Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…s around bringing artists we’ve ‘discovered’ during a field visit back to Nairobi for some studio recording with professional musicians. We experimented with the Batwa and Otacho Young Stars and we’ll going to take it further this weekend in Nairobi. We think if we can master these while following the ‘rule book’ we will succeed and you will benefit (assuming we survive this road journey. Yes, we are gradually building up a Singing Wells set of “n…
How music archives can help communities News
…rom the forests due to the gorilla conservation project in the mountainous south west region of the country. In particular, Chris played a recording to Jeremiah Bunjagare whose father’s voice had been captured by Cook back in the 60’s. The father had passed away many years before and his native language ‘Rutwa’ was fast dying out. When Bunjagare heard his father’s voice he danced for joy and thanked Kidd for ‘bringing his father back to life’. Lis…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…rywhere, mostly on the side of the road with someone lying beneath them repairing something. In Uganda,, on most of the roads we travelled, there wasn’t a huge problem with ‘passing’ because the roads were not that crowded. Then there are night roads. These are horrible things that will kill you. They are pitch black. They are filled with deep holes that swallow you. They are lined with bikes and motorcycles that fall from the shoulder in front of…
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…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…ics 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 ThinkTank sun screens (for the laptops) Various Canon zoom and fixed lenses Plus at least 9 Sandisk memory cards and 15 portable back-up drives and a lot of leads and cables!…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…etebul gang (Tabu, Nick, Pato, Stevo) woke up very early to get to Nairobi Airport and get approval to export/import all the recording equipment. The AMF team woke up at a more humane time of 8AM for breakfast and a little time with Simba the Locust Killer (rotweiler we previously met at the Travellers Rest in Uganda last year) It was a beautiful morning at the Airport Guest House in Entebbe with pretty flowers and strange guinea fowl pottering ab…
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 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…ganda 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 seats with Jimmy and talked to Andrew about the Singing Wells project for an hour. We then all settled down to watch Ted before landing about 8 hours later in Entebbe. All bags were gratefully recovered and we took a taxi for an 8 minute journey to the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe, where we were greete…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…Patrick saw them during the recce for the trip. Below is an image of the Ndere Troupe, who represent the music of the Alur, Acholi, Ateso, Langi, Lugbara, Karamojong and the Batwa (all tribes from the Northern Nilotic and Luo parts of Uganda), who all managed to travel south to their capital and perform traditional music together. We will then fly back to Nairobi and visit Ketebul music, where we can work on our Influence Series. Read more about…
Lango Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…or “Western Nilotic Group”, and so all of the languages in this area are fairly similar to understand. Origins: Their original homeland was north of Lake Turkana where they used to live along with the Jie and the Karimojong. This means, by implication, that the Langi are also related to Dodoth, Lotuko, Topsa, and Turkana of Kenya. Together with the Iteso, Kumam and Karimojong, they comprise the Atekerin family in Uganda. Customs: The Lango have a…
Lugbara Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…e across a mix of different tribes, including The Lugbara. Location: West-Nile regions of Uganda (we will record them during our fieldtrip in the towns of Arua and Pakwach) Population: Around 900,000 History: They were known in the 19th century as ‘The Naked People’, due to the lacking importance of clothes in their culture. In the early days, the Lugbara were a mainly chiefdom-based community. They did not have kingdoms and kings presiding…
Alur Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…moved with his followers including Lendu and Okebu to the highlands in the west. Nyapiri followed Tiful and traveled along the west bank of the Victoria Nile and finally camped with his followers in an area opposite Pakwach. The Land was not good for grazing and there being no salt licks his cattle began to graze away. One day some of the cows which had disappeared were said to have come back on their own and they had salt licks adhering to their…
Acholi Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…li in Uganda. History: They came to northern Uganda from Bahr el Ghazal in South Sudan. In the late seventeenth century, they developed a socio-hierarchical system, in which communities, or chiefdoms, were run by Rwodi (rulers). They were traditionally hunting communities, whose economies revolved around hunting and breeding livestock. In the British colonial period, the Acoli comprised the majority of manual laborers and military. This damaged th…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…our first session. Interview with Steve Kivutia Steve was born in 1982 in Nairobi but his ‘home’ is the village of Kakamenga; his father moved villages to Moi’s Bridge (names after Kenyan President at the time). He was born in Mata Hospital and sent to Maseno Highschool, graduating in 2000. During school he loved Alpha Blondy, a reggae artist from the Ivory Coast, but also loved Hip Hop. He took a gap year and the joined a university to take compu…
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…