The Boy with the Headphones Story
…oys who were intrigued with all our recording equipment. Andy invited them to listen to a playback of one of the songs through his headphones and this particular boy overcame his shyness to have give it a try. We could see how hard life is for the Batwa, living on small pieces of borrowed land on the fringes of society but the performance of the Mperwa Dancers did not portray this – it was full of pride and happiness. Once again, we witnessed ho…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…t will soon die out, leaving videos and songs in the archives. We also had to work to make this music relevant and important to contemporary artists. A key part of a field visit, therefore, is to bring contemporary African musicians with us to perform with the tribal groups and to write new music influenced by these sessions. Winyo, a wonderful singer/songwriter with Ketebul Music, is one of our Influences artists and has been with us on three Sin…
Day 10: File Management at Ketebul Studios Story
…for videos. The ‘field’ audio becomes the input recording for videos (they need to be topped and tailed but no other editing) – we then will go back and do more detailed mixes on audio that we want to include in DVD’s and CD’s. This allows for much faster uploading of videos. That’s it. Onward and upward…. reflections to follow. And thanks as always to Priscah for making Ketebul Studios such a wonderful home for Singing Wells… Jimmy (Ketebul Studi…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…nting: Drove 8 minutes to Airport. About 600 meters outside airport we had to stop and all get out of van and go through a metal detector. There was a large sign telling us not to bring in pistols and rifles. The van was then searched. At airport, we had to unload bags at departures, take them by trolly to bottom of stairs. Take all bags up the stairs. Find new trolly and proceed to next stage. All this would be fairly straightforward except we ha…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…oo short to further advance this Batwa talent to higher levels, there is a need to extend the project even to other communities who shows interest. These promoted groups lack dancing costumes (uniform) and equipment which would make it more unique and attractive. Due to this challenge, UOBDU had to purchase a few musical instruments (Drum and dancing bells) for Kanyabukungu group who danced for the Prime Minister of Uganda. Dancing costumes and tr…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…ened: the rebels arrived to his village and asked him to show them the way to town. In a way this was a blessing, because his family was saved (often, on abduction, the rest of the child’s family would be killed, so they’d feel angry, distant and unable to return home). Once they arrived at the town they wouldn’t let Odika go and it was clear he was a prisoner. He only managed to escape once the rebels believed he was one of them, and stopped watc…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…kum, not far from Gulu up in Northern Uganda, and moved down to Kampala during the war. We love the instrument they played, the Nanga (below) so much we asked if they would join us in Entebbe to record more songs with Akello. We asked them to come with us to our next stop: our hotel in Entebbe, purely because we were desperate to have more time with the stunning musicians we met in the city. During the two hour drive to Entebbe we talked with Watm…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…he weaknesses of 1 and 2’s position). We even sorted out after a while how to stop the groups from starting the song while our poor clapper board person (Nick) was still running from the shot. Third, we then had to sort out interviews and research. We’re really good now at doing interviews on songs, villages and groups and supporting that with research. This all sounds like pretty basic things and we agree. But imagine arriving at a village that h…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…ouldn’t be jealous or worried – he remains part of the village, but others need to hear his music. It is now almost midnight and we’ve recorded some fantastic music. The hotel restaurants are closed again, so we will be taking this group out for some food and then open up the studio tomorrow for the last day of this trip. We have asked the leader and his grandson back tomorrow for more discussions given they represent exactly what Singing Wells is…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…their website under the ‘ATTA Likes’ banner! Thank you ATTA – we will keep you posted on our travels in East Africa with news, photos and wonderful music! Victoria…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…st Hotel in Kisoro, Uganda!) We can also combine the two recording units into one to increase the number of inputs, while still working off battery power. The laptops use Avid ProTools recording software – an industry standard for recording and music production. The microphones we have chosen are industry standard models used in studios the world over but, most likely, not seen in the villages of East Africa. The equipment has been carefully selec…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…e to someone coming to this field of study for the first time – they don’t need to know where all of the tribes in East Africa are to understand the general distribution of musical styles or instruments, anyone can relate 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…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…us stages of manufacturer (either drying or firing), pyramids of potatoes, tomatoes on patches of blankets under trees, tiny goats tethered near the road side to pick at a fresh patch of grass, bike rider riding with small loads or walking their bikes with large loads (this trips winner was a large door, but fails miserably to our Rift Valley coffin), bed frames in all shapes and sizes gathered in front of workshops, big steel gates leaning agains…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…that they find it so rare for someone to essentially do his job that they need to write a song. Johnnie, Bishop and Eddie all joined in to support them in the studio with Winyo and Nina working on back up vocals. They were a huge amount of fun, smiling throughout it all. Other than recording, we continued to blog our little hearts out, write up trip reports, strategies, lessons learned, etc… The good news is we have now fully planned out field vi…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…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 (recorded for Singing Wells in Kisumu, Lake V…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…t will soon die out, leaving videos and songs in the archives. We also had to work to make this music relevant and important to contemporary artists. A key part of a field visit, therefore, is to bring contemporary African musicians with us to perform with the tribal groups and to write new music influenced by these sessions. Winyo, a wonderful singer/songwriter with Ketebul Music, is one of our Influences artists and has been with us on three Sin…