What people say about Singing Wells News
…ut of poverty. The film (in advanced post-production) accompanies a book by award winning journalist Roger Thurow and is designed to amplify his ongoing world hunger activism. We are in need of great music that compliments the project and would love to open a dialogue with you about it. I really love the work that you are doing and sincerely hope a possibility for collaboration exists.” …
Group of the Month – Watmon Cultural Group News
…ru and at the Entebbe Airport Guesthouse, where due to the generosity and patience of the manager Jan Willem and the other guests, we set up a recording studio in the garden. You can join us on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/singingwells and on Twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/singingwells – if you do tweet any links, please use the hashtags – #gotm and #singingwells We’ll update this page with any new items we add to the site over th…
The Singing Wells supports Ketebul Music’s ‘Kenya at 50’ project News
…was involved less in music and his business interests widened to include that of the Photo Me franchise in Kenya. His daily diaries between the years of 1970 and 2003 are comprehensively written and prove and interesting insight into life in Nairobi at this time. His diary writings tail off towards the end of his life. He died in Nairobi, on the 24th January 2004, aged 84. Colmore was a keen photographer and as his diaries and the archive show – h…
Alice’s story Story
…ief Agency (ADRA), an NGO supporting the Batwa, decided to sponsor a group of Batwa children to study at Mabuyemeru School. Alice was chosen as one of those children. ADRA then continued to sponsor her through her first year at secondary school. Another NGO, the Bwindi and Mgahinga Impenetrable Forest Conservation Trust, then supported Alice to the end of Senior 4. During her A Level studies she was supported initially by UOBDU and then ADRA once…
The Beat of Kenya News
…rument called the litungu (Luo). Click here to go to Andrea’s blog : The Beat of Kenya Andrea Dyck, Curator of Contemporary Cultures, The Manitoba Museum Andrea Dyck received her Master’s Degree in History from the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, where her research focused on immigration and ethno-religious history. Andrea is responsible for research, collections, and exhibit development related to newcomers to Manitoba from…
Listen to more ‘Influences’ tracks from Singing Wells News
…nging Wells field trio to Uganda in November 2011. She is from the Mperwa Batwa community, a small settlement of families just outside Kisoro. Read our report from the trip here. This next track is called Amahoro – a Batwa song from the Birara Dancers of Kisoro, accompanied here by Jesse Bukinda on guitar and Winyo on vocals. This track was recorded live at the Traveller’s Rest Hotel in Kisoro, Uganda. This is a track from ‘Tiny Moses’ who is also…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…y music career was dancing on a hill in Uganda with Jovah from the Mperwa Batwa community. She has one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard. For me, Singing Wells is 100% about inspiration – I am in awe of the talent we find.’ And finally the origins of our project name. We often get asked why we have called our project ‘Singing Wells’. The inspiration for the name comes from the real-life singing wells of the Samburu tribes people. During…
Day 10: File Management at Ketebul Studios Story
…Tabu has final interviews with musicians We all agree next steps in terms of updating all our trip reports We have a final session on our learnings, positive and negative. On the last topic, here are our reflections on our management of things (elsewhere we will talk about the music, as we did with Tabu yesterday), where we drew 5 main lessons on this trip: Agree the ‘must do’ instruments/song styles at the beginning of trip planning and then mak…
Meet our ‘Influences’ artists News
…c name ‘Winyo’, which is a Luo word (a tribe from the Lake Victoria region of Western Kenya) for “a bird”. The reason for this becomes apparent once you hear him sing. His voice has been likened to that of a singing bird. He is a singer/songwriter of great sensitivity and an acoustic guitar player, backed by his 5-piece band of accomplished musicians. Winyo derives his music and musical strength from his fore fathers whose African music was rich i…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…o ‘Apple’ by Bigtym and ‘Guns & Bomb’ by Bebecool.. Odika Constantine, son of Watmon, is in his 30s. He was abducted by the LRA from his home in Kitgum District when he was just 17. He was held as a soldier in the bush for 6 months until he managed to escape. He described the day it happened: 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…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…pot hole the size of Rhode Island), with equipment going through 1.5 gigs of data A DAY. Second, we need an exact record of the day, linking files to songs and songs to groups and groups to sites and sites to days. We average about 20 songs a site and just over 1.5 sites per day. Just getting the right spelling on to a clapper board of a song and getting that recorded elsewhere against a take list takes time to master. Third, we then need to very…
How music archives can help communities News
…nd stylistic traditions of old. The Klaus Wachsmann collection is being repatriated to Uganda at the Makerere University in Kampala. The curator of the music archive is Dr. Sylvia Antonia Nannyonga-Tamusuza who we will be meeting while we are in Uganda next week. Click here to link to the Klaus Wachsmann Music Archive. References Ethnomusicology in East Africa: Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond Published in 2012 by Fountain Publishers, Kampala…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…s a result of a platform developed by Harvard University. WorldMap is a great platform for a project like this for several reasons. It is free and open source which means any researcher can work with the source code to extend and improve its functionality, so it is constantly developing and improving. It’s also web-based so it’s easy to access and share, which is exactly what we want in order to carry on building the Singing Wells community. Rosie…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…In Egypt (particularly around the valley) you can find many instruments that date back over 5000 years, many, like the nyatiti, are also found in Egyptian hieroglyphs (right). The Luo people are related to the Acholi people of Uganda, a tribe we will come across in our next field visit. They play a similar instrument called the Adungu. Style: As music is mainly functional for the Luo, traditionally a nyatiti player is called upon to play at weddi…
Lango Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…y used to live along with the Jie and the Karimojong. This means, by implication, that the Langi are also related to Dodoth, Lotuko, Topsa, and Turkana of Kenya. Together with the Iteso, Kumam and Karimojong, they comprise the Atekerin family in Uganda. Customs: The Lango have a cultural distaste for witchcraft, and a strong work ethic. They live in small groups, and recognise no tribal chief, except those chosen to defend the common interest in t…
Lugbara Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…an are descendants from the first creatures put on earth by spirit (the creator of men). Spirit created a man (gboro-gboro) and a woman (meme), and then domestic livestock. Meme had wild animals in her womb so that after the gazelle had broken out all animals followed from her womb. Man was the last to come out. The first human beings are said to have been twins: Arube and O’duu. Arube was a boy while O’duu was a girl. These twins, unlike their pa…