ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…guest at the World Travel Market at Excel and I met representatives from a number of organisations and companies in the travel and tourism industry operating in the East African counties we are visiting during 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 se…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…tu) The Agwara (trumpets) The Adungu (the harp we’ve encountered every day now) The group was formed in 1993 and is professional, touring Kampala and other parts of Uganda, sponsored by NGO’s and typically campaigning for things like HIV Awareness, Cultural preservation, etc… Except for the fact they wear clothes under their animal skins, they work very hard to be as traditional as possible. The performers are picked from the top villages around t…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…with us: 2 Apple 17″ MacBook Pro 2 MOTU Traveler MK3 Audio Interface 4 Headphone amps 8 Sony MDR-V600 headphones 2 Shure mics & stands 2 Rode Lavalier omni-directional mics 2 Rode NTG-1 condenser Shotgun mics 1 Matched Pair of AKG C414 XL Microphones 1 Matched Pair of Rode NT5 Microphones2 Rode professional boom pole 1 K&M telescopic mic stand/boom 1 Canon EOS 7D 1 Canon EOS 60D 1 Canon EOS 5D 1 LED video camera lights 1 Flip HD video camera Think…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…y sang so softly and it was such a big crowd. But we gave her a lapel microphone and put a microphone directly on the Adungu and recorded. Afterwards, when we turned her up in the mix a magical voice and sound emerged – the ancient lady sitting on the blanket in the middle of this village, surrounded by 100’s had a beautiful, strong, pitch perfect voice. Incredible. She sang: Two Man Dong Lakee Cok Mon Alwak Munu Keya Here’s Two Man Dong: https://…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…brought back wonderful feelings of home and of peace – we are in a Uganda now with no wars. We are in Northern Uganda that was ‘rebel’ territory only 12-15 years ago. So many of our songs in Acet were about peace, about calm, about getting back to a good place. Here is a rough translation of a bit of Yang: “Once upon a time, when we were still children, we use to play games and go to the harvest with our parents…” Pajoto Youth Group Quite appropr…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…and festival tradition, in an attempt to rediscover their cultural glory. Now 90% of the Acholi tribe have been moved to displacement camps. Their cultural heritage has become even more important now as their homeland has been taken away. This is particularly prevalent in the documentary ‘War Dance’, which I recommend to any interested. WorldMap has benefitted Singing Wells greatly even leading us to create our own Music Map which archives our…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…to Gulu at around 2PM (yes, we tend to spend a lot of time getting mobile phone cards!) and headed out on a 360 km drive to the town of Gulu in Northern 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…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…ptian lyre. It is traditionally played by the Luo peoples, an ethnic group now situated in Western Kenya, Eastern Uganda and Northern Tanzania. They were originally from the Nile River Valley and migrated down the River Nile to the Lake Victoria region after the Nubian peoples. 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 (righ…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…of styles and from different tribes in Uganda, being the capital city. We know we will visit the Adungu Cultural Troupe however, on the right is an image of one of the players using an Adungu which is a traditional bow harp, taken when Steve and Patrick saw them during the recce for the trip. Below is an image of the Ndere Troupe, who represent the music of the Alur, Acholi, Ateso, Langi, Lugbara, Karamojong and the Batwa (all tribes from the Nort…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…d 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 officially end the ‘field visit.’ Now the hard work begins of producing all the videos……
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…to Nairobi and recording some great songs over the course of four days. We now want to repeat this for every field visit and decided to invite the Otacho Young Stars, the great find of our field visit to record the Luo, and Ben Kisinja, the great Kalenjin musician we recorded earlier this week. Saturday was all about the Otacho Young Stars. Let’s remind you who they are – here are two clips: We focused our recording time on Mr Manager, their quite…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…on steps. We arrived at the bottom of our step, with a canyon still to the right going down another 700 meters or so. Having arrived at the lowest point, marked by a small stream we immediately climbed back up the other side. The second car bites the dust From Karabaret, we travelled to Nakuru and then half of us travelled on in the pitch black to Nairobi. The Nakuru crew, in the white van, was stopped cold by a broken alternator belt. The other c…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…be desired and we bumped and jostled for about 80 kms. The land is tilled now, waiting for a new planting season, so we are surrounded by red. The red roads, the red tilled soil on either side, the red dust filling our eyes and lungs as cars pass us. We have the opportunity to interview Tabu in detail about his ancestry. The only issue was, the more animated he became, the slower we went. So we knew that the more interesting the trip the longer i…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…an influences session. The dancers were already pretty amused by the microphones and the video cameras. But they were far more amused by the computer on a table during their dance, playing guitar. Third key event: we travelled back to Eldoret and are staying at the Eldoret Club. This gave Jimmy time to do detailed interviews with Eddie and Nick. There are separate blogs here, which provide some more observations on what Ketebul Music and and now…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…ood at shouting out takes, despite a lot of abuse from the Camera Crew. We now refer to him as ‘Clapper Man’. The rain We need to talk about the rain. We were completely rained out today. A deluge. We had the tent. We hid under the tent. The tent blew away. Everyone scattered. As we write this we are using blow-dryers to dry very wet equipment. All our “world famous” Singing Wells T-shirts were soaked. All the music groups were soaked. All the cow…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…s for the whole group to perform, singing and dancing in front of ten microphones and three digital cameras.’ Video engineer, Patrick Ondiek, adds, ‘I love producing the final videos and getting phone calls from my friends asking me ‘how did you find these musicians?’ I feel like I’m on the cutting edge of music, bringing these talented musicians to my Nairobi friends.’ We have developed a three year plan to record a wide selection of important…