Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…i style. The group is led by Evelyn Ojok and was formed in 1981, disbanded for the war and reformed in 1999. The leader summons the band to practice by playing drums… They are all female dancers, with whistles and Gara (ankle shakers). They played all four of their songs one after another without a break: Oluma Lareku (a war dance celebrating the tribal chief), Talebero Koda Akoda, Odokomi Dek Owic, Lar Wodo Dwok Cen. Here’s a selection: Ribbe Ber…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…ult of a platform developed by Harvard University. WorldMap is a great platform for a project like this for several reasons. It is free and open source which means any researcher can work with the source code to extend and improve its functionality, so it is constantly developing and improving. It’s also web-based so it’s easy to access and share, which is exactly what we want in order to carry on building the Singing Wells community. Rosie has ma…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…ched seats with Jimmy and talked to Andrew about the Singing Wells project for an hour. We then all settled down to watch Ted before landing about 8 hours later in Entebbe. All bags were gratefully recovered and we took a taxi for an 8 minute journey to the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe, where we were greeted by our old friends, Jan Willem Van De Kamp (the owner of this hotel and the Travelers Rest in Kisoro), Charles and Simba (the Rottweiler who fe…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…o put on new percussion. He plays the Tabla at the speed of light and transformed the song. He was so good, we decided to put together a magic moment. Watch this space for videos. We recorded right through to 9PM and the ‘northern folks’ rushed to the airport. The Ketebul crew continued to work in the studio, led by Jessie who loves bringing Singing Wells musicians into the studio. Hunter and Jimmy will board our flight at about 11PM and with a 12…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…ir thank you to the manager. But in many ways, we kept thinking it is sad that they find it so rare for someone to essentially do his job that they need to write a song. Johnnie, Bishop and Eddie all joined in to support them in the studio with Winyo and Nina working on back up vocals. They were a huge amount of fun, smiling throughout it all. Other than recording, we continued to blog our little hearts out, write up trip reports, strategies, less…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…rap Oloo’ : about a wife who thinks her husband is lost. She wants to look for him because she can’t be responsible for all her children and animals without him. ‘Chang’komen’ : about a woman who is married to a man in a different village. She comes home bringing specialities to eat and drink. ‘Nerekan Evyline’ : Evyline was left by a man who flew away. The song is asking about what she’s going to do. She’ll tell her father to build a house. About…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…s such as weddings, births, circumcisions and funerals. They are also used for passing information on from generation to generation. The younger generation also sing but they did not come today. They mainly have older members in their group. The group have never been recorded before today and they were very excited about others hearing their traditional music. Kathy spoke to them about their dress and its significance. The white paint in lines and…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…d 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 a couple hen houses. Cows kept us to the pathways. We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful location – looking down…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…then make a sound that linked all cameras to audio.’ Someone pointed out that what we needed was a clapperboard – something the film industry had discovered 100 years ago and the solutions to all our problems! We were chastened. We asked Nick to be in charge of ‘the clapperboard’ and he got very good at shouting out takes, despite a lot of abuse from the Camera Crew. We now refer to him as ‘Clapper Man’. The rain We need to talk about the rain. W…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…tes International University (USIU). The Music Groups Ben Kisinja First up for recording was Ben Kisinja, a wonderful guitarist in the typical Kalenjin style. Tabu describes this style as very traditional and the way of singing is very unique to the Sabaot clan of the Kalenjin. The guitar is called a burkandit, and is a homemade guitar somewhat resembling the Nyatiti of the Luo. He was joined by a percussionist who played the karachimek, which is…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…ible and didn’t care about the music and performed songs which are just performed for tourists. Not real music and not good. I knew the second it started. I was so glad it started raining and we could get out of there.” [Editor note: we did not include this group in any Singing Wells materials.] So here is Pato’s favourite Singing Wells track – Jovah from the Mperwa Batwa community in Kisoro performing with Jesse on piano at the Ketebul Music stud…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…nt to hear. The tribes often think we want to hear gospel, rap or songs performed for tourists. He wants to archive the traditional music because otherwise it will be lost. Young Kenyans in the cities are ignorant of the traditional music and are surprised when they hear quality and uniqueness of the tribal music. In addition to archiving the music, Tabu feels Ketebul’s role is to make the music widely accessible and to empower the tribes. If the…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…ith some gifts in my bag in anticipation of this but the reality of it is that what I have is not only too little to offer to such a large group of children, but also so irrelevant to their real needs. A few skipping ropes, some Dynamo torches, harmonicas. Earlier on I gave one of the girls a skipping rope, demonstrating, rather badly, how to use it first. She didn’t need my lesson, she was already brilliant at skipping! And I had given one boy a…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…ke sure the Subject is Administrative areas. There is other data available for free download from this page, such as elevation and population density, but for our purposes we’re only interested in administrative areas, i.e. the regions and districts of a country (though these may have other names, such as aimags in Mongolia). Clicking OK will take you to a page which displays the data you are about to download – an outline of the United Kingdom. C…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…ording on the hill tops near Kisoro. He played kid golf during his live performances, gently knocking the kids from the ‘stage’ with his spear. He is an amazing visual performer, especially in his songs about cranes where he does the Batwa ‘Bird Dance.’ He is the leader of the Kisoro Batwa in terms of music and we could not have recorded further without him at the heart of our sessions. Francis Sembagare Tiny Moses Tiny Moses blew us away at the h…
How To (Arc)Map News
…ind out more here. You can also check out their non-profit organisations’ scheme, which allows registered charities access to software for free. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FIRST POST…