Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…and, the Sega Sega Band: 5-6 vocalists and a couple of guitarists. https://youtu.be/pp_O-MYVbjg https://youtu.be/BUttehOfnKk https://youtu.be/-uRDY4G3_mo https://youtu.be/Z8N3nkdSB5g The Dodo Group Featuring Ogoya Nengo. The group sings in the Do Do style. Ogoya has exremely strong vocals and there are four ‘shaker’ players and amazing drummer and a set of dancers. https://youtu.be/k3vA-sSgurw https://youtu.be/VOhmHrO8E7s https://youtu.be/jQsC…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…cubicles. Two dozen Micheles. Each story as horrible as the one before. As you can imagine, we boarded our flight to Nairobi somberly. We reflected on all the people we met on the long drives through Rwanda and wondered how they now face their neighbours – you are fairly certain every person knows a either victim or an executioner well. To prove the point, we asked our Ugandan driver what he thought of the memorial. He said he now understood how h…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…al dancers and she out performed many of the younger members of the group… You can see her in action in the later part of the amazing, high energy performance… As always, the babies are not excluded from the show. They learn the traditional Batwa songs and dances from the earliest age… Kamunto Moses The return of the guitar and magic bass. This is Kisoro Hill who had a couple hours to work with Winyo and Jessie on an ‘Influences’ session. You’ll r…
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…tarist 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://youtu.be/5Zv_8A8LpRE We invited them back to perform an ‘Influences’ set with us tomorrow. Fantastic songs and a wonderful end to our Wednesday in Kisoro. The…
Day 5 (PM): The ‘Togetherness Group’ from Kanyabukunga Story
…elling them that they are beautiful. A lovely song for us to hear! https://youtu.be/MIxv2AOZ7XU https://youtu.be/iYuE_b8lzF8 https://youtu.be/bApTXsrdZ3A https://youtu.be/nh9LxM8OrfE https://youtu.be/CPJ5H7XvdT0 https://youtu.be/qQK5NiF7aSk ‘Abagyeni Beza’ https://youtu.be/7i3F5hPSPg8 The afternoon session wraps up at about 5pm. We say our farewells and head back to the Traveller’s Rest for the evening recording session. The Singing Wells Team…
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…usic, which is why he is such an inspiration: But too many (most) East African musicians want to sound like 50 Cent or Justin Timberlake and too many East African radio stations sound like they are competing on Los Angeles air waves. So the second major goal of Singing Wells is to inspire current artists to pick up on the traditions of these tribal artists. One way we do this is to record ‘Influences’ sessions, where Winyo and other artists work w…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…less beautiful: We then set up the ‘studio’ ready to record the Birara Dancers: The key sound engineers do a final check before we begin: Steve, Andy and Jesse do a final sound check before we begin. https://youtu.be/l-1IG790EOs https://youtu.be/u38YYaTQMIY https://youtu.be/uNeC4Dw4bu0 https://youtu.be/9FZeFgg4jKI https://youtu.be/VhR6f97o_6o https://youtu.be/ET41BPYiYXA https://youtu.be/aSxGwZ3k1eA…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…opulation 12,000. On a map we are about as far west and south in Uganda as you can go. Traveller’s Rest: We stayed at the Traveller’s Rest, a hotel famed for being a meeting place for gorilla observers. They write about this on their website: “In 1955 Travellers Rest was bought by Walter Baumgartel, and quickly became a meeting place for people interested in the mountain gorilla. Amongst them was ‘gorilla-woman” Dian Fossey, who said: “Walter’s ho…
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
…fresh and relevant, but the traditions are completely built into the song. You can hear the instruments, the rhythms, the harmonies, the melodies. Our young artists want to sound like 50 Cent. They seem almost embarrassed by the village music. This terrifies me. SK: Singing Wells can’t just be about archiving. We can’t be fossil collectors. We have to also make sure we can bring these traditions into modern music. We are doing this with Winyo. He…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 continued…. Story
…rs 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 you know, we are surrounded by the children at every recording… here are a few more… We even had an audience high on the hills….. Jimmy March 2011 …
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 – recording in the village of Kibarani Story
…ecording and a full one. In this blog we report on the morning. We’ll give you a sense of the village, the groups, the kids and the ‘setup’… The Village This village was called Kibarani. We set up behind on larged thatched hut in an open field, filmed with cows (lots of mooing ended up on record), cow poo (lots of misteps), children, beautiful trees, chickens… but far off the main road, wonderful quiet and cool. This is the goat pen to the right o…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…Wonderful percussionist using two shakers and a whistle (filimbi). https://youtu.be/cvpcFBTaoTo https://youtu.be/3bvGrAulYP4 The Fusion: In this first village we really confirmed the mission of Singing Wells. It is necessary, but not sufficient to arhive the performances of these amazing groups. 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…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…Ogado. He opened the ‘meeting’ and this was his final song. The instrument you hear is the nyatiti (a lyre-like stringed instrument) which he played. Marina, Samba Mapangala: This is the song that Samba opened his piece with. He followed Ayub Ogado who played percussion throughout. There was a lot of dancing, including a drop by from Maddo: Winyo: He’s the current new star from the Ketebul stable. He sang back up for Samba and when he came on he s…
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…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…veryone had some food apart from Tabu. I have known Tabu since 2005, and I can count the number of times I have seen him having a meal on 1 hand! After refueling car number 02 (it must have been guzzling the fuel because of the AC), we set off for the second leg of our journey, Voi to Mombasa. Salif Keita’s ‘M’bemba’ CD and Winyo’s in production CD ‘Benga & Blues’ proved to be the favorite cruise music as we kept on switching between the two. Thou…