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…
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…ted, and ready to call it a day. Just in time to be shocked by the world’s best bassist.. We opened the ‘Hotel Studio’ for the Kisoro Hill Community who started with wonderful dance and song. But then, they switched gears and set up a smaller group of ‘bass’ and guitar and absolutely blew us away… They started as wonderful large group moving through a set of songs, including ‘Imparake Yagahinga’, the National Park song, which is a staple of the Ba…
Christine Kamau – “The Jazzist” News
…ge of support from Afro-Jazz trumpeter and composer, Christine Kamau….. Hello Victoria! Thanks for getting in touch! I have checked out you project…it’s great that you are dedicated to keeping 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/christi…
Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…s’ sessions with her. Until the music is ready, with think this village is best described through pictures: We arrived, greeted by lots of men and boys going back and forth to market, including this chap (later we’ll write on a blog on all the things folks carried on their head and bikes). And there’s always the wonderful backdrop of the Virunga Mountains. And the inevitable narrow path leading up to the village…. And after a relatively short cl…
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…ble to take the studio to them, working in their environment to capture as best we can the music and dance of their community. It is important to note that these sessions are incredibly important to these communities. It 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 proje…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…ogs up the mountain We finally struggled up the hill and saw the recording site for the first time. There’s a great irony about hills in Uganda. From a farming perspective, hill tops are often the worst land, far from towns and difficult to farm. The Batwa find themselves on a lot of hill tops. From an observers perspective, however, we found ourselves at the top of a hill, with a 360 degree view across the mountains and valleys. Every hill has be…
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…
Diamond Jubilee Pageant at Windsor Castle News
…fferent parts of the world, reflecting the countries which The Queen has visited during her reign. Representing Kenya, the show will feature: Performers from the Masai, Samburu, Luo, Kamba and Kikuyo tribes The Nairobi Chamber Chorus considered the topmost choir in Kenya today Cultural Pavilion At the entrance to Windsor Castle there will be a Cultural Pavilion which will contain a backdrop of graphic representations of all the countries tha…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…Abubilla also have different technical background. They have access to the best equipment and don’t compromise. This matters to us. Abubilla challenges us to do things differently. And I think we challenge them. AP: Yes it is relevant and it is working. We’re a good team and like working together (sometimes even without Tuskers). Ketebul knows the music, has a feel for the artists, has full access to people that know the best communities to work w…
News from the Batwa in Kisoro News
…Kisoro last year we sent a parcel to UOBDU for the Batwa communities we visited. The parcel contained printed books of photos of all the people we met and CDs and DVDs of the music performances we recorded. We also printed some leaflets about the Batwa in Uganda and their traditional music and dance which we hope will help to promote their standing in the community in Kisoro and beyond. Zaninka Penninah from UOBDU sent us this message: Dear Victo…
Kathy’s reflections on her Singing Wells experience News
…hours before we recorded them. They were proud and wanted to show us their best performances. I really felt for them if they thought they hadn’t done something right in the performance. For instance if they started singing before the clapper board was out of the shot they had to start again. This unnerved and embarrassed them and they had to regroup before they could sing again. I felt it was important to talk to them before the performances to pu…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…s all about the music and the concert that Tabu organised to celebrate the best in East African Music. This was the concert (actually Tabu called it a ‘meeting’ to celebrate the partnership of Ketebul and Abubilla): Kothbiro: Ayub Ogado. This is the song everyone remembers from the Constant Gardner. Written by the legendary Ayub Ogado. He opened the ‘meeting’ and this was his final song. The instrument you hear is the nyatiti (a lyre-like stringed…
Best of Singing Wells 2011 News
…s unique and special – we loved them all – so picking just 10 songs for a ‘Best of’ album was not easy. Here are our final choices….it’s just a small reflection of what was an extraordinary year of recording music in East Africa. We hope you enjoy listening. Please get in touch and let us know what you think. Just send us an email – we’d love to hear from you. Email Victoria You can see and hear more on our YouTube channel : Singing Wells on YouTu…
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…ecessary expertise and equipment to do full field recordings (up to 8 microphones and 3 digital cameras) throughout East Africa. PROJECT BENEFITS TO EAST AFRICA : We are on a journey. When we started, we knew the critical importance of capturing the cultural legacy of East Africa with tribal music, before it was lost to all of us forever. We were reminded of the importance of this in December, when one of the most extraordinary musicians we’ve rec…
A message from Henry Neza at UOBDU News
…r some of the Batwa to experience life outside their community when they visited the Ketebul Music studios in Nairobi for more recordings. During this trip they were able to interact with the Ford Foundation and benefit from new clothes and shoes, which improved their social status among the dominant tribes here. This gave them confidence and changed their behaviour. Now the non Batwa community agree that the Batwa can compete with others in many…
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…