The Entenga Drums: Part 1 Story
…on November 30th, at Kyambogo University, they revealed the drums to the Singing Wells team and an audience that grew and grew as they played. Here are four things we learned about these drums on Day 1: There are 15 drums. 12 of the drums operate as a collection, set in stands off the ground and as you face them, they move from largest to smallest, right to left. All these drums are played with the Enga, the curved drum stick. Again, as you face…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Days 5-11:An Interview with Gregg Story
…hat this tribal music is available out in the villages. There were people singing and dancing to preserve the music – this is real life and largely in Nairobi we are cut off from the reality of real life, the soul. To still realize that it is available in its authentic format was great. SW: What was your favourite moment on the trip? GT : Day 3, when we recorded the Mariene Traditional Dancers: To see this group sing was to connect with real life….
The History Of Benga Music: A Report by Ketebul Music Story
…writers employing clever allegory, generating witty memorable phrases or coining new idioms. Tradition— Adaptations and Innovations The traditional Benga sound is about 60 years old with its formative years occurring between the late 1950s and the 1960s. Its roots run deep in age-old Luo musical instruments. Of the many traditional instruments that the Luo played, the most enduring and widely used is the nyatiti, an eight-stringed traditional lyre…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 0 – London/Nairobi Story
…enda (Interview 2), who is from the Kamba ethnic community and will be helping interview the groups (e mail: gregtendwa@gmail.com) Lewis Koome (Video 3), who is from the Meru ethnic community and has been our primary contact person to support this trip (e mail: lkoome2000@yahoo.com) Raphael Sipalla (Audio 4) our ‘Influences’ artist (e mail: ruffmaud@yahoo.com) We will be interviewing them throughout this trip to provide additional color to our Fie…
Central Uganda: Day 5 – Jinja to Kampala Story
…Walusimbi was once the Global Youth Earth Day Ambassador for Africa after winning the Global Youth Earth Day Ambassadors Competition in Marikina-Philipines. Nabayaza Sumaya Baiga: She is a senior member of Nile Beat Artists and is vice president of the cultural association in my university. During her school life she was best dancer in 2007 and 2010 in high school, and best dancer in her university in 2010 and 2011. Musoke Meddy: He is a senior me…
Central Uganda: Day 4 – Jinja Story
…hen of one of our cottage rooms and have the groups either perform on our dining patio or our porch. We had three groups today and the drivers were sent out to round them up from the surrounding areas. The Bigwala Cultural Group One of this group’s primary purposes is to restore the Bigwala, the big Ugandan trumpet, to Ugandan musical culture. According to our local musical expert, James Isabirye, it was close to dead, but a Unesco project has hel…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…to keep the food away from the lazy wife and the lazy wife would go complaining to the husband. The message in the song is to not wait for everything to be done for you. Paolo Wawanyera: This is someone’s name, meaning Paul, son of Wawanyera. Paul was a chief. He visited certain places and found they had made him party with lots of food and drink. He actually visited his brother in law who was jealous of him as a chief. So he decided to poison hi…
Central Uganda: Day 2 – Kampala to Budaka Story
…talent. Most of the members are teachers that are being trained and are training. They are highly creative and dramatic.” The Namaddu Troupe The second group was the Namaddu Troupe, with 28 members and was formed in April 2009, led by Ndoboli Ramathan, and from Lyama Sub County. Their style of music was Namaddu Dance. Their costumes were Gomasi, Kanzu and skins (emondo-cheetah and antelops). Their instruments included: The Ngoma (Drums). There wer…
Current Leading Figures News
…ic of marginalised people, but again is also looking for funding – though finding funds could prove to be a difficult task, as highlighted by James above. However, Singing Wells has been lucky enough to be able to make recordings of the Nile Beat Artists, which was founded by James. They performed five songs for us during our last trip to Uganda, which can be found on Soundcloud, and one of the performances has been uploaded to Youtube (see the vi…
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…
Singing Wells in Numbers…. News
…Andy did a litte homework for this one: Number of recordings of groups: 374 (this does not include other recordings like Magic Moments, Influences, etc…) Number of groups recorded: 83 Number of hours of music: 27 hours and 30 minutes. …
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…
Report from Womex 2013 News
…our first visit to Womex, we booked a stand at the trade fair, with the main intentions being to spread the word of the project and the work we are doing in partnership with Ketebul Music. Ketebul have attended Womex before, and we would have benefited from the presence of our partners on this trip, but we were a last minute addition to the program. I got there late on Tuesday night and got to the arena early on Wednesday morning to set up the st…
SWP Uganda 2013 – our proposed itinerary News
…n who has been mentioned in several circles so far as being one of the remaining custodians of Basoga music history. Nathan ‘Mata’ is a composer and songwriter who plays the ‘Endongo’ (thumb piano). Mata, (Lusoga for ‘milk’) as he is popularly known, has lost his sight and lives in very humble conditions with his family. He said he was glad we had visited him and was looking forward to our return in November.” After our recording session with ‘Mat…
A recording studio which fits into the back of an SUV Story
These images, taken during our various field visits to date, show the Singing Wells mobile studio set-up…and also prove that you can pack 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 MacBoo…
The Singing Wells supports Ketebul Music’s ‘Kenya at 50’ project News
…an. This brought him work from the BBC around the time of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. Colmore spent time working for the Kenya Information Service around this time – possibly as a photographer. He was instrumental in setting up the African Broadcasting service Entertainment unit, which included the guitarist Fundi Konde – said to be the first electric guitarist in East Africa. He also set up Hi Fidelity Productions and studio in Nairobi – a pro…