Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…Club, outside Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria. This is the view of Lake Victoria we face in the morning before we set out to the next village, Saiya: As we will do six times on this trip, we pass the equator. We can’t help ourselves: Left to Right: Steve, Winyo (with Bone Guitar), Andy and Tabu. After this shameless tourist stop we head out towards Siaya. We’re still roughly 1 PM on the Lake Victoria clock, 90 minutes NW from Kisumu, but o…
Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…listen to Osumba Rateng and Ogoya Nengo… If you look at a map and think of Lake Victoria as a clock face, the village for today’s recording is at 1PM – it is the Rang’ala Village, home of the legendary Luo singer Ogoya Nengo. We’re about 90 minutes northeast of Kisumu, our ‘base’ for two days. We are here to record the Sega Sega Band (Benga Style) and the Do Do Band (Do Do), both Luo musical styles; the Luo are Kenya’s third largest tribe, making…
Music of the Kalenjin: video playlist News
…y of the legendary Kenyan long distance runners are Kalenjins, including Kipchoge Keino, chairman of the Kenyan Olympic Committee and the first African to win an Olympic gold medal (Mexico City 1968 in the 1500m). Video playlist The trip was facilitated by the generous support of donors to our charity the Abubilla Music Foundation. …
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…he music of the Luo in the Nyanza province in the west of the country near Lake Victoria. We want the focus of these blogs to be about the music. So we’ll keep travel updates to the minimum. In this blog we combine all the fun of travelling from Kisoro back to Nairobi and from Nairobi to Kisumu. Kisoro to Nairobi: Passport Control, Genocide Memorial and Planes We left the Traveller’s Rest at 6.30 AM (we told the boys 5:30AM to ensure promptness –…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…inyo. Here, they put down their track. Not at all phased by the use of headphones and mics, they take everything in there stride, performing a number of takes as the song develops. We start by giving them a simple click to follow the beat but quickly realised that their tempos are far more subtle than this. Francis comes back to set the rhythm with their natural clapping and it suddenly all came together again. Once we have the female vocals recor…
The Batwa Trail News
…rchison Falls, Kibale Forest National Park, Queen Elisabeth National Park, Lake Bunyonyi, Kisoro (Nshongi Gorilla), Lake Mburo. While we were in Kisoro we received information about the Batwa Trail in the UWA (Uganda Wildlife Authority) office. I read more about the Batwa people in the latest Bradt guide. I am worried about the Batwa people destiny. The Batwa are the mankind example of how people can live in harmony with nature. Something that the…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…completely around to get to the village. This is one of the many views of Lake Chou – 15 of our 23 kilometre drive which took us around the whole lake. Our second introduction to ‘Batwa Fitness’ was on arrival at the village. The road stopped and we were told we’d need to take our equipment ‘up the hill’ another 1,500 metres to the top. It was at least 500 metre rise in elevation. We told you about ‘our gear’ but forgot to mention that it is NOT…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…Uganda: Known as the ‘pearl of Africa’ – it too is covered with hills and lakes. Like Rwanda it has the mountain gorillas. It is a completely land locked country. It shares Lake Victoria with Kenya and Tanzania. Crossing the Border: Rwanda was colinised by the Germans and Belgians, Uganda by the British. The result? As you cross the border between the two countries you switch sides of the road. Our drivers had left hand side drive, which was fine…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…icrophones. This also carries the tripod for Roving Video 1. Cable Bag/Headphones: This is full of all the jacks, mic connects, headphone extenders. There’s a lot of cables. Mega Tripod: This is the bag for Pado’s pride and joy, the mega tripod for Stationary Camera 1. Project Management: How do we now set ourselves up for audio-video recording on site? Again, based on lessons from both the March Pilot and Lake Turkana, here’s the set up: Overall…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…groups were very large, but because of budgets we could only bring a small number. We had good production but we couldn’t get the whole band in their element . Gargar was an example. Huge women’s group with lots of culture things – women’s rights … we could only work with four. We realised it would be better to take the studio to them. We would get a better view and get a more authentic sound. Then Abubilla Music contacted Tabu for a project and w…
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…luding maize, sweet potatoes, arrowroot and kale. They fished in the local lake and would sell some for pocket money and eat the rest. They also had chickens for eggs and meat. The water is pure so you don’t need to buy it. People are very friendly in the village and there is still honour and politeness. They respect their elders, always greet an older person and stand up when they walk nearby. Nick likes going back home to visit because it’s much…
Best of Singing Wells 2011 News
…trips in Kenya and Uganda and also took the mobile recording studio to the Lake Turkana Cultural Festival. We’ve recorded over 150 songs from more than 25 local music groups and uploaded 36 videos of these performances to YouTube (so far). Every performance was unique and special – we loved them all – so picking just 10 songs for a ‘Best of’ album was not easy. Here are our final choices….it’s just a small reflection of what was an extraordinary y…
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…Lake Turkana Cultural Festival, Kenya: The Ketebul Music team travelled to Lake Turkana in May 2011 for the Singing Wells project and recorded some wonderful groups at the festival, particularly tribal dance. Read more about the Festival here. The Batwa Project in Kisoro, Uganda: This visit was partially funded by the Institute for International Education (read more by clicking here). We recorded music from 6 Batwa communities from the Kisoro dist…
Music of the Luo: video playlist News
…In December 2011, the Singing Wells team travelled to western Kenya on the shores of Lake Victoria to record the music of the Luo tribes. To read the daily field reports from this trip, click here. Video Playlist The trip was facilitated by the generous support of donors to our charity the Abubilla Music Foundation. …
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…and to promote peace and reconciliation among the local communities around Lake Turkana by giving them an opportunity for cross-cultural cooperation and exchange, both in the preparation and in the course of the Festival. During the three days Festival, representatives of the Rendille, El Molo, Pokot, Samburu, Turkana, Gabbra, Dassanech and Borana present their respective customs and living conditions, spectacular traditional costumes, arts and cr…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…mpromising on sound quality. Mzinga were accompanied by a small wooden xylophone, the marimba. Mzinga After four captivating numbers from Mzinga, we quickly pulled down the set and set off for our second location. The drive would take us to Mombasa,where we would end up in the most interesting set of all so far. Junda. We first drove in to what seemed to be a very busy township with a very steep and treacherous gravel road to drive on. Everyone…