Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…work very hard to be as traditional as possible. The performers are picked from the top villages around the area. Their leader is Cwinyaai Atya, Richard. Their first song was Tambara, in the Osegu style. It is all about a stubborn girl who doesn’t want to marry early. Here they are, dancing in glory: The second song was magnificent, called Oramba, the name of a hunter, in the style ‘Aliku’. This style is traditionally performed around the fire, as…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…y sang so softly and it was such a big crowd. But we gave her a lapel microphone and put a microphone directly on the Adungu and recorded. Afterwards, when we turned her up in the mix a magical voice and sound emerged – the ancient lady sitting on the blanket in the middle of this village, surrounded by 100’s had a beautiful, strong, pitch perfect voice. Incredible. She sang: Two Man Dong Lakee Cok Mon Alwak Munu Keya Here’s Two Man Dong: https://…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…up in place. We have two mobile recording units, each capable of recording from four microphones plus other sources at a high resolution to Apple MacBook Pro laptops. The benefit of the systems we have chosen is that they can run off the battery power of the laptops if we are in the situation where we do not have a generator (or there is a power cut mid-session which happened to us when we recorded to the Batwa at the Travellers Rest Hotel in Kiso…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…en. By the end, these two teams were joined by another group of 100 adults from the surrounding village. Our backdrop became not the cement buildings, but the faces and shirts of our three teams – we guess they were 350 strong at the peak. The Music Groups The main theme of the day was dance. All groups featured wonderful female dancers and two ladies in particular were stunning. The best our Singing Wells team have seen. In Acholi dance it’s all…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…d online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia), it is Open Source and so people from all around the world can add information to make the map a very useful source of information. By creating the basics, as we have, the broad tribal and musical structure of East Africa is there, now we can only add to it! There was also the difficulty of classification. There are hundreds of different language groups and dialects between tribes in East Africa, meaning t…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…to Gulu at around 2PM (yes, we tend to spend a lot of time getting mobile phone cards!) and headed out on a 360 km drive to the town of Gulu in Northern Uganda. Within minutes we were deeply immersed in the ‘classic’ East African road scene: big tall white bags of coal, with grass helmets, bricks in various stages of manufacturer (either drying or firing), pyramids of potatoes, tomatoes on patches of blankets under trees, tiny goats tethered near…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…The London gang travels to Entebbe and reunites with some friends from Kisoro……
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…one: Kampala: In Kampala we will hear the music of a variety of styles and from different tribes in Uganda, being the capital city. We know we will visit the Adungu Cultural Troupe however, on the right is an image of one of the players using an Adungu which is a traditional bow harp, taken when Steve and Patrick saw them during the recce for the trip. Below is an image of the Ndere Troupe, who represent the music of the Alur, Acholi, Ateso, Langi…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…irobi studio. That led to 10 Batwa musicians and 5 Batwa babies travelling from Kisoro to Kampala to Nairobi and recording some great songs over the course of four days. We now want to repeat this for every field visit and decided to invite the Otacho Young Stars, the great find of our field visit to record the Luo, and Ben Kisinja, the great Kalenjin musician we recorded earlier this week. Saturday was all about the Otacho Young Stars. Let’s remi…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…moved our departure time from the two hotels (Eldoret Club and Pine Tree) from 8am to about 9.30am. The tyre had a damaged tube that just wore out. We reassembled and headed off for a spectacular trip from an altitude of 2,800m down to 1,114m at one of the floors of the Great Rift Valley. The roads were more winding and steeper than on our trip to Rwanda last November but there was no rain and there were guard rails on the roadside which made it…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…on the men’s arms represents the River Nile and where the tribe originated from. They came from Israel to Egypt along the Nile to the Sudan. This occurred in the 18th century. The women have white dots on their arms and faces representing the soil and harvest. The white paint comes from a special kind of soil and only one person in the tribe keeps this soil as the custodian. Their aprons are made out of goat or cow hide and signify prayers and ble…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…a hill with 360 degree views – a patchwork of little farms, with no electricity, no water and little exposure to the modern world. And Andy back in the UK call Steve on Skype and we have a video call. Moreover, we put Andy (the laptop) in the middle of one of the tribal groups and – get ready – he plays guitar to the song and we complete an influences session. The dancers were already pretty amused by the microphones and the video cameras. But the…
Music of Northern Uganda News
…munities we are planning to visit in December – the Langi from Lira, Iteso from Soroti, Lugbara from Arua and the Acholi from Gulu. Ndere Troupe While in Kampala, Steve and Patrick watched a performance by the Ndere Troupe at their centre in Ntinda, just outside the city centre. The group perform music from all the major tribes of Uganda during a very energetic performance which includes a historical narrative in between songs given by their dir…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…d loved R Kelley. He also liked Salif Keita, an afro-pop singer/songwriter from Mali, his only ‘African music’ influence. Steve’s first job at Ketebul was as an intern working with Jesse and Gabriel on the Spotlight on Kenyan Music series. His feature artist was Makedem who ‘blew him away’ and he still views Ohanglaman as his favourite album. He also says Jesse was the perfect coach, so passionate about good music, but so meticulous about creating…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…d arrived at our first shoot of the trip – Kapsokwony Kenya, 56 kilometers from Kitale. We drove onto the athletic grounds of Chesamis High School to record four groups. Our fixer was ’50 Cows’ – 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…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…neer, Patrick Ondiek, adds, ‘I love producing the final videos and getting phone calls from my friends asking me ‘how did you find these musicians?’ I feel like I’m on the cutting edge of music, bringing these talented musicians to my Nairobi friends.’ We have developed a three year plan to record a wide selection of important tribal musicians in East Africa. We are recording music in Northern Uganda in Autumn 2012 and then we will travel to Tan…