We’re discovering the lost music of the Ugandan Kingdoms News
…n read on our Field Reports section. Including: Some background and the beginning of our journey to discover the lost royal drums of the Buganda Kingdom Context on the Entenga royal drums we’ve been searching for The story of Musisi – a drummer from the royal palaces and the fall of the Buganda Kingdom Some information on the progress of the Bigwala trumpets – an instrument we restored on a previous field trip Interviews with the palace players an…
Central Uganda: Day 0 – Nairobi/London to Entebbe Story
…inks (we had charmed some flight attendants on the plane to contribute to Singing Wells with a few whiskeys). Most of us then went to bed for the night, deciding to have one final evening free of our London friends. Patrick, however, woke up in time to be a ‘greeting party’ to the London arrivals. Message from Abubilla Music Foundation Team Representing the AMF are Jimmy Allen (Founder), sound engineer Andy Patterson and Vicki Denison, charity adm…
Singing Wells surpasses 500,000 YouTube hits! News
We’re delighted to announce that this morning Singing Well’s YouTube channel surpassed half a million views. Since 2011, we’ve been sharing our work discovering, recording, archiving and celebrating the traditional music of East Africa on this channel and we couldn’t be more grateful for your support. Our YouTube channe l features videos from our trips across Kenya and Uganda, including visiting the tribes of the Kenyan Coast, Central and Eastern…
Sponsor a Singing Wells recording session News
…the traditional music of East Africa to take place in November 2015. Our Singing Wells trips generally last about 10 days, depending on how much ground we’re trying to cover. We also organise a pre-trip ‘recce’ where a smaller team visits the country/ region in advance to pre-record groups, identify key talent and make all the preparations to ensure we don’t waste a moment on the full trip later in the year. You can find out more about our field…
From the streets of Kisoro Uganda to a professional recording session… Story
…Tiny Moses, backed by Winyo, plays guitar and sings in the Ketebul Studios in Nairobi. We discovered Tiny Moses during our visit to Kisoro Uganda to record the Batwa trips. Along with Francis and his wives and Jovah, we brought Tiny Moses and his team back to Nairobi to record them in a professional studio. Johnny and Bishop, on guitar and bass respectfully, joined Winyo to help Tiny Moses. Go here to listen to the result. …
Singing Wells discovers ‘the voice’ Story
… This is Jovah Nyiramajoro. She is the leader of the Mperwa Dancers – the music group of the small community of Mperwa Batwa living on the outskirts of Kisoro, SW Uganda. She is a beautiful woman, full of joy and passion for the traditional music of her fellow Batwa tribes people. But wait until you hear her beautiful voice – we were blown away……..
Ten More Singing Wells Stories News
…I just couldn’t help telling stories. And I told her the one sad fact of Singing Wells – we have at least 250 stories, one for every video of a performance, and yet we are miserable at getting these stories out to folks. But we will keep trying… Here’s a few of the 250 stories – pull up a chair: The Batwa: Providing a Soundtrack to the Costs of ‘Simple Solutions’ The Batwa are a forest people living in the dense forests along the base of the Viru…
Hitching a ride Story
…Looks like a good way to get along…….
The story of Anyim Lac Story
…s’ the adungu with her chin to change the note. She would start each song singing and playing the adungu and gradually the four other women would and the flutist would join in. During the first song we noticed an immediate problem – no one could hear her or the other women, they sang so softly and the single stringed adungu produced an eerily quite sound. We didn’t want to interrupt their performance but we knew we had discovered something very sp…
Current Leading Figures News
…funding for music related/cultural projects? Do you feel people generally in Uganda understand the importance of such projects? His reply was striking… “The African problem has been seen to be economic & political rather than cultural by our leaders, partners, the UN name it. They focus support on health, military, roads etc and all development support is placed in hands of politicians who do not share values with their predominantly rural popula…
Amone Watmon Matthew Story
…he calabash walked in from the right hand side of our ‘stage’ dancing and singing. We recorded two tracks in this lineup. He then began to perform on a stringed instrument, while singing along, in close rhythm with another player and a third playing simple percussion on a calabash. We made a decision very quickly to invite the musicians back to our hotel to record further. We made the journey back to the Airport Guesthouse in Entebbe, with the mus…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in Ethnomusicology that include training in performance of African music. Diane Thram became Director in 2005 and, under her leadership, an online listening library has been created, in line with the cutting edge of content access, to allow anyone to listen to Hugh Tracey’s recordings, with work currently being done to also make the Dave Dargie and Andrew Tracey Collections available for online access. There…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…no-musicologist, sound recordist, archivist, performer, dynamic and entertaining lecturer, record producer, photographer and author.’ As he was so broadly accomplished, he was involved in every aspect of the recording and archiving process of his music, which he gathered from across the world; beginning in the Middle East in 1966 and spreading through North and East African from 1969 till 1975. He later went on to record across the Pacific Ocean f…
Tracey Instrument Collection News
…bling us to give you a wider insight into the traditional instruments used in Ugandan folk music. Here at Singing Wells, we have already began building up our own collection, purchasing and bringing them back to our studio in England whenever we can, and have been providing profiles for those we come across on our travels on the Instrument section of our website. ILAM houses the extensive instrument collection owned by the Tracey family, who have…
ILAM, Repatriation and Jimmie Rodgers/Chemirocha News
…record left behind in their village by missionaries. We recorded the Kalenjin in 2012. Jimmie Rodgers, was, of course, a famous American country music singer in the 20’s and 30’s. This teaches us several things: All music is inspired by all music: everyday in Singing Wells, we have to remind ourselves that as we record traditional music, we are listening to music that reflects dozens of influences on village life, from rites of passage that trace…
Promotion of Batwa Culture/Music: UOBDU report Nov 2013 News
…e same Batwa groups received dancing costumes and instruments from the remaining funds on the budget which UOBDU had previously been granted by Abubilla. The Batwa beneficiaries include Mikingo, Birara, Gatera, Mperwa, Kanyabukungu and Kabahenda . Therefore this report indicates the procedures used by UOBDU tourism committee that executed the work of purchase and designing the costumes and instruments for all the six groups. On 7th January 2013 th…