Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…serve the musical legacy of East Africa; we are trying to make it relevant to today’s artists. Our ‘Influences’ sessions seek to demonstrate the extraordinary power of this tribal music in relation to today’s music. Chief Sound Engineer: Commands the audio team and is in charge of input for all sessions and for completing all finished audio for that day. Assistant Engineer: In charge of set up/breakdown of set and assisting Chief Sound Engineer on…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…s this worth it guys? [This is a pretty relevant question 470 kilometres into a 800 kilometre journey back from the coast to Nairobi] TO: We have no choice. We have to do something and I don’t see anyone else doing what we’re doing. We’ve got to get three things right going forward: we have to get the audio right. People need to hear the music like we’re hearing it in the field. We’ve got to get world class at this. Second, we’ve got to get the vi…
Kenya (Coast): Day 3 – our final recording day Story
…illage. Enjoy…. Winyo and the kids… That’s enough for now. There’s 150 pictures more for every one we show, but the internet is too slow to keep posting Jimmy…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 continued…. Story
…The Group prepares for their performance… Sengenya The most energetic group by far, brought the house down, with wonderful dancing. Led by Munyaka Chimega, they danced in the style of Sengenya (which bears their name). Non-stop dancing, multiple songs and they didn’t want to stop (but we ran out of video!). Fantastic energetic dancers that we’ve only captured on video…. …and all the kids joined in… https://youtu.be/m0eG1EcIpNM The kids By now…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 – recording in the village of Kibarani Story
…uring the Marimba …with lots of the children The Children Our routine is now established. We drive into a village and meet the musicians and begin setting up. We are about 10 folks and the musicians are another 10-15. We then start the first song and by the end of the session we are generally surrounded by 50-100 kids… Behind the Scenes We have good routines now: We set up our little tent (right) We set up mic stands We set up mics and while fol…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…s. We must also work to make the songs, the heritage, the culture relevant to today’s artists. Part of that mission then is to help create an East African musical identity to rival the South and West African successes. We had a taste of what this could be on March 29th in Sati, when Winyo joined Bado and his father, Nyerere wa Konde, to do a new song. Bado participates in his dad’s group, but separately records his own music. Bado’s music is great…
The Kalenjin & Kenya’s elite athletes News
…try champion. They are focusing mainly on their coaching and what it takes to get to the Olympics. Both athletes will be running at London 2012. Most Kenyan runners come from the Rift Valley, in particular the town of Itan where there is a strong culture of running. The high altitude enables runners to develop and maintain high levels of fitness. Chela has worked on various documentaries, in particular the Water Project for Unicef and her current…
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…no Kayamba From these sessions, we recorded about 24 songs and are working now to convert these into a CD, DVD and archive. We were very pleased with the quality of the recording equipment and how well the mobile studio worked in the field off a generator. The reaction of the groups and villagers confirmed that it is far better to ‘go to the music’ then try to bring all these talented musicians 900 kms to Nairobi. In addition, we confirmed that Ke…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…traditional costumes, arts and crafts, dances and music to each other and to visitors. Combined with the stunning geographical characteristics and the very limited general knowledge on the Lake Turkana region, the presentation of the cultural traditions makes the Festival a unique and fascinating experience for everyone involved.’ Steve’s objective is to record the music of all 10 performing groups. All the material will be taken back to the Kete…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…m mid last century and offer them in easy to read, listen and view mediums to today’s audiences, young and old, we were trying to fulfill our dreams of preserving our music heritage for prosterity. We have so far produced two packages and are currently working on three others simultaneously. Of course the world cannot live in the past and must move on, but there is no future without a past. Countries that have rich music industries and whose music…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…20 people applauding their every move..When we finally managed to get them to stop, they insisted on doing one last number for us to join them in dance. I was dragged into the dance and forced to expose my two left feet. Tabu and Winyo gave a good account of themselves with the shoulder shaking dance (which I must point out though is very similar to the dance style of the Lake Victoria region where both Tabu and Winyo hail from). Jimmy gave it his…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…he performers. 5. And longer term? Well, the long term starts now. We need now to work on the following: Training: We need training on professional archiving and will work with professionals and enthno-musicologists to work on this. Recruitment: we believe a key benefit of Singing Wells is to train others on field recording and project like this. We want to recruit a set of new folks that want to learn and take on similar projects. Fund Raising: W…