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Bill Campbell
Akahai
USA
90 Posts |
 Posted - 12/11/2003 : 10:14:57 AM
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Aloha kakou. Since I quit spending the winters on Kauai, I have been trying to bring a little of Hawaii to Virginia by performing slack key concerts here and there. It just occurred to me that some of you may be interested in one that is upcoming, on New Year’s Eve, at First Night Williamsburg. You may know that First Nights are alcohol-free celebrations at many places in the U.S. In fact, there was a First Night celebration on Kauai for 2 consecutive years in the late ‘90s, and there was a lot of good entertainment provided, particularly Paul Togioka and Ohana O Kauai.
Anyway, in case anyone is interested, you can learn about the Williamsburg event, schedule, venues, performers, etc. at this URL -
http://www.firstnightwilliamsburg.org/ ,
and, if you are in the Williamsburg, Virginia area around this time (not really a bad place to spend the holidays), you might wish to consider attending.
Although I will be the only slack key performer, there will be a few other guitarists, one being Stephen Bennett, with whom I will be alternating sets, and he is one of the best musicians on the planet.
Being a novelty among the 60 or so performers at about 29 venues, it is an opportunity for me to introduce slack key music to many of the patrons. I will play 3 45 minute sets, at 6, 8, and 10 PM, and, since the audiences change (though many stay for all 3, don’t ask me why), rather than just play continuously, I spend a little time between songs explaining the song – who wrote it, when, why, how I became attracted to it, etc. I think that all of us can do a great service to the genre and to ourselves if we take the time to do this at our appearances, especially here on the mainland where slack key music is still unfamiliar to too many people.
I will open my program with a few stanzas of ‘Na Lei O Hawai’i’, then explain its history, then introduce and play a slack key medley of traditional favorites, including ‘Kealoha, He Aloha No O Honolulu, Old Timer’s Hula, and Kimo’s Slack Key’.
Next, I will play ‘Ku’u Pua I Paoakalani’ and ‘Opihi Moe Moe’, which my idol Chet Atkins recorded under the name of ‘Hawaiian Slack Key’.
Next, my arrangement of ‘Beyond The Reef’, explaining how contemporary songs such as this have crept into the repertoires of many noted slack key players, followed by 2 songs that just cry to be a medley – ‘Ashokan Farewell and Sanoe’. Many of the chord progressions are the same or very similar.
Then, I will play 2 arrangements from my CD, ‘Kauai On My Mind’, ‘September Song’ and ‘Wheels’, followed by my arrangement of ‘Lara’s Theme’ from Dr. Zhivago. All in Taro Patch tuning.
Then, back to a couple of songs that have been accepted as Hawaiian in most places, although they weren’t written for Hawaii – ‘Harbor Lights’ and ‘Yellow Bird’, both of which have been recorded by other Hawaiian slack key artists. One of my most moving experiences as a performer was seeing the tears in the eyes of several of the older people at a concert I gave on Kauai while I was playing ‘Harbor Lights’, as the song evoked bittersweet memories of long ago
Then, … I will play, for the first time in public (wish me luck), my arrangement of ‘Remembering Gabby’, as written by David Alapa’i and as recorded by Chet Atkins. In C Wahine tuning.
Then, as I always do at every performance, I will close with ‘Hawaii Aloha’, explaining to the audience the overwhelming feeling of aloha this songs brings to audiences in Hawaii as they hold hands around the room and sing this song at the close of most, if not all, hoikes. It will always be probably the most moving experiences of my time on Kauai, and I try to bring a little bit of it to mainland audiences.
Well, I know that this is a lot more than you probably ever wanted to know, but sometimes I find myself browsing the Taropatch.net website, and I enjoy reading the thoughts of all of the members, and I just got the urge to share this with you.
Aloha,
Bill Campbell
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wdf
Ha`aha`a
USA
1153 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2003 : 10:41:07 AM
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Bill, its good to hear from you again. From the webpage it looks like a magnificent line-up. It makes me wish I lived closer to VA.
Good luck and ENJOY!! |
Dusty |
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Mainkaukau
Lokahi
USA
245 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2003 : 10:46:02 AM
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Hello Bill, sounds like a wonderful way to spend the holidays and begin the New Year. Good luck and have fun. Hey Bill, you and I play the same type of guitar. What a small guitar world. Merry Chrismas |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2003 : 1:15:21 PM
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Bill,
Nice set list. Little bit of a wide range - enough to catch just about anybody's interest.
Have great holidays yourself
Raymond
San Jose |
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Bill Campbell
Akahai
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2003 : 1:28:39 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by wdf
Bill, its good to hear from you again. From the webpage it looks like a magnificent line-up. It makes me wish I lived closer to VA.
Good luck and ENJOY!!
Again, I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but.. if so, ---
Aloha Dusty, thanks for the encouragement.
Bill |
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Bill Campbell
Akahai
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2003 : 1:43:15 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Mainkaukau
Hello Bill, sounds like a wonderful way to spend the holidays and begin the New Year. Good luck and have fun. Hey Bill, you and I play the same type of guitar. What a small guitar world. Merry Chrismas
Aloha, Eric. Yes, I have a Hirade HP5R (the 'R' is for the cluster of 10 roses around the rosette). I love it because it is acoustic/electric, so I can play it with or without amplification. What model is yours? Do you like it? I have only seen one other person playing a Hirade and it was a woman on Univision TV. Maybe we ought to start a 'Hirade Club'. Does anyone else out there own/play a Hirade?
I have another Takamine, an EF360-S, also acoustic/electric but with steel strings. I keep it tuned to Open E (Taro Patch down 3 half-tones). I used it for 3 or 4 cuts on my CD, and I used the Hirade for all the other cuts. It is nice to hear from you, Eric, and to learn that we are both Hirade lovers. Ah, but you are one up on me - you are in beautiful Hawaii, and I am here on the cold mainland.
And, Merry Christmas to you also.
Aloha,
Bill |
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Bill Campbell
Akahai
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2003 : 1:59:31 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by RJS
Bill,
Nice set list. Little bit of a wide range - enough to catch just about anybody's interest.
Have great holidays yourself
Raymond
San Jose
Aloha, Raymond. Mahalo for the comments. And, good luck on your upcoming gig this Saturday. Make sure you play 'Mele Kalikimaka' and make 'em sing along. I always include that with all the Christmas songs I play, and folks look at one another and say, 'What the hey?', but on the West Coast you probably don't have that problem.
I played basically the same program last year at this event, and it was well-received, so I decided to do it again, adding only 'Remembering Gabby'. There is a small, but faithful, Hawaiian community in this area, and many others have been to Kauai (what, like 1 million per year?), so there is an interest in slack key music here. And, the Dancing Cat tour generally sells out Wolf Trap, up near DC, for 2 nights every time they come here. Perfoming this music is always enjoyabe to me because I stay excited about the guitar, slack key in particular, and the Hawaiian culture.
Happy Holidays to you and yours, and knock 'em dead on Sat.
Aloha,
Bill |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2003 : 4:13:15 PM
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My play list focuses more on Christmas - this year I had 6 parties and 2 public events, and my gig at El Calderon Restaurant - so I was really lucky.
Mele Kalik. does indeed go well. I also play: I'll Be Home for Christmas/White Christmas medley, Rudolph/Frosty Medley, Silver Bells, Jingle Bell Rock( Very popular) Midnight Clear/Silent Night medley, Little Drummer/Away in a Manger medley, Christmnas Luau, Christmas Island, Feliz Navided, Simple Gifts, Nu 'Oli, A La Nanita Nina, a Medley of 3 Polish Carols -- Sometimes I play the medley songs as individual - especially if the crowd/patron wants more Christmas than other types of songs.
Depending on the crowd/ time alloted/ setting, I interchange 1 Hawaiin song, usually a ballad, with 1 or 2 Christmas.
It always amazes me how powerful even simple arrangements could be - I almost always see people listening and being moved, as well as often having them come up to talk. I don't know why this should amaze me, after all I play this stuff because of its effect on me.
Anyway - what a blessing to be able to sit (my usual playing position) in this tradition, even if I do stretch it a bit.
Raymond
san Jose |
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Bill Campbell
Akahai
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2003 : 4:32:02 PM
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Raymond, that is awesome. It takes a lot of time and effort for me to make a satisfactory arrangement of a song in Taro Patch, or other slack key, tuning. Then, it takes a long time to learn it well enough to play it in public or on a recording. And then, it takes a lot of effort to REMEMBER the sucker from gig to gig. I have made arrangements for lots of the traditional carols, which isn't too difficult to do, but, since there is such a narrow window of time in which they are appropriate, I have to really work at it, starting about the first of November. I only play 8 or 10 Christmas (can we still say 'Christmas'?) songs at each performance, but I really admire people like you who put forth the effort to prepare and perform a solid Christmas program.
Do you use computer software to do arranging and storing your songs? I use TablEdit and sometimes Tabrite to enter and store the song data. Then I print out the tab and store it in notebooks. I very seldom do anything in standard tuning any more since I got hooked on the slack key tunings.
Well, keep up the good work. I am sure the audiences, especially the kids, appreciate the results of your efforts.
Aloha,
Bill |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2003 : 5:00:29 PM
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Bill,
This year I started back in August. - half my practice time each day devoted to Christmas. By Nov it was full time. (That between 1 and 2 hours a day, 6 days a week.- I am a very slow learner, and need lots of time to work on stuff, but it is not really a burden for me, 'cause I love this music - my childhood christmases were genuinely good times and filled with lots of music - good nostalgia for me.) I find that it's easier to get decent arrangements streching things out -- the unconscious does the work in the background. -- But it does take me a LONG time to get the pieces up to performance level. And when I don;t play something for a couple of weeks, I start forgetting it -- good thing is that the learning curve is much much shorter for the pieces I already "know." I had a half dozen Christmas songs from last year, added some more this year.
I tab out almost everything I do - 'cause if I don't, I forget it. -- Started using a TAB program but for last year I just do it by hand. I printed out some TAB paper, took it to a copy shop and had a bunch of manuscipt books made with spiral binding -- I use them for arrangements, "notes" to myself, things I'm working on, "Flashes"
When I've got a song worked out to me satisfaction, I copy it onto an unbound piece of TAB paper. My TABS can be pretty idiosyncratic -- really "notes" to myself - that's part of why I almost never share them unless I play it for the person first.
Playing at a restaurant is one of the great blessings in my life - it forces me to not only keep my current repetoire in playing shape, but also to add one or two songs each week, or at least try for that. Typically takes me 2 - 3 months of working on something bit by bit to bring on a new song. I've now got 9 songs that I'm "working" on, that I put aside for the holiday time. I tend to focus on ballads and some hula repetoire - also do a lot of Latin stuff in slak key stylings - partly 'cause I love that music, partly 'cause I'm playing at a Salvadorean restaurant (the owner loves slack key.)
I just play in Taro Patch, 'cause the nylons are too much of a pain to retune.
Malama pono
Raymond |
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