The origins of Singing Wells Story
…neer, 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.’ In addition to our field visits, we have developed an online Music Map of East Africa that charts the tribes of the region, their music, their instruments and influences. The map also shows where we…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…alk down stares on to tarmac and up to our very nice and pleasant Kenya Airways flight. We left and landed on time and all bags were waiting. We felt pretty sure that no baddies could have gotten through those 8 steps and were quite relaxed flying. After some chores we all then gather at the Go Down Arts Centre for recording. In the early afternoon, we had a chance to interview Tabu about the Uganda trip: Q: What did you want to get out of the tri…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…happened: the rebels arrived to his village and asked him to show them the way to town. In a way this was a blessing, because his family was saved (often, on abduction, the rest of the child’s family would be killed, so they’d feel angry, distant and unable to return home). Once they arrived at the town they wouldn’t let Odika go and it was clear he was a prisoner. He only managed to escape once the rebels believed he was one of them, and stopped…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…e by everyone who walked by. No sleeping cattle. No flower beds. But, as always, there was wonderful music. The first group was the Adungu Cultural Troupe, masters of the Adungu. We had interviewed their leader on our ‘recce’ trip earlier. Here’s the band: We’ve had the odd adungu here and there in the north, but never the full ensemble. There’s the big bass adungu and then 3-4 others in progressively smaller sizes. The three general sizes are cal…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…tion. So Steve is generally reviewing logistics for the next day. Things always go wrong and he is always in recovery mode – something he does exceptionally well. The rest of us are always in full time ‘back up’ mode, shifting camera cards to hard drives and backing up hard drives. And 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 reward…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…o his village, Obuell-Lira, a 30 minute drive down rich clay roads. On the way, Joshua told us about the history of the group, which was founded in 1982. The group and its song Uganda Land of Freedom is legendary in the Teso region (the name for the collection of villages around us). Joshua While you read the rest of this, why don’t you play the Magic Moment of the band as a good soundtrack to their story? During the civil war these villages were…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…the staff would offer facilitation and would advise the groups on the best way of managing their groups. It is the same committee which usually selects the Batwa who are to perform to different occasions. All in all the staff performed to their expectations, thanks to them for their seriousness and dedication. BIRARA group This is one of the communities that is still cherishing music and dance as the Batwa culture it is still leading and very crea…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…he darkness can only seek out objects within a 8 foot range. Your driver always hates the night road and therefore drives REALLY fast to reach out next destination. We like day roads. Now on to markets. Every little town is a market town. If the big consumer product giants and mobile operators have arrived, and they ALL have arrived, you are guarateneed a few Orange, OMO or Coca Cola stores – painted proudly in the colours of their sponsors. There…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…with his father’s group and then he founded this group in 2007. They use a number of styles, most notably Sengenya, which we covered fully in our March 2011 field recordings in Malindi. We interviewed Swalhe Mwatela Massai and his grandson, Ali Tungwa : Q to the grandfather: In contrast to Uganda, we have seen many villages in Kenya where the traditional music is only played by the older generation. And yet your group is so young and vibrant. Ho…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…nt imaginable: The Flute (yep, a flute) The Ndara (the amazing Ugandan xylophone) The Rigi-Rigi (similar to the Kenyan orutu) 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 an…
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 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…by the Chairman of Acet who was very gracious in welcoming us. He walked away with lots of photos and a Singing Wells 2012 shirt! He also got one of our Polaroid pictures. This is a new innovation for us – every group gets to listen to their song back during their performance and we take a Polaroid photo of each person so they can take a photo home. Then a quick 50 kilometer ride back to Gulu (smile) taking photos the whole way home of great road…
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…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…chance that audio files become separated from their record location. This way we can always work out exactly where each audio file has been recorded and when. At the end of the day it is important to backup the files. Each night, back at our accommodation, we backup the audio and video data to multiple mobile hard disks so we can re-use the memory cards again the next day. After a debrief on the day’s activities, we run through the times for brea…
UOBDU report on Singing Wells visit to the Batwa, Kisoro Uganda News
…o that they can confidently perform to more audiences. It is also clear that the financial contribution made to UOBDU by the Abubilla Music Foundation has gone a long way to improve the quality of life for the Batwa in a variety of ways. To read the full report click here. …
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…nd time doing work experience in preparation. I was introduced to this new way of displaying data when working for the Virtue Foundation in 2011. They were keen on this new technique and trained me to use it for mapping health data in Ghana (example shown below). This was in collaboration with Harvard University. Following on that I spent some time working with the GIS department at Harvard in Boston specifically learning how to use the mapping so…