Global Sound Movement - Sample Pack Recording Trip
Global Sound Movement aims to record new instruments and undiscovered music in remote parts of the world. After hearing about our Conscious Youth project and Sound Foundation's work they got in touch to ask whether we could bring a team of four audio engineering students and four professors out to rural Uganda to track down some new, unrecorded sounds in order to create sample packs. We recorded the Akadinda in Nakibembe, the Adungu, the Akogo and other instruments and environmental sounds. The packs are available on GSM's website. Our most exciting session has to be the one we held in Nakibembe. Nakibembe is a small village, more of a cluster of houses off a dusty track in Iganga district, home to some of Uganda's most authentic traditional musicians. Our team of sound engineers arrived, microphones and stands in hand to find a couple of local farmers gathered around under a tree. No instruments in sight, just a few farming tools they must have been using for the morning's work. I could feel the confusion and nerves mounting as the sound engineers who'd traveled across the world to record local instruments were getting increasingly worried. We had no idea what was happening, as is often the case in remote villages, but we greeted the head of the group and waited. Soon the magic started. The local farmers were actually part of the musician's group. They started to dig a wedge shaped hole about 6m in length, 1.5m across and the base, 50cm across at the top and 60cm deep. Two mean arrived with a young banana tree they'd chopped down. They sliced it in half and laid each half across the ground, framing the hole they'd just dug. A few more musicians ambled over and found big xylophone keys they had in the corner of a small brick house. They started to space them out, lying over hole, balanced on the banana tree trunk. Another man gathered sticks to knock the keys into place and the Akadinda was almost ready to play.
A team ofof musicians gathered around the Akadinda to start to play. They first tuned by carving pieces out of the out of tune keys nd hent got to work. The sound was incredible. There's an earthy boom from the acoustic chamber they built. The keys themselves have a warm wooden tone to them and the rhythmic prowess of the musicians was mindblowing.
We'll upload some audio clips and videos from the session. You can also find more on the GLOBAL SOUND MOVEMENT WEBSITE.
