Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…lls in Kisumu, Lake Victoria) were amazing and more modern than most music today. The Clapperboard Today was the first day we used the ‘clapperboard’. First a little background to this…… Singing Wells has always been about the music so our initial focus was on audio recording. We invested in first class audio equipment and can record using 8 mics directly into Pro Tools. But during the March Pilot programme, we realised that the visual experience…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…a few Skype calls, we agreed to start the Singing Wells project. We both knew we wanted to do something to preserve the music but it took us a while to define exactly what to do. Finally there was a eureka moment – the best thing we could do was to go the musicians, to their villages, to their homes and record them with their families. We would record them singing their songs to their children, three generations dancing together in their village….
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…– clearly taken from 50 Cent, but taking the Kalenjin love of cattle to a new level. 50 Cows is a local journalist and student at United States International University (USIU). The Music Groups Ben Kisinja First up for recording was Ben Kisinja, a wonderful guitarist in the typical Kalenjin style. Tabu describes this style as very traditional and the way of singing is very unique to the Sabaot clan of the Kalenjin. The guitar is called a burkandi…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…ey talks and the whole crew were there by 09.00. Everyone. That‘s the good news. The bad news was no one brought a key for the studio, forcing Tabu to have to drive home and back. We left an hour later. Drive good, but long (roughly 400 kms) with a few little thunder storms and the normal fun with roadworks and trucks. Nice chicken grill in Nakuru for lunch with full team. Fun fact, Nakuru is the birthplace of Nakumatt, the most successful retail…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…o 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 I had a chance to talk to Tabu, the head of Ketebul and a music producer wi…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…o the country outline shapefile. Export the joined data and shapefile as a new shapefile. Display the data. Prepare the data To demonstrate I’ll be using some nonsense data about the number of unicorns in each county of Britain, but if you’ve been following along using a different country and your own data then carry on with that. If you want to make your own nonsense data then this site will generate you some random data. Select CSV (basically Ex…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…p outline into ArcMap Open ArcMap and select Cancel – you want to create a new map rather than opening an existing one. This will give you the completely blank ArcMap screen. Before we do anything else, we’re going to save our map. Like all your other GIS files it needs to be saved on the C: drive. It’s also a good idea to put it in a folder of its own because it will start to collect lots of other bits that go with it and it’s always good to keep…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…mfort zone’ and be shown life from a completely different angle. It puts a new perspective on your own life. Hopefully it prompts some positive action. Secondly, it was so good to meet the Ketebul team after many months of emailing. And now I understand much more clearly about the impact the Singing Wells project can have in East Africa. I can see that it’s so much more than a project to record and preserve the traditional music of the region. It’…
How To (Arc)Map News
…Introducing our new series of blogs on how we’re using ArcMap 10 to make our musical map….
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…under the bar and the dancers ready to do their stuff… The Kochia Dancers Today is all about dances, so our videos will be much better than still photographs. Let us introduce you to the dancers; here in full glory are the Kochia Dancers who dance in the Ramogi style of dance (ref: for a great article on the Ramogi dance of the Luo, by Helen Odwar, click here): https://youtu.be/_qVuMFLJ9-M https://youtu.be/pwVlHnpw8Io https://youtu.be/B_M_OFRzDoU…
Where the hell is Matt? 2012 News
…Matt Harding’s new video is an inspiration – he’s done something very special to bring people together through music and dance and show that, despite our many differences, dancing is something that brings happiness to everyone. If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the wonderful new video….. Where the Hell is Matt? 2012…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…are based in Kisumu, at the Nyanza Club, deep into Luo-land tribal music. Today we are focusing on some of the best Nyatiti and Oruti players around. And we discovered the Keith Moon of Luo drumming. Woke up at the Nyanza Club, outside Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria. This is the view of Lake Victoria we face in the morning before we set out to the next village, Saiya: As we will do six times on this trip, we pass the equator. We can’t hel…
Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…look at a map and think of Lake Victoria as a clock face, the village for today’s recording is at 1PM – it is the Rang’ala Village, home of the legendary Luo singer Ogoya Nengo. We’re about 90 minutes northeast of Kisumu, our ‘base’ for two days. We are here to record the Sega Sega Band (Benga Style) and the Do Do Band (Do Do), both Luo musical styles; the Luo are Kenya’s third largest tribe, making up about 13% of the population. The Sega Sega B…
The Batwa Trail News
…a lovely email this week from Ivy Beccu from Belgium. I’m glad to see that news of the Singing Wells project is spreading far and wide! Ivy has made a great video about the Batwa Trail in Kisoro, Uganda. When the Singing Wells team visited Kisoro last year to record the music of the Batwa (click here to go to our field reports), we didn’t have enough time to do the Batwa Trail but we heard about how it is helping the Batwa people tell the story of…
Samba Mapangala & Orchestra Virunga News
…Records. We first met Samba in Kenya, on a recording trip as part of The Singing Wells project. He sang as part of a ‘Welcome’ concert put together by our friends at Ketebul, along with Winyo and Ayub Ogada. We’ll bring more news on his new album as we have it, but until then you can view his tour dates on the Abubilla Music events calendar – just click here For a profile on Samba Mapangala click here …
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…ntre stage. For us, he symbolised the essence of how life is for the Batwa today – a very hard life, but a life full of spirited song and dance… and this lady is their wonderful lead vocalist… https://youtu.be/pZzgr2PXZ3s https://youtu.be/gt4_CaZNN2c Then the guitar and bass took to the stage….if you are wondering where the bass is, the plastic bag turn out to be significant. We were bemused by this magic plastic bag, but it turns out it was cov…