fields, to a small village called Kidinda. The Recording Site: The village had one cement single story home, one stable (with a small and very loud cow tucked in the back) and one angry bull tethered to the middle of the grounds. Chickens hung about ready to provide backing vocals. Children began to gather as we un-loaded equipment. Most of them smile widely when o…
We’re discovering the lost music of the Ugandan Kingdoms News
…n read on our Field Reports section. Including: Some background and the beginning of our journey to discover the lost royal drums of the Buganda Kingdom Context on the Entenga royal drums we’ve been searching for The story of Musisi – a drummer from the royal palaces and the fall of the Buganda Kingdom Some information on the progress of the Bigwala trumpets – an instrument we restored on a previous field trip Interviews with the palace players an…
Central Uganda: Day 0 – Nairobi/London to Entebbe Story
…inks (we had charmed some flight attendants on the plane to contribute to Singing Wells with a few whiskeys). Most of us then went to bed for the night, deciding to have one final evening free of our London friends. Patrick, however, woke up in time to be a ‘greeting party’ to the London arrivals. Message from Abubilla Music Foundation Team Representing the AMF are Jimmy Allen (Founder), sound engineer Andy Patterson and Vicki Denison, charity adm…
Singing Wells surpasses 500,000 YouTube hits! News
We’re delighted to announce that this morning Singing Well’s YouTube channel surpassed half a million views. Since 2011, we’ve been sharing our work discovering, recording, archiving and celebrating the traditional music of East Africa on this channel and we couldn’t be more grateful for your support. Our YouTube channe l features videos from our trips across Kenya and Uganda, including visiting the tribes of the Kenyan Coast, Central and Eastern…
Sponsor a Singing Wells recording session News
…, we’re headed for Uganda. We have a jam-packed schedule to keep to: we’re going to be following the story of Uganda’s Royal Instruments, identifying key talent and inviting them back to Nairobi for recording sessions at our partner Ketebul’s studios, and travelling into eastern Uganda to record several tribal groups in the region. Check out our previous work in Uganda. Now we’re looking for sponsors to help fund our important work discovering, pr…
Our Pain, Your Gain.. Story
…We wanted to find a shady spot to record the Sagat Traditional Dancers during our trip to the Rift Valley. But we ended up recording on top of hill in the blazing sun, overlooking the baking country side. But it made for lovely photos….
Deep in thought…. Story
…This was taken on our first Singing Wells trip to the Kenyan Coast in March 2011. Here is the leader of the social leader, deep in thought, as we prepare to record the Zigidigi Cultural Troupe….
Meeting Ketebul: an interview with Tabu News
…ntity. We have great recording material but we don’t get these artists out into the market very well at the moment. We need to look for a platform to promote our stuff, whether it’s online, digital radio, TV – we need to make the music more accessible to all. Why is Singing Wells important? Singing Wells is important because we’re trying to capture our East African heritage. Many of the musicians we record from remote tribes are old and we run the…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
I’m new to Singing Wells and I’ve spent the last few weeks listening to pretty much every song on the site, getting to know the amazing traditional music of East Africa! It was tough to pick, but for my first blog post I thought I’d share my top 5 songs so far. 1. Otacho Young Stars – Amilo Love The Singing Wells team first encountered the Otacho Young Stars group on a trip to record the music of the Luo in Western Kenya in December 2011. They we…