From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…ontinue to tell the story of one young man carrying a generator on his head 800 metres, with 400 metres elevation. We will get T shirts made. Francis Playing Kid Golf: Francis is the music leader of most of Kisoro Batwa, knowing all the clans – he is pretty much has the final say in who sings what song. He is also the lead dancer of his group. We will never forget Francis playing what we called ‘kid golf.’ He was carrying his big spear doing his d…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…inyo. Here, they put down their track. Not at all phased by the use of headphones and mics, they take everything in there stride, performing a number of takes as the song develops. We start by giving them a simple click to follow the beat but quickly realised that their tempos are far more subtle than this. Francis comes back to set the rhythm with their natural clapping and it suddenly all came together again. Once we have the female vocals recor…
Gary Barlow, Ayub Ogada and our very own global song News
…sy of Ayub Ogada. You can read all about the making of the global remix of ’71 hours’ here but in the meantime, have a look at the video which tells the story and was released for the launch of the Singing Wells project a year ago….. 71 Hours to Monday – the global remix …
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…t is no exaggeration to say that most of them live to dance, live to sing. When we come to record them, we come to honour them, to listen to them as they tell their stories. But that is not enough. We said when we started this project that we weren’t fossil collectors. Our goal wasn’t to shove the music on to hard drives and store them in some museum. Our goal was to also bring that music to the next generation of artists and encourage them to inc…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…icrophones. This also carries the tripod for Roving Video 1. Cable Bag/Headphones: This is full of all the jacks, mic connects, headphone extenders. There’s a lot of cables. Mega Tripod: This is the bag for Pado’s pride and joy, the mega tripod for Stationary Camera 1. Project Management: How do we now set ourselves up for audio-video recording on site? Again, based on lessons from both the March Pilot and Lake Turkana, here’s the set up: Overall…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…tual birth date is December 12, but my recorded birthday is December 15th, when my mum actually filled in the forms. Q: How did you get involved with Ketebul and Singing Wells? SK: I set out to be a graphic designer in multi-media. I was in college for Graphics Designs and met a lot of musicians there and started with music production, music software, starting with Fruity Loops. I remember the first song I was produced was a song called Msewangu,…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…can 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, propelled by his wonderful voice, but it’s American-sounding and could have been produced in LA. We asked him to do a song and he started singing one of his about a guy essentially asking a girl to be h…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…he current new star from the Ketebul stable. He sang back up for Samba and when he came on he said he was humbled by the extraordinary talent in the room. 50 years of East African music, the hand-off of one generation to the next. Massive respect for each others talent and an amazing evening that only Tabu could pull off. Amazing voice: We recorded video and used the mobile recording studio to record most of the concert. We’ll post this later. In…
Abubilla Music release fourth album News
…ic has been released and there’s a launch party on 2nd October in Richmond when The Saturday Morning Canasta Club will play tracks to a (hopefully) admiring audience – more news about that to follow. Click on the cover for a sneak preview – the track ‘Breathe’ performed by the Singing Wells Project’s very own Andy Patterson……. Importantly, the album also includes the global remix of an original Abubilla track ’71 Hours to Mon…
Global song released to support SWP News
…Abubilla Music have released a truly global remix of an original song from their first album Six Months of Saturdays – it’s called 71 Hours to Monday and combines musicians and vocalists from Sao Paulo in Brazil, Nairobi and London. All profits from the sale of the track will be donated to The Abubilla Music Foundation to support the The Singing Wells Project. Take a look and find out the story behind the song and the SWP: …
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…o allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…t what was funny was the look Andy gave the receptionist at Paradise Hotel when he asked us to visit again. The day’s program was long because we had four groups to record, two in Kilifi and the two in Kaloleni, Mombasa. We left early picked Deche our fixer who had chosen to stay in Watamu with his relatives, tand proceeded to Kibarani village in Kilifi. A point to note is that what was becoming common was that whenever we were setting up kids fro…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…set him up with a click track and he laid down a vocal track. Magic moment number two occurred when it was suggested that his dad, Mzee Nyere wa Konde, laid down some ad libs on the same recording. One thing led to another and Winyo also joined the recording which turned out to be an amazing recording. Just before we left Sita, we were welcomed to generous helpings of ‘madafu’. This is the juice from almost ripe coconuts, a delicacy in the coast…