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
…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…
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…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…elate to a map of the world. Fipa Tribe identified – embedded information shown How did you make Worldmap work for Singing Wells? As Worldmap is open source we were able to use a map of the distribution of tribes in Africa created by a Harvard professor named Suzanne Blier. By using her research we could create a map of only the tribal borders of East Africa, from a layer she had created. Once we had a map that only represented these tribal groups…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…leaning against small trees, live chickens hung upside down by their feet showing how fresh they are for purchase, children gathering in groups of 2 to 5 to wave as we ride past, small groups of young men sitting in chairs beneath large trees greeting us with squinted eyes and ne’er a smile, women of all shapes and sizes on 20 kilometre walks with every household item imaginable on their heads and everywhere the magical colors of green grass again…
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…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…and fell in love with Iwdi Aching, a lovely female vocalist who, he says, showed him that African tribal music didn’t need to be ‘old.’ He feels that Singing Wells is the next part of his musical journey. He talks about it as ‘discovering the source’ and ‘training his ears.’ He pointed out that Francis Sembagare from the Birara Dancers (Music of the Batwa) was closer to Hip Hop than much of today’s music. And he also points out the Joginda Boys (r…
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…
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…
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…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…k the names of the counties. To do this open the map, which is saved at C:\How To Map\How to Map 1, or wherever you put it. Then right-click on GBR_adm2 and select Open Attribute Table. This will open a box with the attribute table in it, which should look like this. The column called NAME_2 contains the names of 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…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…We can see a narrow path winding up the hill. We’re all silently wondering how we’ll get the equipment up that hill. Including the (incredibly heavy) generator. But there’s no choice, and in the light of what we have just witnessed with the old lady we can hardly complain. So we unload and vans and make our way slowly and haltingly up the hill. By the time we reach the top Steve has removed his shoes. The path was muddy and very slippery. With no…