Aynu Traditional Group Group
One of the groups we saw perform in Arua was the Aynu Traditional Music Group, led by Mustafa Draza. The group are from the Lugbara tribe and play the adungu, the ari (log drums) and a tin sheet for percussion. The Lugbara Tribe Population: Around 900,000 History: They were known in the 19th century as ‘The Naked People’, due to the lacking importance of clothes in their culture. In the early days, the Lugbara were a mainly chiefdom-based communi…
Bigwala Cultural Group Group
Bigwala Cultural Group: The coordinator and lead female vocalist is Nabirye Irene. The group are from the village of Bukoona and travelled to the Gately on the Nile Hotel in Jinja for the recording session. The Bigwala is the name of the trumpets they play. Song Meanings “Muwe Bwobona Asaba”: When someone asks you kindly assist them. “Mperekera Omwana Womurembe”: When you are walking with someone by your side they are the special one and you don…
Mohamed Uthman Kidumbak Group Group
Mohamed Othman Kidumbak Group is led by Mohamed Othman Faki who teaches music in the DCMA. Kidumbak is a musical style with three main influences: Taarab, Unyago and Rumba. Dumba stands for a large drum. So Kidumba is a smaller, bongo style drum. Adding Ki to the beginning of the word makes it small. Mohamed Othman had no musicians in his family. He became interested in Kidumbak style music at 16 and taught himself the violin and bass. He went to…
2. Naizungwe Drums – progress report 1 Story
…enough drums for training a new generation of players. However, the basic number includes: 1 large Uganda drum (played with short heavy beaters) 3 smaller drums (played with long curved sticks) 1 medium drum (played with sticks) 1 long drum (ngalabi – hand-beaten) All together, 6 drums. Therefore, we are making four sets of naizungwe drums mainly to facilitate learning.” Below is a video documenting the progress of the drums thus far. https://you…
1. Introducing the Naizungwe drums Story
…from Peter Cooke. James tells us: “Nile Beat Artists is a semiprofessional group of musicians that include highly talented musicians. We will also add other musicians selected on the basis of high skill to avoid wastage of time. We will listen to the recordings together with the youths. Then we make sense of what is played in the recordings. After that, we will play the rhythms slowly until we can reproduce them. Then we will add the singing. This…
Day 7: Friday, February 24th, 2017 Story
…ory of Tanzanian music, we asked Henry to assemble members of his original group DDC Mlimani Park Orchestra. We assembled at Nafasi Art Space, which is very similar to the Go Down Art Center in Nairobi, hosting artists of all kinds from musicians to painters to dancers. Henry brought two members: Hasaan Rehani Bichuka, his lead vocalist and Juma Ubao (aka, King Makussa), his lead guitarist. Juma was nick-named King Makussa because at one time he h…
Day 6: Thursday, February 23rd, 2017 Story
…ting Magic Moment 3: Francis singing ‘Alelewani’ solo. Alelewani with full group Mikocheni Makongwe Malowe Magic Moment 4: Daudi Fernando Joseph plays the drums in style of Mzee Morris We then interviewed Daudi about Mzee Morris: “I met Mzee Morris when I was younger and saw him play. I loved his style from the first moment I heard it. I also listened to him on the Tanzania Broadcast Corporation, because his drums was used hourly to announce the…
Day 5: Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017 Story
…kuni Village to visit the Makonde tribe, to record the group Liwambwe. The Group Leader is: Atanas Teleni. It is a fairly new group, having played off and on for three years. They had unique drums, including small drums with wooden spikes on bottom to be embedded in sand, called the Siganga. They also had a pair of drums called the Likuti and a long drum called the Msondo, and a very long thin drum called a Neya. Here’s the set: In the dance they…
Day 4: Tuesday, February 21st, 2017 Story
…in the morning we return to the village Boma to collect musicians from the group Chibite, who we had recorded the day before. We love their energy and musicianship and wanted to record a fuller album. Three members were the same as yesterday: the brother/sister combo of Ndekwa and Ndahani and Ndahani’s daughter Grace. We then added Tabu and Estelle, two other sisters of Ndahani and Ndekwa. This was an album of two halves: we first recorded 5 songs…
Day 3: Monday, 2017 February 20th Story
…er brother, his sister Ndekwa and two daughters Grace and Leah. Here’s the group: The group is a family group, with all members related to Msafiri Zawose, a very famous Tanzanian singer. He plays in the Gogo style of music which relies on the Zeze (stringed instruments made from gourds) and Ilimba (a lamellophone, or modified thumb piano). We will spend a lot of time with Chibite over the next two days and meet many different family members. For t…
Day 2: Sunday, 2017 February 19th Story
…The group leader was Asha Saidi Kazidi. The style was Unyago. Here is the group: They played 12 songs, including Magic Moments and Influences Sessions: Zakulola: You’ve come to see us play Wake Kwa Ume: Female to male Nataka kusema kasi naogopa: I would like to say something but I am afraid Umpati Ng’o: You’re never going to get them Magic Moment 1 Utalikologa Utalinywa: If you mix it, you’ll drink it. Tueheze Zembwela (local dialect) Bonanza Nat…
Day 1: Saturday, 2017 February 18th Story
…nment. Because he was blind, he was invited to perform with specific women groups, of songs for women by women, of songs that no males could see. Every day we will tell more about Mzee Morris and his music (see picture below). We will also talk about his legacy and the attempts of his family and fans to keep his name and his music alive. Like all Singing Wells stories, this will be a celebration of music but also a shout of concern: are the great…
Our journey to the Royal Drums: in the words of James Isabirye Story
…mes Lugolole is helping train the new musicians and we now have 4 separate groups. Slowly, we think we are reviving this instrument. I felt we had a model that would work: find a surviving musician, assemble students, build new instruments, build new groups, find opportunities for them to perform. From my conversations with Singing Wells, we are now calling this the ‘Bigwala Model’, although that sounds a bit grand, and sounds like we had a perfec…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 4, Part 2 – Flutes Story
…at we first decided to rediscover the Royal Drums after recording Albert’s group in 2013, we wanted to end this field visit with his recordings. Part two: the flutes So, let’s close this chapter of Singing Wells with music and here we’ve come full circle. We are back with Albert Ssempeke. His father was one of the last royal flutists of the Buganda kingdom, and Albert has dedicated his life to rediscovering Buganda music through his Buganda Music…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 4, Part 1 – Reflections Story
…song-writing. Are all instruments the same? Here we are less sure. The xylophone is extraordinary and continues to thrive outside of palace life. Xylophones didn’t disappear in Uganda village life after the fall of the kingdoms in 1966 because they were part of village life. We don’t need to rediscover the xylophone and we are fairly sure it is not on the endangered list. Contemporary Ugandan musicians are incorporating the xylophone into contempo…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 3, Part 2 – Interviews with Musicians of Uganda’s Royal Palaces Story
…w if you play the music the children will come. I know if you set up a xylophone in a village and play good music, the children will come. We can’t blame them for not liking the music – they don’t hear it. When they hear it, they come and dance. Kopoliano Kyobe Finally, we had a brief discussion with Kopliano Kyobe: “I was born in Ggavu on the main road. I learned to play the xylophone (Amadinda) as a young boy and they took me to the palace in 19…