On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…nyatiti (a lyre-like stringed instrument) which he played. Marina, Samba Mapangala: This is the song that Samba opened his piece with. He followed Ayub Ogado who played percussion throughout. There was a lot of dancing, including a drop by from Maddo: Winyo: He’s the current new star from the Ketebul stable. He sang back up for Samba and when he came on he said he was humbled by the extraordinary talent in the room. 50 years of East African music…
Best of Singing Wells 2011 News
In 2011 we completed three field recording trips in Kenya and Uganda and also took the mobile recording studio to the Lake Turkana Cultural Festival. We’ve recorded over 150 songs from more than 25 local music groups and uploaded 36 videos of these performances to YouTube (so far). Every performance was unique and special – we loved them all – so picking just 10 songs for a ‘Best of’ album was not easy. Here are our final choices….it’s just a sma…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…trick Ondiek, our Singing Wells videographer. (He has camera envy!) Pato’s reflections of Singing Wells – March 2011 Day 1: Meeting my new love [CANON 5D CAMERA] It’s Sunday March 27th 2011 and I am taking my sweet time getting to the studio knowing that I will find the engineers from Ketebul Music being briefed by Jimmy and Andy from Abubilla Music on the recording equipment that would be used in the field. Unfortunately it was only Steve…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Willie Bembe News
…held for them at Sippers Restaurant in Hurllingham with performances from among others Samba Mapangala, Winyo and Ayub Ogada. I say hi to Andy who is at the control desk recording the event with the new equipment. I meet Jimmy a bit later when the event is over. Gosh he’s tall….and very hands on since he was helping take down the mics. DAY 2 We gather at the studio so we can set of on the road trip to Malindi The tall guy jokes on Jimmy start. He…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…tunity to check if their hi-tech equipment would work well south of the Equator. Blow by blow accounts of the field recordings starting Tuesday March 29 to Thursday March 31 are available elsewhere at this site, so I will just fling you here and there instead (see graphic below). For the material-gathering first step on the Singing Wells Project, which shall eventually cover the whole country, the Kenyan Coastal region was selected. The strip is m…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…with a MacBook Pro laptop running on pro Tools 9, MOTU traveler interface, a 500mb external hard drive, and 2 ART headphone amps. There was also a 2 bags with mic and instrument cables, power extension cables, 8 pairs of headphones, mic stands, boom poles, 2 Rodes NT5 mics with dead cats (no animals were harmed in the acquisition of the dead cats!), 1 shure sm58 and 1 shure sm57 mic, and 2 AKG C414 mics. Patrick, our video guy, also made it to the…
More on the launch of the Ketebul Music website News
…vered a great site right on brief and within a tight budget which is a big bonus for the Singing Wells funds. Here are a few words from Wesley Burden about the challenge we gave them…… “Ketebul Music required a website design that delivered a strong sense of the colourful music of East Africa and the traditions that their non-profit organisation aims to help preserve. Using our experience from working with Abubilla Music and Sideways Recordings we…