Health and Safety? Story
On Day 6 of the Northern Uganda Field Trip 2012 we broke a wheel on the crazy roads full of potholes on our way down to Kampala. It was going to be a long drive and we were desperate to get in before dark (previous experience of Africa Night Driving had taught the team to avoid it at all costs), but after the accident we had to drive back to Soroti to get it fixed. It was there we were able to find an engineer purely through word of mouth, and…
A new type of city Story
On our first day on the Northern Uganda Field Trip 2012 we ventured into Kampala to pick up Akello before we headed up north to Gulu. I was curious to see what the capital would be like; this image speaks a lot about the city. The number of ‘proper’ buildings were few and in only the small centre. It was hilly and most of the roads were not built for vehicles. The shops were small shacks mostly and at night stayed open, lit by candle light. Ther…
Victoria’s reflections on field trip to Northern Uganda News
…on an amazing trip are in the form of a poem which sums up six remarkable days in Uganda with Singing Wells….illustrated with a few of my photos. Through Ugandan Eyes We travel a road under African skies And imagine your world through your soulful eyes Their silence speaks volumes, a story to tell We’ll re-tell your story, we are Singing Wells We travel a road to a world far apart Your country, Uganda, it captures our heart Your eyes are a window…
The Boy with the Headphones Story
…l tell you about this little boy with the headphones. It was on our second day in Kisoro when we travelled to the Mperwa Batwa community. Consisting of just a small number of families, the Mperwa have settled on a small area of borrowed land just a few kilometres from the town. At first glance the setting appeared to be spectacular, with the lush valley and terraced hills of local farms as a backdrop and the magnificent Virunga volcanos in the d…
Man on the Pier Story
We had just finished our first field day – in Sila in Gede District. Along with the first recordings, we had also recorded the first influences session. We headed back up the coast to the historic coastal town of Malindi, which had been our base for the previous night and was set to be again that night. We decided to see a little of the town on the way back to the hotel, and we stopped off at the pier. This gentleman was sitting with his…
The First Singing Wells Influences Session Story
…s cameraman and artist then also joined in. I quickly re-arranged the microphones and prepared headphones, so that the musicians could hear each other, and we recorded it. Thus the concept of the ‘Influence’ session was born. The recording is here for you to listen to, and to buy on the Mijikenda of Kenya album The father, Nyerere wa Konde was very gracious and offered us coconuts as a thanks for visiting and recording, which he, with the help of…
Hannah interviews Sabina – Acet, Northern Uganda News
…i Ite Yaa’ – a women’s group from a nearby IDP camp on our first recording day in Northern Uganda. Sabina played the ‘Uvure’ a type of horn for this women’s group and blew us away. Like Evelyn Ojok her husband was killed in the war after he was abducted and taken into the bush by the LRA. She has 7 children and 4 of them love to sing and dance, mainly through learning at school. What does this music mean to you? The Acholi often give meaning and…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…s for the whole group to perform, singing and dancing in front of ten microphones and three digital cameras.’ Video engineer, Patrick Ondiek, adds, ‘I love producing the final videos and getting phone calls from my friends asking me ‘how did you find these musicians?’ I feel like I’m on the cutting edge of music, bringing these talented musicians to my Nairobi friends.’ In addition to our field visits, we have developed an online Music Map of East…
Day 10: File Management at Ketebul Studios Story
…ou know from previous blogs, we seem to love this topic. What does a final day involve: Steve works out all accounts Andy works out all audio, including the Ketebul recordings Pato works through all video Jimmy works through all field reports and works with Nick on final spelling Tabu has final interviews with musicians We all agree next steps in terms of updating all our trip reports We have a final session on our learnings, positive and negative…
Day 9 (AM): Ketebul Studio – Influences session for Cheri Story
…i to work in the studio with tribal musicians discovered previously. Yesterday we worked with Mwenzele-Nyerere wa Konde Music Club on five studio songs. Today, we brought them back in to work with Stanley on his song Cheri, featuring Macadem. Here’s how the process worked today: Jaybee first worked with Stanley, Bishop and Johnnie to get the basic song structure down and put on a vocal ‘Chorus.’ Stanley wants the song to be a classic love song and…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…he offending husband would kill the adulterer. Whenever the song is sung today in the villages, some audience believes the song is pointing at them, accusing them… Kirori: This is the band leader’s song and is a song in three verses about a girl he met in early days. In verse one, he tries to flatter her but she dismisses him as a little man of no consequence. In verse 2, they meet years later and our hero has a little money. He’s able to buy the…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…lot of practice. Achievements Through UOBDU monitoring, each group set a day in a week for making practice and this has improved the performance of the groups. During the implementation of the project UOBDU has been able to secure space in different occasions for different groups to perform and all the groups performed excellently, these occasions include the Kabahenda group danced for their Member of Parliament during the time he visited his co…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…ildren were constantly scared. They were ‘trained’ to shoot in a matter of days, and were periodically beaten a number of strokes depending on your age, in his case it was 300. Odika called it the ‘bush mind’, and sometimes even once soldiers returned that mind would come back again, in nightmares or in daily life. To help returning soldiers they were taken to Gulu Children of War Rehabilitation Centre for 6 months before going home, partly to mak…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…e carved into a hill, with rows and rows of streets below us, and an equal number of streets and houses piled up above us. There were cars, motorbikes and taxi’s driving past and planes flying overhead. Everything was for sale by everyone who walked by. No sleeping cattle. No flower beds. But, as always, there was wonderful music. The first group was the Adungu Cultural Troupe, masters of the Adungu. We had interviewed their leader on our ‘recce’…
Hannah interviews Evelyn Ojok – Acet, Northern Uganda News
…t also to celebrate that we are now in peace. Who taught you the music? My parents taught me how to sing and dance and all about Acholi culture. That has changed, now the children learn from school. I was born in Kitgum but I married in Gulu when I was 18. My children love school and never miss a day unless they are sick, which is unusual. They are also lucky because school is only 1.5 miles away, while many children have to walk half a day to get…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…the size of Rhode Island), with equipment going through 1.5 gigs of data A DAY. Second, we need an exact record of the day, linking files to songs and songs to groups and groups to sites and sites to days. We average about 20 songs a site and just over 1.5 sites per day. Just getting the right spelling on to a clapper board of a song and getting that recorded elsewhere against a take list takes time to master. Third, we then need to very quickly p…