Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…still exists in the villages of Northern Uganda, despite the destruction caused by the war. The name translates to ‘how much is left’ referring to how the war hasn’t taken everything in the North, they still have happiness. The next song was called ‘Yom Chunya‘ is of a similar style, and it means ‘my heart is happy’. They then sang a song in part English and part Swahili, called ‘Pearl of Africa‘. This was actually written by Jimmy Adokwun around…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…inking a group and song to the ‘bounce’ (final audio) and the three videos used in that take. Time signatures are vital here and as we keep our take list, we keep a record of when the videos stopped and started so we can recover quickly. Fourthly, we need to run our blogs and Facebook entries ‘live’ during our trips, when we get the most interest in Singing Wells. This requires the refilling of all photos to groups and villages so these can be use…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…th English names, ferrying folks up and down the highway. They are fun because each is covered with decidedly random words, like Gorgeous, Amen, Big Mama, Jesus Love, Go! Go!, etc… Motorbikes are everywhere, mostly on the side of the road with someone lying beneath them repairing something. In Uganda,, on most of the roads we travelled, there wasn’t a huge problem with ‘passing’ because the roads were not that crowded. Then there are night roads….
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…ormed 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 vibra…
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://…
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
…ation 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 appropriately, after a song about youth, we brought the youth band forward, Pajoto and their instrumental song Dingi Dingi. Here’s the video: Umuny Jubi Ite Yaa They were followed by Umuny Jubi Ite Yaa (essentially the name of their camp plus Ite Yaa, meaning gathering under the Yaa tree). T…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ately we all made it to super-market where we loaded up with money, mobile phone cards and other sundries and headed out. The William car stopped to pick up Akello, a lovely Ugandan singer/songwriter, who is joining the group as our Influences artist. The Emmanuel car headed into Kampala to pick up our press badges. We then headed off 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…
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…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…s you can understand it easily. Looking at a map of where an instrument is used makes a lot more sense than looking at a table of regions and what instruments are used there. As we’ve put the data on a map where you can choose which layers of information you’d like to see, the map is useful for a huge variety of different topical questions, unlike one single chart. It also makes it more accessible to someone coming to this field of study for the f…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…andan Adungu played today and the Egyptian arched harp, particularly one housed in the British Museum. It’s dated 1534-1296 B.C and was found in the tomb of Thauenany, Western Thebes (right). Some scholars have rejected the theory that African harps and lyres today were originated from the instruments that were created first thousands of years ago, although there is strong evidence to suggest they were, not only due to their likeness, but because…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…to bring them to Nairobi to our studio they are much more comfortable because they already know us. We did this last year with the Batwa – bringing them from Kisoro, through Kampala to Nairboi by bus to spend the weekend recording. They created amazing music and had the time of their lives.” Tabu puts a lot of effort into finding the true traditional music. He feels politics and tourism have affected the music we usually hear from the tribes. He…
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…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…e Batwa think it is good that people come to see the mountain gorillas because they pay money to do this and the government can use the money to develop Uganda. They hope that one day the Batwa will benefit from this money. Another is in praise of the President, asking him to work with the Batwa to develop their country. Others are in praise of God thanking Him for having given the forest to the Batwa. (Christianity has been largely adopted since…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…t as part of Ketebul Music’s ‘Kenya @ 50’ music documentary. He teamed 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+flavou…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…you some random data. Select CSV (basically Excel) as your Result Type and number range as your Data Type. When we downloaded the country outline of the UK, we downloaded three shapefiles of different administrative levels, called 0, 1 and 2. Administrative level 0 is the outline of the whole of the UK. Administrative level 1 is the outline of the countries within the UK – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Administrative level 2 is th…