An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…with his father’s group and then he founded this group in 2007. They use a number of styles, most notably Sengenya, which we covered fully in our March 2011 field recordings in Malindi. We interviewed Swalhe Mwatela Massai and his grandson, Ali Tungwa : Q to the grandfather: In contrast to Uganda, we have seen many villages in Kenya where the traditional music is only played by the older generation. And yet your group is so young and vibrant. Ho…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…pulled over to change it. Front right to begin our journey 6 hours and 17 minutes ago and now back left. And we are nowhere near Kampala and estimate another four hours journey. You, dear reader, will suffer as we will now tell you even more about file management. So here’s a typically day of ‘file management.’ Nick starts by going ‘audio’ and Andy or Steve answers “rolling.” Then for some reason, due to Patrick’s strange way of talking, Nick the…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…a Band at the Soroti Hotel and he led us to his village, Obuell-Lira, a 30 minute drive down rich clay roads. On the way, Joshua told us about the history of the group, which was founded in 1982. The group and its song Uganda Land of Freedom is legendary in the Teso region (the name for the collection of villages around us). Joshua While you read the rest of this, why don’t you play the Magic Moment of the band as a good soundtrack to their story?…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…life is happening on the shoulder in pitch dark only to be revealed at the last second – roadside picnics, car repairs, haggling about goats, egg selling, drunken fighting and weaving… The only light is your own head lamp, which in the darkness can only seek out objects within a 8 foot range. Your driver always hates the night road and therefore drives REALLY fast to reach out next destination. We like day roads. Now on to markets. Every little to…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – night recording at Fort Murchison Story
Well, this was different. After driving late at night last night, we met and realized we couldn’t record in Pakwach in the morning and Lira by the afternoon. So with a little scrambling we managed to invite our second group of the day, Cieng Dwong, to travel to us from their village Alebtong. All well and good, but our poor travelers didn’t arrive with us until about 1900, by which time it was pretty dark – okay, very dark. The good news is we ha…
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
…gains and the record levels. We then name our audio files so that the take numbers continue from the last performance. We are careful that each take has its unique and concurrent take number on the off chance that audio files become separated from their record location. This way we can always work out exactly where each audio file has been recorded and when. At the end of the day it is important to backup the files. Each night, back at our accommo…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…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 goats tethered near…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…s possible about the tribal and musical structure of East Africa. Over the last few months The Abubilla Music Foundation worked with Tati Kalveks and Rosie Balfour-Lynn to do this research. It was directed using WorldMap, an interesting way of visually displaying data. Here is a shot of the map below, the highlighted regions are the areas in which layers of information have been embedded. When accessing the map, this is what your screen would look…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…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 and did a paper on drumming in Ghana. So Vicki switched sea…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
During our trip to Kisoro Uganda last year, we realised something – the musicians we were discovering were often so good, we needed to bring them back to the Nairobi studio. That led to 10 Batwa musicians and 5 Batwa babies travelling from Kisoro to Kampala to Nairobi and recording some great songs over the course of four days. We now want to repeat this for every field visit and decided to invite the Otacho Young Stars, the great find of our fie…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…irobi. That brings to six the total Singing Wells Equator crossings in the last 12 weeks. Arrival We arrived in Nairobi safe and sound at about 10pm, having survived the wonderful horrors of the road. We actually breezed through a traffic free Nairobi, although Tabu was at war with the GPS and decided to go his own way. The GPS, which had served us well for 1,000Kms, was not happy and yelled at us for the last 6 kms. Singing Wells team 8th March 2…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…t manager about why so many people travel all this way to train on the red dirt roads around Iten. She answered: “First, the altitude (roughly 2300 meters) is perfect – right at the peak of natural altitude where you can still train hard, but so high that the lungs are pushed to the limit. Second, for such high altitudes, the weather is great and allows year round training. Few places at this altitude allow year round training. Third, Iten is all…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…and down, but we imagine there were a lot of prayers said during those 20 minutes up and down! Second event: we are up on a hill with 360 degree views – a patchwork of little farms, with no electricity, no water and little exposure to the modern world. And Andy back in the UK call Steve on Skype and we have a video call. Moreover, we put Andy (the laptop) in the middle of one of the tribal groups and – get ready – he plays guitar to the song and…
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…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…ru and Eldoret on the way. Last night, we agreed a late fee of 1,000 bob a minute for anyone arriving at the studio after 9 am. Money talks and the whole crew were there by 09.00. Everyone. That‘s the good news. The bad news was no one brought a key for the studio, forcing Tabu to have to drive home and back. We left an hour later. Drive good, but long (roughly 400 kms) with a few little thunder storms and the normal fun with roadworks and trucks….