Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…chens closed. Given that we forgo lunch as a rule we find ourselves highly dependent upon night time eating. Just over the sounds of speeding trucks and crashing bikes on the shoulders, you can begin to hear the faint rumblings of our tummies. Two lane nice road ended. Terror returns. Rumbling tummies and thoughts of food recede as desire to live takes over. Our driver has reported we have crossed the Nile. Let us try to explain what that felt lik…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…uces the setup and breakdown time and maximizes the time for recording. We decide on two or three different ‘backdrops’ for the performances and park vehicles in the centre so that we can easily rotate the setup while leaving the back end of the audio equipment setup in place. We have two mobile recording units, each capable of recording from four microphones plus other sources at a high resolution to Apple MacBook Pro laptops. The benefit of the…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…ino Achii: Here’s Laywer: Anyim Lac But sandwiched in between these two wonderful dance bands was something truly special – Anyim Lac. This was a band made up of 5 women and a male flutist. The lead was an ancient and gorgeous woman who sang and played a single string Adugu (shaped like a bow) in a ‘Tik Tik’ style (which means ‘Chin Chin’ because she ‘frets’ the Adugu to change the note with her chin). She would start each song singing and playing…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…hen brought on Oriang’ Kinene who sang Dano Lworo Donce Lobe. Here’s the video for Dano Lworo: …and the video for Donce Lobe: Finally, Andy started our video on ‘We Are All One’ which will be our 2013 Fund Raising song. By this time, as mentioned earlier, we had about 350 or so people around us, so we filmed Andy entering and exiting this rather large ‘Set’ and performing the chorus. Akello and Andy then led the 350 singers through ‘We Are All One…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…ither to make him immune against the charms of his audience or to keep him dependent upon his master. The instrument has a solo character, while it is now often played as an ensemble of instruments (as shown in the videos above), previously a harpist would sit silently during public functions where an ensemble is playing, and then once the orchestra was finished, would strike up and sing his solo, accompanying himself on the harp. The two tallest…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…e Tabla at the speed 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 officia…
Lango Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…ets, and anklets.’ (p. 360). The Lango symbol is Amuka (Rhino). Amuka is independent, strong, and peaceful unless disturbed. References Curley, Richard T. (1973). Elders, Shades, and Women: Ceremonial Change in Longo, Uganda. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Otiso, Kefa M. (2006). Culture and Customs of Uganda. Ohio: Greenwood Press. (Lango at everculture – 2012) Lango – http://www.everyculture.com/Africa-Middle-East/L…
Day 7: In Nairobi – sponsors, blogs and strategy Story
…ions are sometimes in conflict. If we spend too much of our time showing videos of more traditional tribes singing traditional songs, we might turn off the young audience we are trying to attract. Like kids everywhere, they tend to reject their parents’ and grandparents’ music, hoping to discover new music they can uniquely own. If we spent too much of our time showing only the videos of the few groups we think can be fed into more mainstream musi…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…n their faces also represents the soil as with the Sagat. Their songs included: ‘Sinendet’ : this is the name for the grass they wear around their necks. This is used to bless all ceremonies. The song is used as an entrance song. ‘Seen’ : this is the name for a traditional cup in which is put a special honey drink called Kipketin. ‘Cheruto’: this is a lady who is married elsewhere and was given cows as a dowry. She refused the cows which is highly…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…i in Autumn 2013 in time for the celebrations for Kenya’s 50 years since independence. In addition to our field visits, we have developed an online Music Map of East Africa that charts the tribes of the region, their music, their instruments and influences. The map also shows where we have travelled with the Singing Wells project and features audio tracks and videos of the songs and dances that we have recorded along the way. Two final words: infl…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…inspired by US rappers. He joined Ketebul Music in 2006 and built up the video department there. While there, he was exposed to the Spotlight Series. He began to really love tribal music and so when we started developing the Singing Wells project he jumped on it, keen to head up the video recording department . We asked him what he liked most about the project and he gave two answers: “First, I love the exposure to different cultures – even my own…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…n 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/-/djb5mf/-/index.html Photos from Kenya House …
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…el) as your Result Type and number range as your Data Type. When we downloaded the country outline of the UK, we downloaded three shapefiles of different administrative levels, called 0, 1 and 2. Administrative level 0 is the outline of the whole of the UK. Administrative level 1 is the outline of the countries within the UK – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Administrative level 2 is the outline of the counties of those four countri…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…ld with my odd gifts. In the end I gave everything to Alice, asking her to decide how best to distribute things, suggesting one of the schools in Kisoro perhaps. Our session with the Birara had extended longer than we anticipated so when we arrived at the next community we were too late to start recording. Instead, we headed back to the Traveller’s Rest for a late afternoon recording session with Francis and the Birara lead vocalists who had joine…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…iles are to be saved, in this case C:\How To Map. The folder will appear under Folder Connections. You can now go into the folder to add the map outline shapefile to ArcMap. Go into C:\How To Map\Country Outlines\UK. Select the three shapefiles: GBR_adm0, GBR_adm1 and GBR_adm2. The map will now appear in ArcMap. The result You can select the different layers to see the different administrative levels of Great Britain. GBR_adm0: GBR_adm1: GBR_adm2:…
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…turn their noses at us. Our set, below, with recording equipment set up under the bar and the dancers ready to do their stuff… The Kochia Dancers Today is all about dances, so our videos will be much better than still photographs. Let us introduce you to the dancers; here in full glory are the Kochia Dancers who dance in the Ramogi style of dance (ref: for a great article on the Ramogi dance of the Luo, by Helen Odwar, click here): https://youtu….