Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…bout the music so our initial focus was on audio recording. We invested in first class audio equipment and can record using 8 mics directly into Pro Tools. But during the March Pilot programme, we realised that the visual experience was as important as the audio. So for our November trip we invested in two more digital cameras and worked out our new Camera 1-3 approach. Camera 1 is static group shot. Camera 2 focuses on instruments. Camera 3 is co…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…nited States International University (USIU). The Music Groups Ben Kisinja First up for recording was Ben Kisinja, a wonderful guitarist in the typical Kalenjin style. Tabu describes this style as very traditional and the way of singing is very unique to the Sabaot clan of the Kalenjin. The guitar is called a burkandit, and is a homemade guitar somewhat resembling the Nyatiti of the Luo. He was joined by a percussionist who played the karachimek,…
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…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…ngineer, Stills and Interviewer Kiplagat, Fixer We are also joined for the first couple days by Chelegat Lebo who works with Content House in Kitale and is producing a TV documentary on Kenyan Olympic athletes. (Pictured in the photo with Willie and Eddie). Interview with Patrick ‘Pato’ Ondiek We used the car ride to interview Pato about his background and his work with Ketebul Music. Pato is from the Luo tribe, from the village of Bondo (450 Km f…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…med up with Andy Patterson while he was here and together they conducted a number of interviews with Kenyan musicians who are now based in the UK. They also had the chance to visit Kenya House in Stratford as a guest of our friends at the Kenya Tourist Board. Here’s Bill’s article published in Business Daily Africa: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Where+the+world+got+real+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/djb5mf/-/index.html Phot…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…data isn’t properly organised and formatted so it’s worth sorting that out first. Import the data into ArcMap. Join the data to the country outline shapefile. Export the joined data and shapefile as a new shapefile. Display the data. Prepare the data To demonstrate I’ll be using some nonsense data about the number of unicorns in each county of Britain, but if you’ve been following along using a different country and your own data then carry on wit…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
The first thing you’ll need is the outline of the area you will be mapping. Usually this will be the outline of a country with its administrative areas. This is known as spatial data. Downloading the outline There is a free online source for spatial data at http://www.diva-gis.org/. To get your spatial data you click on Free Spatial Data in the top-right corner. On the Free Spatial Data page click on country level data. On the Download Data by Co…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…om the local people. They have no respect for them and treat them as third class citizens. Local farmers exploit the Batwa for cheap labour, using them as porters to carry things for example. And the men often exploit the girls sexually. If there is a pregnancy the girl may be excluded from both communities. She might move to the town but she has nothing. It often ends in prostitution for her. Me: What does the future hold for the Batwa? Henry: At…
How to Map 1: Housekeeping News
…. A shapefile is stored in a set of related files and contains one feature class”. Simply put, it’s the kind of file that maps are saved as. When you’re browsing files within ArcMap, a shapefile will appear like one tidy little file with a cute green icon. If you’re looking elsewhere in your computer, e.g. via the C: drive, the shapefile will be revealed in its true form: a group of six files which combine to make a shape or map. These six files w…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…with them so they also get a mention! Francis Sembagare We met Francis the first day of recording on the hill tops near Kisoro. He played kid golf during his live performances, gently knocking the kids from the ‘stage’ with his spear. He is an amazing visual performer, especially in his songs about cranes where he does the Batwa ‘Bird Dance.’ He is the leader of the Kisoro Batwa in terms of music and we could not have recorded further without him…
Day 4: Discovery of the Young Stars… Story
…Band and Jose Kokeyo himself. The Music Groups The Otacho Young Stars The first group were four young men, playing in the Orutu style. First, let’s introduce them: from left to right, they were playing the Sanduku (Luo: Nyangile, which literally means ‘box’) Orutu, the metal ring (Kengele in Swahili and Ongeng’ in Luo) and a very happy backing vocalist (who also played the Nyangile). Let us tell a bit more about the Nyangile: Below is more detail…
Music of the Kalenjin: video playlist News
…eat Rift Valley to record the music of the Kalenjin tribes people. The people from this highland ethnic group – the Nilotic – include eight culturally and linguistically related sub tribes – Kipsigis, Nandi, Tugen, Marakwet, Keiyo, Sabaot and Terik. They are perhaps most widely known as world class athletes as many of the legendary Kenyan long distance runners are Kalenjins, including Kipchoge Keino, chairman of the Kenyan Olympic Committee and th…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…r combined. And we saw some of the best players. We want to remind you first of what a Nyatiti looks like and also of it’s beautifully haunting sound, played by the most famous Nyatiti players of all time, Ayub Ogado; here he is with Kothbiro: The Music Groups We saw three groups: two Nyatiti groups sandwiching an Orutu group playing in Ohangala style (a percussion-dance style most often used in weddings/celebrations amongst the Lu…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…ide with his spear. He made a par five on the ‘Crane Song.’ Willie Bembe’s First Flight: Our sound engineer Willie Bembe enjoyed his first ever flight going from Nairobi to Kigali. He was far less scared of the thunderstorms then the rest of us, but did make things interesting. He almost went to the bathroom in the galley, confusing it for a loo. During a stop-over on the route to Kigali, he almost gave the flight attendee a heart attack by trying…
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…
Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…https://youtu.be/h_mVjup7_6s https://youtu.be/1zjh68iNClw Jessie leads the first Influences session and Winyo accompanies the lead singer and drummer on another…… …and then serenades one of the women outside her hut! The children like to get involved in what we are doing. These young boys enjoy exclusive access to the sound recording area, keeping a close eye on Andy and Willie and enjoying listening to the live performance through their headphone…