Day One: January 18, 2019. Assemble in Tanzania Story
…in villages. On average, we do one field visit a year, recording roughly 20-25 groups, and a 100-125 performances. We have roughly 1,000 videos online. Our general setup for a recording is: a) Steve is in charge of audio and we typically have two general mics for the group and 5-6 specific microphones for singers and musicians, b) we have three video cameras operating – one wide shot for full performance, one close up to capture details of instrum…
Day Four: 10 March 2022 (Rongo) Story
…Ontiri started playing music in 1985 and recorded his first song ‘Bikundo Obaba mbono’ in 1994 and from then on he has been the main star of the obukano music genre from the region. Ontiri has performed in most entertainment venues within Kenya and is among the few Kenyan musicians with a huge fan base in the US and Canada, where he has also toured extensively. Ontitri has been invited to perform in South Korea and Germany, not mention that he was…
Global Influences Project: Artist Submissions Page
…earn more about the Global Influences Project, head to singingwells.org/global-influences-project SHONA X EKHUNJWE MUSICAL GROUP This next collaboration comes from DJ and producer, Shona. This is our first submission using the beats from the Ekhunjwe Musical Group, and we love how this music has been transformed from traditional dance accompaniment, to a house track that you could hear in any major club this summer! “It was a thrilling and humblin…
Page
…story they have to tell. After our initial meeting, we invited her to Entebbe to record with our Influences Artists and other musicians from the Abubilla Music team. The experience was unforgettable for all of us. Jovah then told us what Singing Wells means to her and her community. She said, ‘When you came things changed for us. We received money which we used to buy household things, chickens and clothes. We now have a plan to buy goats, a male…
Day Zero: 6 March 2022 – Travel To Stream Story
…n revenue-generating activities of many artists. However, a number of urban-based performers were able to migrate their shows and concerts onto online platforms, reaching their audiences at their homes via live streaming. In doing so, they created new income-generating platforms, as some of these online acts allow audiences to support the musicians via M-pesa and Pay-Pal contributions. Another possibility was to sell tickets with the use of online…
Recording, archiving and sharing the traditional music of East Africa Page
…we have recorded with the groups that we have met. Previous Next Click here to Celebrate our Singing Wells Top 20 Moments Youtube Facebook Instagram Twitter…
Ketebul Music presents Shades of Benga Online News
…etebul Music have just launched Episode 2 of their online series Shades of Benga Online, to go alongside their book ‘Shades of Benga: The Story of Popular Music in Kenya 1946 -2016’. You can watch the latest episode below, and also find out more at their website here. Shades of Benga: The Story of Popular Music in Kenya delves into the foundations of modern Kenyan music, examining external influences from the English waltz to Afro Cuban Rumba an…
Meeting Ketebul: an interview with Tabu News
…ng Andy. Actually, thinking about it now it wasn’t the worst, it was pretty funny! The worst was driving from Mombasa to Malindi at night, it was dangerous. The road was narrow, unmarked and I didn’t like it. We said after this we wouldn’t do it again. Now we hardly drive at night. As for the best? Every moment is the best when it comes to Singing Wells! What can we look forward to from Singing Wells and Ketebul this year? We’re going to be doing…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…he album Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music & Interfaith Harmony in Uganda. 5. BBC Radio 3: World Music Audio Archive Presented by Lucy Duran, the World Routes programme on BBC Radio 3 is a mixture of interviews with top performers, live concerts, a monthly CD round-up, and special location features. For 13 years the programme has been exploring the globe and making on site recordings of world music, whilst also giving some background on the culture a…
Archiving Guidelines News
…cular use because it contains straightforward information for smaller would-be archives, such as those wishing to archive East African music, concerning both the digitisation of audio or the online storage of the data. It cites two viable options for open repository software, which are basically softwares that allow organisations to give access to their data. The first is DSpace, “very popular and widely adopted repository within the higher educat…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…the difficulties of archiving with an easily destructible medium like reel-to-reel tapes and the importance of now digitising these perishable recordings. The sound engineer who had recorded the music with Wachsmann kindly offered up the copies he had made a kept aside. Wachsmann went on to lecture at various universities and was awarded the bronze medal for “Devoted Service to Africa” from the Royal African Society in 1958. His legacy lives on a…
Report from Womex 2013 News
…mples from different territories – the main example being given as the Caribbean. This is an area we will need to look closely at, if we are to make the Singing Wells library commercially available at any stage in the future. In the ‘Growing your audience through Social Media‘ conference, the production team from BBC Radio’s Jazz on 3 led a discussion on social media and how it can be used and has been used to increase interaction with the progr…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…n. We have also travelled to Uganda to record the amazing musicians of the Batwa tribes, bringing many of them back to Nairobi to record them in Ketebul Music studios. We have designed two mobile recording units which can be assembled just about anywhere. The Ketebul and Abubilla audio and video engineers who support Singing Wells talk of the amazing experience working in the field. As Steve Kivutia says, ‘Nothing is more satisfying than watching…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…functionality, so it is constantly developing and improving. It’s also web-based so it’s easy to access and share, which is exactly what we want in order to carry on building the Singing Wells community. Rosie has made some ‘how-to’ guides on how to add to a map yourself which you can access easily on our website too, in a few steps, ‘Housekeeping’, ‘The Map Outline’, ‘Prepare Your Data’. I met with Rosie to talk about her experience using the ma…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…n. We have also travelled to Uganda to record the amazing musicians of the Batwa tribes, bringing many of them back to Nairobi to record them in Ketebul Music studios. We have designed two mobile recording units which can be assembled just about anywhere. The Ketebul and Abubilla audio and video engineers who support Singing Wells talk of the amazing experience working in the field. As Steve Kivutia says, ‘Nothing is more satisfying than watching…
Andy’s cover of Boys of Summer News
…When Andy isn’t working on the Singing Wells project he records and writes music…….