Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…music documentary. He teamed up with Andy Patterson while he was here and together they conducted a number of interviews with Kenyan musicians who are now based in the UK. They also had the chance to visit Kenya House in Stratford as a guest of our friends at the Kenya Tourist Board. Here’s Bill’s article published in Business Daily Africa: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Where+the+world+got+real+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…will become clear later). The only way to make absolutely sure of that is to go into ArcMap and look at the attribute table of the shapefile (that’s basically the data that makes the shapefile look how it does), and check the names of the counties. To do this open the map, which is saved at C:\How To Map\How to Map 1, or wherever you put it. Then right-click on GBR_adm2 and select Open Attribute Table. This will open a box with the attribute tabl…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…tely stunned. Henry explains that this lady would need to make the journey to town 2 or 3 times a week, leaving her home one day, staying with another Batwa community overnight and returning the next. Extraordinary. Getting a lift in the van saved her half a day’s walk. The van pulls up on the track and Henry says we are there – or nearly there. The village is just up here he says, pointing to the top of the hill which looms high above us. We can…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…called How To Map 1, so the address where it is saved is C:\How To Map\How to Map 1. To get our country outline into ArcMap we need to Add Data. To do this either click File > Add Data > Add Data or select the Add Data icon. This will open a box; click this icon till you reach ‘Home – Documents/ArcGIS’: From here click on Folder Connections. This is where you will connect folders from elsewhere on your computer to ArcMap. Click on this icon: and s…
How to Map 1: Housekeeping News
…sed to be following and it loses the data. It’s remediable, but a pain, so best to avoid doing that. The point of all this is: keep your GIS folders and files obsessively well organised, and keep them all on the C: drive. When this is applicable later I’ll mention it so you remember. A note about shapefiles I just mentioned shapefiles and seeing as they’re what we’ll be using for the whole of this process, I think I should explain myself. Initiall…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…ight: Steve, Winyo (with Bone Guitar), Andy and Tabu. After this shameless tourist stop we head out towards Siaya. We’re still roughly 1 PM on the Lake Victoria clock, 90 minutes NW from Kisumu, but on a slightly different road than Rang’ala. We’re here to focus on the Nyatiti, the core Luo instrument – as played by the best players it is a bass, drum and rhythm guitar combined. And we saw some of the best players. We want to remind you first…
Christine Kamau – “The Jazzist” News
…g indigenous music alive..#very best wishes and I hope we can keep in touch. Christine BBC Africa Beats: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17831507 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thejazzist Reverbnation: https://www.reverbnation.com/christinekamau …
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…on: Once the equipment was loaded, the Ketebul guys got the big truck… In terms of the trip to Kisumu, a picture is worth a thousand words… we will say no more on the topic: Tomorrow we get back to recording. That is a very good thing. The Singing Wells Team 27 November 2011…
The Batwa Trail News
…as tour guides on the Batwa Trail. A visit to the Batwa trail permits visitors to discover the magic of the indigenous people old home while partaking in nature walks and learning about the group’s cultural heritage. During this moving cultural encounter tour, the Batwa demonstrate hunting techniques; gather honey; point out medicinal plants and demonstrate bamboo cups. Guests are finally invited to the sacred Ngarama Cave, once home to the Batwa…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…or our trip to Kisoro. We have lots of music, lots of video and lots more stories to tell. But we want to keep disciplined and report daily, so forgive us if we can’t give you everything at once. Over the coming weeks, these blogs will be filled with the music and videos and far more background on the project and the Batwa. For now leave for Nairobi again and then, on Sunday, travel to Western Kenya for the next series of villages and more music….
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…te the green cable). Also, take a look at the shaker in his right hand – a tomato soup can that works as well as any we’ve seen. So, hats off to our wonderful guitarist and his fully home made guitar, with wire strings and frets. And a special thumbs up to the magic bass – a clay pot and a ‘beat boxer’ providing one of the coolest bass lines we’ve ever heard. Here they are in action… https://youtu.be/38uXVC1pEvQ https://youtu.be/-alDBT6_wJw https:…
Gary Barlow, Ayub Ogada & the Diamond Jubilee song News
…an website for all things related to Take That and Gary Barlow. Click here to go to the article. Our post from March 23rd 2012 Our friends at the Kenya Tourist Board UK & Ireland have added a feature about Singing Wells in their Magical Kenya March 2012 newsletter but the headline article is about Gary Barlow’s visit to Kenya to find musicians from the Commonwealth countries to perform on his song for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. We have to admit…
Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…doing. These young boys enjoy exclusive access to the sound recording area, keeping a close eye on Andy and Willie and enjoying listening to the live performance through their headphones……
Congratulations Singing Wells! News
…n Lead Curator World & Traditional Music, British Library I was so excited to be referred to the Singing Wells Project website. I’ve shared it with a lot of people because these sorts of collaborative efforts at recording, archiving and disseminating music ethically are so important. I met Tabu Osusa and Bill Odidi while doing some training on audiovisual archiving in Kenya as part of a British Library World Collections Programme initiative. It wa…
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…hing very new and often scary to the tribal artists. They have to wear headphones to hear other instruments we recorded earlier. They have to sing into a mic. Often they are asked not to clap. Often they are asked not to dance while they sing. We do it to focus on sound quality, but we are fully aware that we are putting these fantastic musicians into an alien environment. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. With the Birara Dancers over the…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
DAY 3: Today, we travelled from Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro, arriving at the Traveller’s Rest Hotel by late eveningWe set off early so we could settle all custom issues with our equipment (we really wanted to return with it all!). We then took Kenyan Airlines (new plane with movies!) to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, population roughly a million. We were met by our drivers Arun and John and drove through heavy rains to the Rwanda-Uganda border cr…