From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…0 kilometres so far on African roads for Singing Wells. And we’ve observed Africans carry just about anything on their heads or their motorbikes – fruit of every type, doors, trees, chickens, etc… Our favourite, however, was to be greeted by a motor bike travelling directly towards us with a funeral casket on the ‘back seat.’ Given the safety of the roads, we praised the driver for ‘being prepared.’ ‘ Roadside Occupations: We can also divide the r…
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 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…is music, 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 wo…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…ry, centred on the famed mountain gorillas. Uganda: Known as the ‘pearl of Africa’ – it too is covered with hills and lakes. Like Rwanda it has the mountain gorillas. It is a completely land locked country. It shares Lake Victoria with Kenya and Tanzania. Crossing the Border: Rwanda was colinised by the Germans and Belgians, Uganda by the British. The result? As you cross the border between the two countries you switch sides of the road. Our drive…
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
…ditional music and new music. And this is going to kill our traditions. In South Africa and West Africa, the best modern artists are completely rooted in the heritage of their country. Their music is 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 te…
Kathy’s reflections on her Singing Wells experience News
…to travel with. When things went wrong like our car breaking down or microphones not working, they took it in their stride and came up with solutions. A great bunch of people. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and heard a lot of wonderful music. In particular it was wonderful to see the fusion of old tribal music with contemporary music in the field and in the studio in Nairobi. The one thing that I learned on this trip was how important it is to tal…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 continued…. Story
…realised all our fears were misplaced … another wonderful village of East Africa, simply loving their music. Supaki Kalazi Our first group was Supaki Kalazi led by Katana bin Kalama playing in the Mwenzele style. Wonderful dancing, costumes and percussion… Katana bin Kalama, with beautiful costume of shells… The Group prepares for their performance… Sengenya The most energetic group by far, brought the house down, with wonderful dancing. Led by…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…ssion then is to help create an East African musical identity to rival the South and West African successes. We had a taste of what this could be on March 29th in Sati, when Winyo joined Bado and his father, Nyerere wa Konde, to do a new song. Bado participates in his dad’s group, but separately records his own music. Bado’s music is great, propelled by his wonderful voice, but it’s American-sounding and could have been produced in LA. We asked hi…
Mufu Ndosi-Luvai – Crave Music News
…“I’m glad I came across Singing Wells. The production team goes all out to unearth East African traditional music, giving account of the people’s past and present through music. The recordings are a valuable treasure, since a lot of traditional African music often goes un-notated. Singing Wells is the much needed portal for ethnomusicology research in East Africa.” Publisher, Crave [music] Magazine. …
The Kalenjin & Kenya’s elite athletes News
…sn’t cool’ to listen to it otherwise! She started appreciating traditional African music from Western Africa. Now she is much more interested in learning about traditional Eastern African music and her roots. She has been following the Spotlight series produced by Ketebul Music and first met Tabu in September 2011. She is interested in using traditional music from the Kalenjin tribes for her documentary about Kenyan runners. She says that other fi…
Best of Singing Wells 2011 News
…formances to YouTube (so far). Every performance was 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 m…
Why “Singing Wells”? News
…life of the Samburu tribes people. We think that ‘Singing Wells’ is a very good name for our project which aims to preserve, celebrate and share the unique music traditions and heritage of East Africa. More on Kenya’s singing wells BBC World Service video on how the singing wells in the village of Daaba have changed the life of the local community: …
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…eld 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 recorded, Okumu K’Orengo, died only weeks after o…
Guy Morley – No Nation News
…Guy Morley is music programmer for the Big Chill festival – one of the highlights of the UK’s cultural calendar, and is the founder of No Nation, an independent arts programming, production and promotion company. No Nation has developed links across East Africa and has recently worked on a project for Sound and Music looking at the influence of early American country music in Africa. …
AMF receive grant to fund Batwa recordings News
…identify, record, preserve and promote the cultural music heritage of East Africa. In taking the project to Uganda to document and record the traditional music and dance of the Batwa, we can help to stem the tide which is threatening to obscure the music traditions of this ethnic group. The SWP will ensure that the unique sights and sounds of the Batwa are fully and professionally documented, preserved for the future and promoted to a wide audienc…