73,603 views on YouTube News
…oying what we are all about – bringing the more traditional sounds of East Africa to an enthusiastic audience. Thanks for watching! Our top 3 video hits In third place, this is the Nyerere Wa Konde Music Club from Sita Village, Gede in Kenya’s Malindi District. It was the very first video we uploaded to YouTube following our field visit to the Coast Region to record the music of the Mijikenda tribes. Is second place is a video from our field…
Listen to more ‘Influences’ tracks from Singing Wells News
…fluences series – a fusion of contemporary and traditional music from East Africa. Influences songs This track features Jovah Nyiramajoro performing with Jesse Bukindu at Ketebul Music Studios. We discovered Jovah on the Singing 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…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…ing eroded. He says, ‘For reasons I can’t fully explain, contemporary East African music has lost touch with its tribal roots. Our most popular musicians find far more inspiration in western music than they do with East African music. I worry about this. As a people, we risk losing our deep cultural heritage – the role of traditional music and dance in our lives. And as musicians, we risk becoming undifferentiated. Rather than drawing upon what ma…
Returning to Uganda in Autumn 2013 Story
…nstruments and wonderful dance: Our Love of Ugandan Music and The Pearl of Africa While our mission is to record the music of all of East Africa, we are continually drawn back to Uganda. This will be our third trip and we are convinced we will return again and again. While it is always hard to capture a million images and sounds in a single blog, we’ll try to summarize what keeps bringing us back… The individual voices The collective voices The ex…
Day 9 (AM): Ketebul Studio – Influences session for Cheri Story
…first part of our mission, which is to recording the tribal music of East Africa – in the field and with extraordinary sound and video quality. Our second mission is then to use these visits as inspiration for new artists to write music inspired by their tribal heritage. We now have developed a pattern – each field visit involves about 9 days in the field recording new groups AND then we return to Nairobi to work in the studio with tribal musicia…
Meet our ‘Influences’ artists News
…roductions, which has produced several local TV shows. His goal is to take African music all over the world and enliven people to dance and sing to the sweet and melodic sounds of African songs and music. Winyo’s debut album ‘Benga Blues’ has recently been released. Click here to view on YouTube. Winyo with Mperwa Dancers from Kisoro, Uganda Winyo has joined the Singing Wells team of three recording field trips – Kenya (Coastal Region); SW Uganda…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…s to convey their message of national pride. Here is the video of Pearl of Africa: The last song, which was wholly authentic, was called ‘Africa Na Jembe‘ which talks about the Ugandan’s emphasis on being deserving. The song says that first you must dig in the field before you can eat. The lyric in swahili in the chorus: “tula kula kua jembe” means ” through our work in the field we can eat”. It is based on the traditional ideology that hard work…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…d as we write this, at about 18.44, we are looking at the most spectacular African sunset to our right. We must be heading south right now and we must be being rewarded for bringing the story of Macedonia to you. You’re most welcome. But we digress. A group of us is in file management mode and this is worth a brief discussion (well, mostly because we are driving on the road in pitch black to Kampala and are using this blog to distract ourselves fr…
How music archives can help communities News
…la. 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. Editors: Sylvia Nannyonga-Tamusuza and Thomas Solmon Available in print from African Books Collective: click here …
Singing Wells – The Story So Far News
…ill help give much needed financial support to tribal music groups in East Africa. By supporting these artists, we can help them keep their cultural music traditions alive and give them opportunities to gain a sustainable income from their music. Thank you. Preview our book “Victoria, I’ve just received the Singing Wells Project book. It’s fantastic to see what the project is doing ! Thanks for sharing, Nick” Nick Blazquez, President|Africa, DIA…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…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 seems Nigel liked what I told him! Operations Manager Lina Vaiksnoriene has been in touch and ATTA are now following our progress on our website and Facebook. We are delighted that Singing Wells is featured on th…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…studios the world over but, most likely, not seen in the villages of East Africa. The equipment has been carefully selected so it can easily fit into four rugged peli-cases which protect everything while in transit, whether it be on a plane from Nairobi or in the back of the van on a bumpy track to one of the remote villages we are heading for. We are adding to our equipment lists all of the time as we refine our methods and learn new techniques…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…thern 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 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…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…is open source we were able to use a map of the distribution of tribes in Africa created by a Harvard professor named Suzanne Blier. By using her research we could create a map of only the tribal borders of East Africa, from a layer she had created. Once we had a map that only represented these tribal groups we then attached further information on each tribe to this layer so there would be extra information about each group, anyone can access thi…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…n show a distribution of the Adungu and Nyatiti instruments across Eastern Africa – the Nyatiti is represented in the darker pink, the Adungu in the lighter pink: References: ‘Saharan Vibe’, (2011), ‘Luo Nyatiti Music from Kenya’, Available: http://saharanvibe.blogspot.co.uk/ Blench, Roger. Reconstructing African Music History: Methods and Results, SAFA Conference, 2002 Ruiz, Ana. The Spirit of Ancient Egypt, Algora Publishing, 2001 ‘Anyango Off…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…ibe are part of the Luo people of Uganda, and they migrated to Uganda from Southern Sudan with other Luo peoples along the Nile banks. 2. Next we stay in Murchison Lodge in Pakwach and meet up with ‘The Aynu Traditional Music’ group, (a Lugbara group) ‘Wenipac and ‘Ndara Troupe‘ who will spend a day with us at the Lodge. These groups represent all of the Alur, Lugbara, Acholi, Kakwa, Madi and Kebu tribes! This seems to demonstrate how traditional…