The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…Foundation – Ghana – Yellow Fever Immunisation Why do you think it is the best way to display data? When displaying data it’s no secret that people often understand it better when it’s interesting visually; this is why we often use charts and diagrams rather than bodies of text nowadays. Most people’s brains aren’t able to see patterns in data easily, especially when the data set is huge, so representing it in this manner means you can understand…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…Singing Wells team were also lucky enough to enjoy the sound of one of the best nyatiti players in the world, Ayub Ogada during their field visit in March, where Tabu organised a ‘Hall of fame concert’. He opened the concert with the famous “Kothbiro”, which featured in the film ‘The Constant Gardiner’. Here it is: There’s a wonderful story about Andy’s recommendation to Gary Barlow’s production team to have Ogada play in a track called ‘Sing’, re…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…ract the young boys, so the dance is usually held on bright days, when the sun is out. In all of these dances we are likely to record the Adungu instrument (a traditional Ugandan bow-harp) and the Agwara (a wooden trumpet). Pakwach and Nebbi: Next we visit the Alur and Lugbara tribes in Nyaravuru and Pakwach. Click here to learn more about these tribes through our Alur Profile and Lugbara Profile on the Singing Wells website. Here we will record t…
Day 7: In Nairobi – sponsors, blogs and strategy Story
…a more fundamental breakdown wakes up in Nakuru facing a morning of car repairs and an afternoon drive home to Nairobi. The Jeep group spent the morning on blogs, the afternoon with sponsors and the evening working on the Singing Wells Strategy through 2014. In discussions with sponsors, one of the major themes was how to ensure the music we discover and capture from the field is truly relevant to new generations. We discussed in detail the twin m…
Alur Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…e three brothers. Tiful having been impressed by Nyapiri’s story of a good country beyond the river, moved with his followers including Lendu and Okebu to the highlands in the west. Nyapiri followed Tiful and traveled along the west bank of the Victoria Nile and finally camped with his followers in an area opposite Pakwach. The Land was not good for grazing and there being no salt licks his cattle began to graze away. One day some of the cows whic…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…cross again to arrange rescue and then again went crossed to head back to Nairobi. That brings to six the total Singing Wells Equator crossings in the last 12 weeks. Arrival We arrived in Nairobi safe and sound at about 10pm, having survived the wonderful horrors of the road. We actually breezed through a traffic free Nairobi, although Tabu was at war with the GPS and decided to go his own way. The GPS, which had served us well for 1,000Kms, was n…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…nounced ‘we’re here.’ We tried to find a recording site out of the burning sun but failed. We wanted the lovely 360 views and sacrificed shade for our art. The Music Groups Kasagat Traditional Dancers The first group was the Kas agat Traditional Dancers. Kathy talked to the tribal elder about them. They come from Tot, about 50km from where we were recording. They had walked here the night before and had been practicing all night and morning before…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…hat is the power of music. We will try to put together a video clip of her best moments. Lomuke Group We recorded 9 songs: Anya Kar, Chepo Laleiyo, Kirap, Kiter, Kiyuar, Asoiyen, Adong’o and Montonyo. The women were dressed in white, carrying sticks and the men carried spears and their portable chairs/sleeping pillows. Kalomoywa We recorded 8 songs with them and a magic moment of wonderful chorus. The songs were: Kinyakar, Kamatakar, Chepo Nandi,…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…our first session. Interview with Steve Kivutia Steve was born in 1982 in Nairobi but his ‘home’ is the village of Kakamenga; his father moved villages to Moi’s Bridge (names after Kenyan President at the time). He was born in Mata Hospital and sent to Maseno Highschool, graduating in 2000. During school he loved Alpha Blondy, a reggae artist from the Ivory Coast, but also loved Hip Hop. He took a gap year and the joined a university to take compu…
Music of Northern Uganda News
…ger for Habari Travel which owns both the Traveller’s Rest and the Entebbe Airport Guesthouse plus other tourist hotels in Uganda. During their meeting, Steve and Patrick were grateful for some really useful information given about travelling to the north of the country and where to find the music. Mary, Rose, Dnalega Bonnars and Charles all talked about different tribal communities we are planning to visit in December – the Langi from Lira, Iteso…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…oastal Region around Malindi and Mombasa and have now travelled across the country recording 30 musicians and traditional music groups representing three major tribes: the Mijikenda, the Luo and the Kalenjin. We have also travelled to Uganda to record the amazing musicians of the Batwa tribes, bringing many of them back to Nairobi to record them in Ketebul Music studios. We have designed two mobile recording units which can be assembled just about…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…iet, 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 a posse of 20 armed men 75kms to a butchers where sadly one bull had been killed….
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…Music. Pato is from the Luo tribe, from the village of Bondo (450 Km from Nairobi) , although he and his father were both born and raised in Nairobi. He is one of 6 children – he has one older sister and two older brothers and a younger brother and sister. He lives with his three brothers in an apartment in the Umoja district of Nairobi. Pato graduated from Pumwani High School in 1999 where he was always the ‘camera guy’, volunteering for every sc…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…e UK unicorn distribution data I’ve cooked up or even just the UK for your country, I’ve already done that for you! Click here to get the data. As I mentioned, ArcMap can be tricksy if your data isn’t properly formatted and so on. The Unicorn Distribution data set we’re using is fairly simple so not all of these points will be applicable, but here are some things you need to think about when preparing your data: The title of each column must not e…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…I feel I know him already. The complete Singing Wells team congregates at Nairobi airport. After many months of planning the trip, this is the first time I actually put faces to the names. Steve has been integral to the planning – preparing the budget down to the last shilling and organizing the logistics of taking a team of 10 to Kisoro and beyond. We have spoken on the phone and emailed many times. It’s good to meet at last. The flight to Kigali…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…reated for the project (mine is called How To Map), create a folder called Country Outlines. Within this make a folder called UK, and within that, copy and paste the shapefiles. The address where your shapefiles are saved is now: C:\How To Map\Country Outlines\UK. Getting your map outline into ArcMap Open ArcMap and select Cancel – you want to create a new map rather than opening an existing one. This will give you the completely blank ArcMap scre…