Meeting Ketebul: an interview with Tabu News
…ntity. We have great recording material but we don’t get these artists out into the market very well at the moment. We need to look for a platform to promote our stuff, whether it’s online, digital radio, TV – we need to make the music more accessible to all. Why is Singing Wells important? Singing Wells is important because we’re trying to capture our East African heritage. Many of the musicians we record from remote tribes are old and we run the…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
I’m new to Singing Wells and I’ve spent the last few weeks listening to pretty much every song on the site, getting to know the amazing traditional music of East Africa! It was tough to pick, but for my first blog post I thought I’d share my top 5 songs so far. 1. Otacho Young Stars – Amilo Love The Singing Wells team first encountered the Otacho Young Stars group on a trip to record the music of the Luo in Western Kenya in December 2011. They we…
Singing Wells is on Bozza! News
…listen to traditional East African musicians and music groups recorded by Singing Wells. Head over to our Bozza page here. About Bozza “Bozza is a plug & play solution for musicians, poets, photographers & film makers to promote and sell their digital products to their fans throughout Africa. The platform is available to emerging and established artists from around the continent and can be easily accessed by visiting www.bozza.mobi from mobile pho…
Current Leading Figures News
…why, with his emotionally-fuelled words, he works so hard to breathe life into Ugandan folk music for the current generation. He is especially concerned with teaching Ugandans values, and allowing them to value themselves, through music; music teaches people “values, patriotism, humanism, love, hope, faith, hard work, discipline, science, leadership…. teach them all. The best place to preserve values, and music does this, is in the hearts of peop…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in Ethnomusicology that include training in performance of African music. Diane Thram became Director in 2005 and, under her leadership, an online listening library has been created, in line with the cutting edge of content access, to allow anyone to listen to Hugh Tracey’s recordings, with work currently being done to also make the Dave Dargie and Andrew Tracey Collections available for online access. There…
Archiving Guidelines News
…knowledge is needed – but this guide is most definitely a great help for gaining understanding of all the issues needed be considered when setting up an online music archive. Storage of Audio Materials Guidance for the care, handling and storage of audio visual materials can be found on the Library of Congress website. The guidelines for storage aim to preserve the life of the grooved discs and cylinders, optical discs, and magnetic tape, which ha…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…no-musicologist, sound recordist, archivist, performer, dynamic and entertaining lecturer, record producer, photographer and author.’ As he was so broadly accomplished, he was involved in every aspect of the recording and archiving process of his music, which he gathered from across the world; beginning in the Middle East in 1966 and spreading through North and East African from 1969 till 1975. He later went on to record across the Pacific Ocean f…
Tracey Instrument Collection News
…th us their instrument collection, enabling us to give you a wider insight into the traditional instruments used in Ugandan folk music. Here at Singing Wells, we have already began building up our own collection, purchasing and bringing them back to our studio in England whenever we can, and have been providing profiles for those we come across on our travels on the Instrument section of our website. ILAM houses the extensive instrument collection…
ILAM, Repatriation and Jimmie Rodgers/Chemirocha News
…d on the CD): “The mysterious singer and dancer Chemirocha has been turned into a local god Pan — a faun — half man, half antelope. He is urged by the girls to do the leaping dance, familiar to all Kipsigis, so energetically that he will jump clear out of his clothes… Who could resist such an offer?” Tracey concludes. The charm of the spoken introductions is they make each record like a radio show with real educational value.“ So, thank goodness f…
James Isabirye and Tabu Osusa Discuss East African Music News
…’ve taught for 20 years now and my concern is that our entire system is training us to be like a white person from England or America, not to be Ugandan. The English and Americans don’t want to know me because I am like them – they know I am not. They want to know me because I am Ugandan, because I am different. And yet that is not what we teach. Tabu: Exactly. Rather than embrace our identify we aspire to be something else. In Kenya, all the youn…
Ketebul Music: A Year in Review News
…ed Ewaala Turkana with the Loiyangalani Stars. We had first met them with Singing Wells in 2011 at the Turkhana Festival where we worked with the Loiyangalani tribe of Lake Turkana. This tribe had previously discovered oil and water; when we started working with the group, the leaders said that with our help they also ‘discovered their music.’ We then recorded a CD, working with Hivos, and brought them to Nairobi to record the CD. These musicians…
Preserving Threatened Heritage News
…sic heritage of the region and to help make this legacy relevant and fresh to today’s audiences.” And it is always great to hear of stories where others are attempting to do the same, especially in countries so close to our heart, such as Uganda. An article on the website of the Ugandan daily newspaper, New Vision, warns about the need to preserve ‘Bigwala’, the royal music of the Busoga region. Bigwala music is performed at ceremonies such as cor…
SWP Uganda 2013 – our proposed itinerary News
…proceeded straight to the headquarters of Elgon Ngoma Troupe. As we drove into the centre’s compound, we were surprised to find a large group of teenagers playing an assortment of brass instruments and drums in a marching band format! Elgon Ngoma Troupe is an interesting group led by a very charismatic director called Wolimbwa Julius. Most of them are former street kids and, apart from learning music and performance at the centre, they also live…
The Birara Batwa Community Story
…celebration song accompanied by horns. The whole community celebrates by joining the dance. ‘Umusambi’ – a song about the crane – the national bird of Uganda. The Batwa mother sings and in slow motion imitates the movements of the bird. She wears bells on her ankles to make a sound like the crane. The song is often performed at festivals or weddings. ‘Inanga yabatwa’ – a story-telling song. The leader gathers the community together and through the…
The Key to Sustainable Aid in Africa? Perhaps we should follow the music. News
…cal troupe. Supporting tribal music, therefore, is a key component in sustaining a healthy village, which is a key conduit to delivering all the more urgent and important aid, from medicines, to clean water, to sustainable farming techniques and financing, etc… We are finding ourselves caveating what we do less and less – we are doing our little bit to support the leaders of healthy villages, so they do can help fascilitate all the other aid that…
A recording studio which fits into the back of an SUV Story
…everything you need for a fully functioning, professional recording studio into the back of a small utility vehicle. Here’s a quick summary of what’s in all those bags…… We have two mobile recording units, each capable of recording from four microphones plus other sources at a high resolution to Apple MacBook Pro laptops. The benefit of the systems we have chosen is that they can run off the battery power of the laptops if we are in the situation…