An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…y are you doing this? Are you viewed as cool by your friends, or somewhat ‘out of touch’? A: Maybe it’s the friends I pick, but I’m viewed as a role model by my friends. I play the percussion and cymbols for the band and dance and it is viewed as very cool. I can’t help but be involved. My parents were students of my grandfather and I grew up with this music. It is in my blood and I feel a duty to protect my culture, to give back to it, to make it…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…Artist, which we’ll discuss tomorrow. Field Reports: this is the full set of output materials we publish on line. This involves production of soundcloud copies of audio, on line copies of 3 camera video performance, full publication of all interviews and finalization of all archiving. Studio Follow-up: our final repeatable model is our set of routines around bringing artists we’ve ‘discovered’ during a field visit back to Nairobi for some studio…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…vely. And then we played footie… The second half of the day was, well, not so good. We needed to leave at 13:00 to get to Kampala before nightfall. No night driving is a Singing Wells rule given how scary the roads are. We actually left at 12:45 and got about 20 minutes outside of Soroti only to have a car breakdown. So we had to turn around and get back to Soriti for a quick welding (by a guy on the street in flip flops..). We didn’t leave Soroti…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…n fill five foot high white bags of charcoal that line the roads in groups of 4-5. We often mistake them for nuns walking along the road in their beautiful white dresses. The white bags are typically crowned with a grass hat to keep them dry. Near Pakwach, this is a pretty simple cover but as you approach Soroti from Lira you get quite elaborate little weaved hats. These bags are sold for about 30,000 Ugandan shillings, but it takes days to fill o…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – night recording at Fort Murchison Story
…he camp fire. The dances go around a campfire, the characters lurch in and out of the fire light, and the flickering flames add mystery and drama to the performance. For some of the music, and we thought about Oramba yesterday, the song are fireside songs. Oramba is a hunter and the song is about the village wondering whether he will come back with a kill. Oramba is fierce, running around with a spear, lunging at the audience. Think about what tha…
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 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…ent and through performers Part of our routine now is to have Vicki on top of one of the vans to get a good 3rd angle (much of the Acholi dancing involves circling a drummer, meaning you can’t see said drummer unless from above…) The Music Groups Rubanga Kingom (Awach Boys) Our first group was Rubanga Kingom (Awach Boys), a full Likembe band. They formed thirty years ago and their goal is ‘Edu-Tainment’, helping African children learn key life les…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…nda!) We can also combine the two recording units into one to increase the number of inputs, while still working off battery power. The laptops use Avid ProTools recording software – an industry standard for recording and music production. The microphones we have chosen are industry standard models used in 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 fi…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…frica, meaning that within the huge range of instruments there were also a number of different names for them. This became very interesting to discover however, and over time that information could gather on the map, making it more comprehensive. What did you find most interesting about the data you collected? What stood out for me was the huge range of instruments used, and the huge range of percussion instruments available, which you don’t reall…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…e North, but boy, there’s a lot to see! One lovely view, about 90 minutes south of Gulu, Karuma Falls: And then there’s the road. Our drives to the music are always the most dangerous thing we do. The road to Gulu was a revelation, however. Generally good, paved roads, with a painted lines down the center and plenty of space for bikes, cows and children to wander on the shoulder. The big horrible trucks that have haunted us in trips past were ra…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…Charles and Simba (the Rottweiler who feast on Kisoro locusts during our locust attack). They ran a lovely hotel and greeted us warmly with Nile Specials! We handed off a pile of Batwa DVD’s for them to take back to the Traveller’s Rest and hit the sack. Jimmy (Entebbe)…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…day is the final day of the full team working on the Kalenjin Field visit. Of course, all of us will continue in London and Nairobi to produce songs and videos of the trip. In addition to writing blogs, organising strategy through 2014, sorting through about 10,000 receipts of expenses (we run a very tight shop, thanks to Steve’s leadership), we welcome Ben into the studio to record. The Otacho Young Stars stayed the morning as well. We had a full…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…d that they find it so rare for someone to essentially do his job that they need to write a song. Johnnie, Bishop and Eddie all joined in to support them in the studio with Winyo and Nina working on back up vocals. They were a huge amount of fun, smiling throughout it all. Other than recording, we continued to blog our little hearts out, write up trip reports, strategies, lessons learned, etc… The good news is we have now fully planned out field v…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…the two hotels (Eldoret Club and Pine Tree) from 8am to about 9.30am. The tyre had a damaged tube that just wore out. We reassembled and headed off for a spectacular trip from an altitude of 2,800m down to 1,114m at one of the floors of the Great Rift Valley. The roads were more winding and steeper than on our trip to Rwanda last November but there was no rain and there were guard rails on the roadside which made it all feel safer….
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…pped and 50 Cows announced ‘we’re here.’ We tried to find a recording site out of the burning sun but failed. We wanted the lovely 360 views and sacrificed shade for our art. The Music Groups Kasagat Traditional Dancers The first group was the Kas agat Traditional Dancers. Kathy talked to the tribal elder about them. They come from Tot, about 50km from where we were recording. They had walked here the night before and had been practicing all night…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…the dirt floor in the homestead. Throughout the recordings, a lovely woman of about 70 could not keep from dancing. We loved it, although the owner of the homestead kept trying to have her sit down. She would start by sitting with the group and moving her arms to the beat. Then she would begin to sing, and then she would stand and sway, and then she would begin to dance around and gradually would join the band. She simply couldn’t help herself. Th…