Singing Wells – Origins News
…e were astounded by the quality of the tribal music, but equally surprised to find how hard it was to access the music back in Britain. As the founder of Abubilla Music, I set out to find partners in East Africa who were committed to preserving the music. Through a series of e-mails that travelled the world, Tabu and I were brought together by Joyce Nyairo, then of the Ford Foundation, East Africa office. After several long e-mail exchanges and a…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…walk to Uganda and back and die. Masirtarit Finally, we recorded the ill-fated Masirtarit, a wonderful female folk choir with great songs. They had waited all day for their turn only to find the rain arrived to join them. We did record one wonderful take which will be part of Singing Wells, but they deserved far more. …
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…velled to London in August as part of Ketebul Music’s ‘Kenya @ 50’ 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+…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…ager, was cracking the whip. Pato, head of Video, was quickly learning how to use the new lighting kit (SW 4), but he was constantly distracted by the new Singing Wells Flip Camera. Nick focused on learning the Clapperboard. And Willie joined Jimmy in the studio with Johnnie, the guitarist, to lay down some guitar tracks for the new fund raising song, Missing – Global Remix. An interview with Tabu The the midst of all the packing chaos, Hunter and…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…k 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 table in it, which should look like this. The column called NAME_2 contains the names of all of the counties. Unfortunately I have yet to figure out a smart way of getting those names out of ArcMap and into Excel, so usually…
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
…C: drive. Within the folder you’ve created for the project (mine is called How To Map), create a folder called Country Outlines. Within this make a folder called UK, and within that, copy and paste the shapefiles. The address where your shapefiles are saved is now: C:\How To Map\Country Outlines\UK. Getting your map outline into ArcMap Open ArcMap and select Cancel – you want to create a new map rather than opening an existing one. This will give…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…y Neza to see if he would be willing to travel with a selection of singers to Nairobi. We told him if he left immediately he would probably make it back to Nairobi at the same time we did. We called him on Monday the 28th of November, hoping he could make it to Nairobi by the 2nd of December. It is a sign of Henry’s amazing devotion to the Batwa cause that he said yes to such a request. First, their travel story. He was able to contact all the sin…
How To (Arc)Map News
…ng and replicate it. To that end, Singing Wells will be blogging about how to use ArcMap 10 and what exactly we’re doing with it, so anyone with access to it can understand and follow along (and that includes members of the Singing Wells team itself). Watch this space for future posts, and if you’re interested in ArcMap, you can find out more here. You can also check out their non-profit organisations’ scheme, which allows registered charities acc…
Day 4: Discovery of the Young Stars… Story
…of the roots of Bob Dylan… https://youtu.be/iRQlHbyzoKM https://youtu.be/9Qx_vs2Uw-U https://youtu.be/bmFyePat-VY https://youtu.be/HRXyT1czwG8 https://youtu.be/4jnrLn92SxA And with the Jose recording, we officially finished our November field trip, which took us to Rwanda, Uganda and Lake Victoria. Tomorrow we head back to Nairobi where we will be greeted by the Batwa singers and musicians we invited back to record in the studio. They have been tr…
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…we recording the visually spectacular Kochia Dancers. We drove from Kisumu to Homa Bay; we’re on Lake Victoria now at Homa Bay (still 1PM on your Lake Victoria dial) but a little more south and a little more west, on the south shore of the Winam Gulf. After a long drive, we set up at the hotel in a beautiful field against the lake – we’re surrounded by camels and pelicans, which is frankly a bit off putting. The pelicans are big enough to fly us a…
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…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…l each of their children before they were slaughtered themselves. Rape was used to humilate and torture. Many rapists had AIDs and knowingly infected their victims. Long after the slaughter was over, the victims of rape continued to die in the thousands from AIDs. But most were burned or hacked to death long before. The ‘lucky ones’ died of AIDs. The memorial has a room filled with skulls, a room of femurs, a room of blood stained clothes, a room…
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
…ng. The musician simply ‘beat boxed’ into the pot. And we soon figured out how to mic it (note 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 hear…