Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…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+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…of the counties in the shapefile and the names of the counties in our data need to be identical. (The reason for that will become clear later). The only way to make absolutely sure of that is to go into ArcMap and look at the attribute table of the shapefile (that’s basically the data that makes the shapefile look how it does), and check the names of the counties. To do this open the map, which is saved at C:\How To Map\How to Map 1, or wherever y…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…d is C:\How To Map\How to Map 1. To get our country outline into ArcMap we need to Add Data. To do this either click File > Add Data > Add Data or select the Add Data icon. This will open a box; click this icon till you reach ‘Home – Documents/ArcGIS’: From here click on Folder Connections. This is where you will connect folders from elsewhere on your computer to ArcMap. Click on this icon: and select the folder where all of your GIS files are to…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…tely stunned. Henry explains that this lady would need to make the journey to town 2 or 3 times a week, leaving her home one day, staying with another Batwa community overnight and returning the next. Extraordinary. Getting a lift in the van saved her half a day’s walk. The van pulls up on the track and Henry says we are there – or nearly there. The village is just up here he says, pointing to the top of the hill which looms high above us. We can…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…ic Moment Video’ of the performance: https://youtu.be/2FOs3TObydk What you need to know as you listen is the drummer was drumming without a chair, doing deep squats and jumping about a foot off the ground with each ‘kick’ – this went on for four minutes. Try it for 10 seconds. Then he then would jump over the drums at key moments or jump in deep squats around the drums, and c) twice he did major spins, hitting drum, spinning and hitting again on t…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…p: We have three cameras and 6 mics. When we mix a DVD, all those elements needs to be synched up, which is quite a complex operation. An easy way to help is to have a ‘clap’ at the beginning of the take so that Pato can line up the three videos and audio. We talk to the musical groups and explain that Pato will say “1, 2, 3” and then clap. They are then able to start the song 3-4 seconds later. Inevitably and consistently, in every village, we en…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…or our trip to Kisoro. We have lots of music, lots of video and lots more stories to tell. But we want to keep disciplined and report daily, so forgive us if we can’t give you everything at once. Over the coming weeks, these blogs will be filled with the music and videos and far more background on the project and the Batwa. For now leave for Nairobi again and then, on Sunday, travel to Western Kenya for the next series of villages and more music….
Gary Barlow, Ayub Ogada & the Diamond Jubilee song News
…o Kenya on holiday we recommend you visit the Magical Kenya website first – it’s a fantastic source of information about Kenya and has everything you need to know about planning a great trip. Here’s the link: Magical Kenya …
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…ess’ 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 light. There were 10 of us and 7 heavy bags, plus the generator. We tried to take the equipment up but were quickly done in my altitude and the slippery red mud of the region. Several young B…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…serve the musical legacy of East Africa; we are trying to make it relevant to today’s artists. Our ‘Influences’ sessions seek to demonstrate the extraordinary power of this tribal music in relation to today’s music. Chief Sound Engineer: Commands the audio team and is in charge of input for all sessions and for completing all finished audio for that day. Assistant Engineer: In charge of set up/breakdown of set and assisting Chief Sound Engineer on…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…s this worth it guys? [This is a pretty relevant question 470 kilometres into a 800 kilometre journey back from the coast to Nairobi] TO: We have no choice. We have to do something and I don’t see anyone else doing what we’re doing. We’ve got to get three things right going forward: we have to get the audio right. People need to hear the music like we’re hearing it in the field. We’ve got to get world class at this. Second, we’ve got to get the vi…
Kathy’s reflections on her Singing Wells experience News
…travel was almost as interesting as the destinations. It took eight hours to get to Kitale on two lane roads with more lorries than I could imagine. Jimmy’s written very accurately about the driving in his blogs. The country side was beautiful with mostly farm land, small villages and quite hilly. I feel I had the best job on the trip because I got to interview all the groups about where they were from, what their clothing and adornment meant, wh…
Interview with Fifty Cows – fixer for Singing Wells News
…ut down their weapons in the name of Jesus. It wouldn’t make sense to them to stop fighting because Jesus wouldn’t want it and they might go to hell. He then went to the Kenyan Institute of Mass Communication in Nairobi. He got a diploma from there. He worked on various radio and TV stations. In 2005 he founded Kass FM radio with a few others. He was a producer and presenter. He plays older Kalenjin music with a message to the youth. Their songs a…
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…. 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 simpler, clean and safe. He graduated from High School in 2006 from Mirogi Boys High School and then went to University at the MOI S…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…traditional costumes, arts and crafts, dances and music to each other and to visitors. Combined with the stunning geographical characteristics and the very limited general knowledge on the Lake Turkana region, the presentation of the cultural traditions makes the Festival a unique and fascinating experience for everyone involved.’ Steve’s objective is to record the music of all 10 performing groups. All the material will be taken back to the Kete…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…m mid last century and offer them in easy to read, listen and view mediums to today’s audiences, young and old, we were trying to fulfill our dreams of preserving our music heritage for prosterity. We have so far produced two packages and are currently working on three others simultaneously. Of course the world cannot live in the past and must move on, but there is no future without a past. Countries that have rich music industries and whose music…