Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…s, but we were waved through and no money changed hands. We arrived at the Traveller’s Rest in Kisoro at 7pm. Unfortunately, due to my last minute travel plans, there was ‘no room at the inn’ for me that night so I would spend my second night in Africa on my own at the Kisoro Tourist Hotel just down the road! TUESDAY The alarm goes off at 6.15am. I slept relatively well despite the torrential rain and a random text from the UK arriving at 5am to w…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…ble to contact all the singers on the 29th of November and he arranged all travel papers by the 30th. They then left the morning of the 30th and travelled by private van from Kisoro to Kampala, arriving in Kampala the same evening. They spent the night in Kampala and left the morning of the 1st of December and arrived in Nairobi in the afternoon of the second. ‘They’ were five ladies and five babies and three men, plus Henry. 14 people drove for r…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…logs and post ‘excerpts’ on Soundcloud. We took the time to reflect on our travels so far. Ten observations: The Casket. We have travelled about 5,000 kilometres so far on African roads for Singing Wells. And we’ve observed Africans carry just about anything on their heads or their motorbikes – fruit of every type, doors, trees, chickens, etc… Our favourite, however, was to be greeted by a motor bike travelling directly towards us with a funeral c…
The Batwa Trail News
…he Garama Cave and then the sudden singing and dancing, I am still deeply touched. After that in front of a beautiful panorama the singing and dancing continued. I am very happy to have experienced this on my travel and recommend it for all Kisoro visitors. I would be honoured If you use my video on your website. Warmest regards, Ivy Ivy Beccu Antwerp, Belgium Music of the Batwa by Singing Wells …
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…inyo. Here, they put down their track. Not at all phased by the use of headphones and mics, they take everything in there stride, performing a number of takes as the song develops. We start by giving them a simple click to follow the beat but quickly realised that their tempos are far more subtle than this. Francis comes back to set the rhythm with their natural clapping and it suddenly all came together again. Once we have the female vocals recor…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
DAY 4: After 3 days of travel (at least for those of us leaving from London), we were ready to record. And we rewarded with a great day of recording, starting in the morning with the Birara Dancers, led by the legendary Batwa artist, Francis Sembagare. We woke up early and were greeted with this wonderful view from the garden of the Traveller’s Rest Guesthouse: After breakfast our first stop was the office of the United Organisation for Batwa Dev…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…icrophones. This also carries the tripod for Roving Video 1. Cable Bag/Headphones: This is full of all the jacks, mic connects, headphone extenders. There’s a lot of cables. Mega Tripod: This is the bag for Pado’s pride and joy, the mega tripod for Stationary Camera 1. Project Management: How do we now set ourselves up for audio-video recording on site? Again, based on lessons from both the March Pilot and Lake Turkana, here’s the set up: Overall…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…the new Ketebul website and designing Singing Wells. So we then booked the flights to visit the Ketebul team. We met with Guy in UK and then flew down My first time out of Europe. Ngadia met me at airport. I was very nervous and didn’t know what to expect. I could tell there was a lot of poverty – and in UK if you went into poorer neighborhoods, you’d be nervous about everthing. Here it didn’t seem to be an issue at all. It wasn’t easy leaving my…
Kathy’s reflections on her Singing Wells experience News
…indigenous music. On top of the musical side of things they were great to travel with. When things went wrong like our car breaking down or microphones not working, they took it in their stride and came up with solutions. A great bunch of people. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and heard a lot of wonderful music. In particular it was wonderful to see the fusion of old tribal music with contemporary music in the field and in the studio in Nairobi. T…
Interview with Fifty Cows – fixer for Singing Wells News
‘Fifty Cows’ travelled with the Singing Wells project during the recording of the Kalenjin tribes in March 2012. He was our liaison contact with the music groups. Kathy interviewed him – here is his story… The Interview Fifty Cows is a Merekwet, part of the Kalenjin tribes. He organised for us to see singers from the Merekwet, Pokot and Tugen tribes. These are all sub-tribes of the Kalenjin. He was born in 1976 and grew up in a Merekwet vil…
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…rmation Technology. In 2008, he moved down to Nairobi and therefore had to travel back and forth over next couple years to finish his degree in Information Technology. While in Nairobi his first job was a three month internship with AirTel. His goal was to get a white collar job in Nairobi but nothing materialised and he went back to Mirogi to live with his aunt. Nick really loves music – his favourite was a reggae group called Lucky Dube and thei…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…o allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…o go. Jesse one of the studio engineers from ketebul who did not manage to travel with us arrived just as we were about to leave. I quickly helped him check in and off we were to Watamu where we were picking our fixer for the project called Deche. We had sent him on the ground earlier so as to identify the groups we were going to record. After meeting up with Deche we stopped again to pick up Bado the son to Mzee Nyerere wa Konde, singer and group…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…mpromising on sound quality. Mzinga were accompanied by a small wooden xylophone, the marimba. Mzinga After four captivating numbers from Mzinga, we quickly pulled down the set and set off for our second location. The drive would take us to Mombasa,where we would end up in the most interesting set of all so far. Junda. We first drove in to what seemed to be a very busy township with a very steep and treacherous gravel road to drive on. Everyone…
Testing the mobile recording equipment News
…November. Tabu Osusa is putting together the itinerary and the plan is to travel to the coast, near Mombasa, to record the music of the Mijikenda – a Bantu tribe made up of 9 sub-tribes, the most well known being the Giriama and Digo. Music is prolific in these communities and features superb drumming and athletic dancing. Katana Bin Kalama is a contemporary Giriama musician and his song ‘Nilipata Mzungu’ is featured on Ketebul Music’s Spotlight…