Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…gs. They wear white blouses with blue patterned sarongs, decorated with golden designs and lines, looking like trees and fruits. Hunter felt the costumes represented the landscape. Eddie did three Influences sessions – two with the first group playing guitar on ‘Ribwege’, a song about protecting their culture, and on ‘Rirenecg’, a prayer song. With the second group he focused on the song ‘Chang’aomen’ – a song about a woman who gets married and mo…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…n their faces also represents the soil as with the Sagat. Their songs included: ‘Sinendet’ : this is the name for the grass they wear around their necks. This is used to bless all ceremonies. The song is used as an entrance song. ‘Seen’ : this is the name for a traditional cup in which is put a special honey drink called Kipketin. ‘Cheruto’: this is a lady who is married elsewhere and was given cows as a dowry. She refused the cows which is highly…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…are made. We arrived at the location picked by 50 Cows, the fixer, but we decided it was too close to the road and asked to be taken to a more secluded spot near a village or homestead. We got what we asked for and were rewarded with a 4 km drive straight up one of the hills through homestead after homestead until we arrived at the top of hill with 360 views. The little homestead had a lovely round house with thatched roof, a rectangular hour and…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…i in Autumn 2013 in time for the celebrations for Kenya’s 50 years since independence. 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 have travelled with the Singing Wells project and features audio tracks and videos of the songs and dances that we have recorded along the way. Two final words: infl…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…s of the Chebonet group: Song translations of Chebonet Teriet We then recorded Teriet, a guitarist with a wonderful acoustic guitar with a lot of miles. His best song was ‘Sigerer’. Kathy interviewed him about all his songs and this is a classic (to go to Kathy’s Blog on Songs from Day 1, click here). Sigerer tells the story of two bulls in Teriet’s family that we were stolen and taken to Uganda. The family dog was able to follow the scent and led…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…inspired by US rappers. He joined Ketebul Music in 2006 and built up the video department there. While there, he was exposed to the Spotlight Series. He began to really love tribal music and so when we started developing the Singing Wells project he jumped on it, keen to head up the video recording department . We asked him what he liked most about the project and he gave two answers: “First, I love the exposure to different cultures – even my own…
Andy’s cover of Boys of Summer News
…sic for various clients he actually finds time to write and record his own material and is also a member of Abubilla Music’s house band, The Saturday Morning Canasta Club. You can listen to more of Andy ‘s music online at his website: click here but before you go over there have a listen to his brilliant cover version of Don Henley’s Boys of Summer, recorded this summer at the Abubilla Music studio in Spain. You can follow Andy on Facebook too:…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…n 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 Photos from Kenya House …
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…el) 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 the outline of the counties of those four countri…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…ld with my odd gifts. In the end I gave everything to Alice, asking her to decide how best to distribute things, suggesting one of the schools in Kisoro perhaps. Our session with the Birara had extended longer than we anticipated so when we arrived at the next community we were too late to start recording. Instead, we headed back to the Traveller’s Rest for a late afternoon recording session with Francis and the Birara lead vocalists who had joine…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…iles are to be saved, in this case C:\How To Map. The folder will appear under Folder Connections. You can now go into the folder to add the map outline shapefile to ArcMap. Go into C:\How To Map\Country Outlines\UK. Select the three shapefiles: GBR_adm0, GBR_adm1 and GBR_adm2. The map will now appear in ArcMap. The result You can select the different layers to see the different administrative levels of Great Britain. GBR_adm0: GBR_adm1: GBR_adm2:…
How to Map 1: Housekeeping News
…lla analogy, it also gets terribly irritated if you change your file or folder names. This is because the links made in ArcMap (that will make more sense later) aren’t live, meaning they don’t update themselves. So if you change a file or folder name ArcMap gets confused with the pathway it’s supposed to be following and it loses the data. It’s remediable, but a pain, so best to avoid doing that. The point of all this is: keep your GIS folders and…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…Korengo. Another wonderful Nyatiti group led by Okumu Korengo who is considered one of the best players around. Have a listen: singingwells · Nyatiti Group – Ywak https://youtu.be/M91Fq4BsnRA Okumu Korengo also played all instruments, accompanied by dancers and back up vocals; here he is performing….and posing for a portrait: He gathered a big audience….and The Singing Wells team poses with his band: https://youtu.be/9lnuEPTo1No https://youtu.be/…
Christine Kamau – “The Jazzist” News
…alive..#very best wishes and I hope we can keep in touch. Christine BBC Africa Beats: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17831507 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thejazzist Reverbnation: https://www.reverbnation.com/christinekamau …
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…n anything else. But keep in mind – when the slaughter happened it was the decedents of folks with less than 10 cows slaughtering the decedents of folks with more than 10 cows. 250,000 people are buried in mass graves 50 metres from the memorial centre. What is hardest to understand, travelling through Kigali, is that the slaughter started here. This is an urban centre filled with incredibly friendly Rwandans. And yet, when the President’s plane w…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…time). Their wait allowed us to capture some photos of their members which demonstrate wonderfully the age range across the group and the fact that music here in Africa is for the whole community, from the very young to their much respected elders. This lady was one of the principal dancers and she out performed many of the younger members of the group… You can see her in action in the later part of the amazing, high energy performance… As always,…