Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…e. Pretty quickly, everyone in the Teso region carried a thumb piano or a drum and all claimed they were members of Macedonia. The Macedonia band and the song Uganda, Land of Freedom was known by everyone and served dozens of times to spare someone a fast execution as a collaborator. We then arrived at Joshua’s village. It was the most beautiful we’ve seen with four-five small thatched huts, each painted with patterns. There was a large clay oven…
How music archives can help communities News
…oints out in the book ‘Ethnomusicology of East Africa: Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond’. In her chapter entitled ‘Connecting with Communities: Building Sustainable Models for Audiovisual Archiving into the Future’, Janet gives us some inspiring examples of how archived recordings have helped communities, one of which centres on the Batwa people of south west Uganda – the community we recorded for the Singing Wells project back in November 2011…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…er it 6 or 7 ladies selling pyramids of potatoes, green oranges, etc… The fruit and vegetables complement the plethora of cows, sheep, goats and chickens found along the road, somehow connected and protected by a distant owner. And then there are the bikes, generally falling into two categories. There’s the rideable load, where the bike is carrying simple things like doors, coffins, gates or water bottles and the bike rider is still able to pedal….
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…ront page of their website under the ‘ATTA Likes’ banner! Thank you ATTA – we will keep you posted on our travels in East Africa with news, photos and wonderful music! Victoria…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – night recording at Fort Murchison Story
…the case and it shouldn’t be surprising. Most good musicians play off the band and if you ask them to play the song just with their part find it all a bit strange. So too for African village groups. They don’t go into studios and ‘lay down their track’ in some great over-dubbing session. They perform with a troupe, and they feed off of and help drive the dancing and the other instruments. The song Apako Oranga had an amazing Ndara riff and we want…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…s the celebration of the chief. It features the spectacular Ndara, the Bul and Agwara and involves a lot of rolling around. We loved it so much we recorded a ‘magic moment’ – there was even more rolling around then usual and the 150 kids around us had a great time. We then took the time to solo each instrument given the quality of the musicians. The started with the Rigi Rigi, where Owach Tartizio sang Obimo. We then featured the Adungu, with Okum…
A day in the field with Singing Wells News
…are where we film and record a musician performing solo on his or her instrument and are notable by the interesting nature of the instrument or the virtuosity of the performance. We then move to our second ‘set’ or angle on the site. Locations are chosen aesthetically, based on what is available. Other considerations include any useful shelter (it can rain suddenly and heavily) along with the direction of the sun and any sources of noise. Once we…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…yer is joined by a percussionist who will also pound the tub for the kick drum and then use a little metal brush as a tom. There are then lots of men with big sticks with metal on them which sound like a snare. All the men sing back up and become a beautiful chorus. 20 folks playing Likembe give you the soft rhythms of Calypso, but as Tabu pointed out, it is more accurate to say Calypso sounds like the soft rhythms of a good Likembe band. Here’s a…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…ring and exiting this rather large ‘Set’ and performing the chorus. Akello and Andy then led the 350 singers through ‘We Are All One’ as a backing chorus. Very fun! As we were closing down we were greeted by the Chairman of Acet who was very gracious in welcoming us. He walked away with lots of photos and a Singing Wells 2012 shirt! He also got one of our Polaroid pictures. This is a new innovation for us – every group gets to listen to their song…
UOBDU report on Singing Wells visit to the Batwa, Kisoro Uganda News
…U about the Batwa communities we visited. This week UOBDU Coordinator Zaninka Penninah sent a detailed report to us with feedback about all the music groups who performed for the Singing Wells project. The good news is that being involved in the project seems to have given the groups a new and added pride for their music and has inspired them to practice their dances so that they can confidently perform to more audiences. It is also clear that the…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…ation of where ankle bells are generally used in East Africa: broadly in Uganda and in specific parts of Kenya. Interestingly, the distribution of broad musical styles are distinctively different. While one would assume that Kenyan music is dominated by percussion, it is clear from the maps (above and below) that actually string and wind instruments are most prominent, and, largely, string and wind instruments are played together: Distribution of…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…the Luo peoples, an ethnic group now situated in Western Kenya, Eastern Uganda and Northern Tanzania. They were originally from the Nile River Valley and migrated down the River Nile to the Lake Victoria region after the Nubian peoples. In Egypt (particularly around the valley) you can find many instruments that date back over 5000 years, many, like the nyatiti, are also found in Egyptian hieroglyphs (right). The Luo people are related to the Ach…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…c and did a paper on drumming in Ghana. So Vicki switched seats with Jimmy and talked to Andrew about the Singing Wells project for an hour. We then all settled down to watch Ted before landing about 8 hours later in Entebbe. All bags were gratefully recovered and we took a taxi for an 8 minute journey to the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe, where we were greeted by our old friends, Jan Willem Van De Kamp (the owner of this hotel and the Travelers Rest…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…t). Pakwach and Nebbi: Next we visit the Alur and Lugbara tribes in Nyaravuru and Pakwach. Click here to learn more about these tribes through our Alur Profile and Lugbara Profile on the Singing Wells website. Here we will record the Adungu and Agwara but also the Ndara, one of the traditional giant Ugandan xylophones, however this type are unique as they’re mounted over a large pit dug out in the ground: 1. Alur Kingdom Troupe – these are our fir…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…agic moment. Watch this space for videos. We recorded right through to 9PM and the ‘northern folks’ rushed to the airport. The Ketebul crew continued to work in the studio, led by Jessie who loves bringing Singing Wells musicians into the studio. Hunter and Jimmy will board our flight at about 11PM and with a 12 midnight wheels up, we will officially end the ‘field visit.’ Now the hard work begins of producing all the videos… Jimmy March 11th, Jom…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…d to bring them back to the Nairobi 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…