Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…y sang so softly and it was such a big crowd. But we gave her a lapel microphone and put a microphone directly on the Adungu and recorded. Afterwards, when we turned her up in the mix a magical voice and sound emerged – the ancient lady sitting on the blanket in the middle of this village, surrounded by 100’s had a beautiful, strong, pitch perfect voice. Incredible. She sang: Two Man Dong Lakee Cok Mon Alwak Munu Keya Here’s Two Man Dong: https://…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…ul (Drums) and then about 8 dancers. It is always a very good sign when we get to record a group of young performers. It means the music is alive and well in the community. Between Pajotu and the Ribbe Ber Drummers, we are confident that music is alive and well in Acet. Here’s Balo Murali: https://youtu.be/psNObM1Qwdc Oriang’ Kinene After a quick ‘magic moment’ with the Ribbe Ber drummers again we then brought on Oriang’ Kinene who sang Dano Lworo…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…then headed off to Gulu at around 2PM (yes, we tend to spend a lot of time getting mobile phone cards!) and headed out on a 360 km drive to the town of Gulu in Northern Uganda. Within minutes we were deeply immersed in the ‘classic’ East African road scene: big tall white bags of coal, with grass helmets, bricks in various stages of manufacturer (either drying or firing), pyramids of potatoes, tomatoes on patches of blankets under trees, tiny goat…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…are most prominent, and, largely, string and wind instruments are played together: Distribution of all string instruments Distribution of all wind instruments What was most difficult about this field of research? Tati handled most of the primary research, and, naturally, this was difficult as information on the subject is fairly scarce and sometimes contradictory. However, the beauty of the map (as with search engines and online…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…Hannah, Andy and Jimmy) all met at Terminal 5 at 0930AM to check in to BA flight 63 to Entebbe. After quick breakfast, we did last minute shopping for essential supplies (alcohol, sunglasses, papers) and then took the train to C57, where we boarded our flight and left pretty much on time. Jimmy sat next to Andrew who lives in Kampala and married to a Uganda woman with whom he’s had a one year old son. He was passionate about West African music an…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…eed of light and transformed the song. He was so good, we decided to put together a magic moment. Watch this space for videos. We recorded right through to 9PM and the ‘northern folks’ rushed to the airport. The Ketebul crew continued to work in the studio, led by Jessie who loves bringing Singing Wells musicians into the studio. Hunter and Jimmy will board our flight at about 11PM and with a 12 midnight wheels up, we will officially end the ‘fiel…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…ll the roads everywhere) and head back. We agreed to take off the belt altogether and get them to Nakuru before dark (with no power they had no lights). They made it. The second jeep soldiered on to Nairobi, trusting our now loved GPS to take us ‘home.’ The Equator We passed the equator four times in this trip – well at least some of us did. The working jeep (which had the flat tire in morning), had just crossed the equator heading home when the f…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…he harvest in December. This is only sung once a year. ‘Chesiben’ : goes together with Kirap as a blessing of the harvest. ‘Chemurwombai’ : this song is about the origin of the Merakwet who came from Israel then to the Nile to the Sudan to Mount Elgon and then to here in the 18th century. ‘Arum’ : goes together with Chemurwombai. ‘Kiseng’ : a blessing and a thanksgiving to us for coming. A welcome blessing in which grass is given as a blessing and…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…, we put Andy (the laptop) in the middle of one of the tribal groups and – get ready – he plays guitar to the song and we complete an influences session. The dancers were already pretty amused by the microphones and the video cameras. But they were far more amused by the computer on a table during their dance, playing guitar. Third key event: we travelled back to Eldoret and are staying at the Eldoret Club. This gave Jimmy time to do detailed inte…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…deo 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 tribal musicians in East Africa. We are recording music in Northern Uganda in Autumn 2012 and then we will trave…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…knew the second it started. I was so glad it started raining and we could get out of there.” [Editor note: we did not include this group in any Singing Wells materials.] So here is Pato’s favourite Singing Wells track – Jovah from the Mperwa Batwa community in Kisoro performing with Jesse 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…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…outs of people in various happy and natural poses. He wants to be sure we are reminded of this terrible time so it won’t happen again. After a busy day of packing, meeting the whole team and getting organised we headed back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow’s long drive North. Kathy Allen Trustee, Abubilla Music Foundation…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…usic documentary. He teamed 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/-/dj…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…all of the counties. Unfortunately I have yet to figure out a smart way of getting those names out of ArcMap and into Excel, so usually I just copy them out. Luckily for you wondermonkeys, if you’re going to be using the UK unicorn distribution data I’ve cooked up or even just the UK for your country, I’ve already done that for you! Click here to get the data. As I mentioned, ArcMap can be tricksy if your data isn’t properly formatted and so on. T…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…gistics of taking a team of 10 to Kisoro and beyond. We have spoken on the phone and emailed many times. It’s good to meet at last. The flight to Kigali makes a stop-over in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi. I suddenly realize that by the end of the day I will have been in four different countries – Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. I am already struggling to believe that I am in East Africa when 24 hours ago I was in South West London and this…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…where your shapefiles are saved is now: C:\How To Map\Country Outlines\UK. Getting your map outline into ArcMap Open ArcMap and select Cancel – you want to create a new map rather than opening an existing one. This will give you the completely blank ArcMap screen. Before we do anything else, we’re going to save our map. Like all your other GIS files it needs to be saved on the C: drive. It’s also a good idea to put it in a folder of its own becaus…