Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…) and the Gwara (calabash or tambourin with Samba drumming, in this case a tortoise sized shell that they hit with a brush of wire). In addition, one of the groups featured the Uvure, a wonderful horn. The Uvure in action… Omee Odokomit Our first group was Omee Odokomit, who played Apiri style. The group is led by Evelyn Ojok and was formed in 1981, disbanded for the war and reformed in 1999. The leader summons the band to practice by playing drum…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…All the time, the high rises of Kampala were in view but it felt like an altogether not very nice place. The harsh divide between wealth and poverty is alarmingly clear, and the architecture spells it out. Ultimately we all made it to super-market where we loaded up with money, mobile phone cards and other sundries and headed out. The William car stopped to pick up Akello, a lovely Ugandan singer/songwriter, who is joining the group as our Influen…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…s are most prominent, and, largely, string and wind instruments are played together: Distribution of all string instruments Distribution of all wind instruments What was most difficult about this field of research? Tati handled most of the primary research, and, naturally, this was difficult as information on the subject is fairly scarce and sometimes contradictory. However, the beauty of the map (as with search engines and onlin…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…o locusts during our locust attack). They ran a lovely hotel and greeted us warmly with Nile Specials! We handed off a pile of Batwa DVD’s for them to take back to the Traveller’s Rest and hit the sack. Jimmy (Entebbe)…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…cused our recording time on Mr Manager, their quite sincere thank you song to a factory manager that came to their factory and actually did a good job. We always found this song amazing – the group is deadly serious in their thank you to the manager. But in many ways, we kept thinking it is sad that they find it so rare for someone to essentially do his job that they need to write a song. Johnnie, Bishop and Eddie all joined in to support them in…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…ed Kewamoi Women Dancers from the same area. These women have been singing together since 1982 and sing in a lot of events in the area. They focus on traditional songs. They wear white blouses with blue patterned sarongs, decorated with golden designs and lines, looking like trees and fruits. Hunter felt the costumes represented the landscape. Eddie did three Influences sessions – two with the first group playing guitar on ‘Ribwege’, a song about…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…woman to marry him. One singer carries a horn used to call people to come together, if there’s an attack or a meeting of the tribe. The women wore small gourds around their necks that would contain oil used to smear on people after circumcision. They also wear beads crossing their chest which are given to them after female circumcision. Their belts are decorated with cowry shells and are used to drape over a woman’s abdomen when she is giving bir…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…mply couldn’t help herself. That is the power of music. We will try to put together a video clip of her best moments. Lomuke Group We recorded 9 songs: Anya Kar, Chepo Laleiyo, Kirap, Kiter, Kiyuar, Asoiyen, Adong’o and Montonyo. The women were dressed in white, carrying sticks and the men carried spears and their portable chairs/sleeping pillows. Kalomoywa We recorded 8 songs with them and a magic moment of wonderful chorus. The songs were: Kinya…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…sted 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 was as important as the audio. So for our November trip we invested in two more digital cameras and worked out our new Camera 1-3 approach. Camera 1 is static group shot. Camera 2 focuses on instruments. Camera 3 is context. This worked extremely well but created a separate issue – lo…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…ough a series of e-mails that travelled the world, Tabu and I were brought together by Joyce Nyairo, then of the Ford Foundation, East Africa office. After several long e-mail exchanges and 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 music…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…f the Kalenjin. The guitar is called a burkandit, and is a homemade guitar somewhat resembling the Nyatiti of the Luo. He was joined by a percussionist who played the karachimek, which is essentially two sticks on the ground played by two sticks. Tabu first met Ben in 2007, when working on Spotlight on Kenya Music Vol.4. He sang a song called ‘Kiseete’ on the album. (Interestingly, our second group today, Chebonet, played Kiseete, which is clearly…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…d 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 chain in Kenya. It started as Nakuru Mattresses, hence ‘Nakumatt’. We arr…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…music documentary. He teamed up with Andy Patterson while he was here and together they conducted a number of interviews with Kenyan musicians who are now based in the UK. They also had the chance to visit Kenya House in Stratford as a guest of our friends at the Kenya Tourist Board. Here’s Bill’s article published in Business Daily Africa: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Where+the+world+got+real+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…hour. Preparations at Ketebul Music studio We came to Ketebul this morning to get ready for our trip tomorrow. Ketebul is buzzing with people getting everything packed up. Steve, project manager, was cracking the whip. Pato, head of Video, was quickly learning how to 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 studi…
Song Translations: Music of the Kalenjin Story
As part of the Singing Wells project we are documenting the meaning behind the songs of the artists we record. Here are translations of the songs of the Kalenjin tribes. Ben Kisinja Date of recording: 5th March, 2012 Recorded on location in: Kapsokwony, Kenya Song translations: view PDF Chebonet group Date of recording: 5th March, 2012 Recorded on location in: Kapsokwony, Kenya Song translations: view PDF Lomut Traditional Dancers Date of rec…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…n just the UK for your country, I’ve already done that for you! Click here to get the data. As I mentioned, ArcMap can be tricksy if your data isn’t properly formatted and so on. The Unicorn Distribution data set we’re using is fairly simple so not all of these points will be applicable, but here are some things you need to think about when preparing your data: The title of each column must not exceed 14 characters. The shorter the better. E.g. in…