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geoffro
Aloha
6 Posts |
 Posted - 09/21/2005 : 05:38:23 AM
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Aloha,
My wife and I have been in love with the Hawaiian culture and music ever since visiting the islands several years ago. We discoverd slack key while listening to Hawaiian music CD's in a shop on Kauai. We both loved the pure tones of the guitar. It's just so beautiful. So we had to buy the music. Since then I've collected several recordings from various artists (Keola Beamer, Cyril Pahinui, etc.) And it's nice to have a Hawaiian music channel on our satellite. I've played guitar for several years, but never considered playing slack key until recently. Now that's all I want to play. I'm just a beginner. And even though my wife loves to hear me play slack key, I'm sure she's tired of me practicing the same song over and over again, just so I can get it down pat. :-)
Anyway, that's how I got started.
Aloha! |
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n/a
deleted
50 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 08:54:38 AM
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I have XM satellite and haven't found any Hawaiian shows. What satellite / channel do you have?
Thanks, Steve |
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geoffro
Aloha
6 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 10:09:24 AM
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Aloha Steve,
Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention it. The Hawaiian music channel I mentioned is on my Dish TV satellite system on channel 981. I don't have XM satellite radio.
Mahalo,
Geoff |
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 10:24:41 AM
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quote:
I have XM satellite and haven't found any Hawaiian shows. What satellite / channel do you have?
Thanks, Steve
That would be awesome. Anybody interested in requesting Hawaiian Music be added to XM Radio, please fill out the form at http://www.xmradio.com/contact_us/customer_support.jsp |
Andy |
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HeartOTexas
Akahai
55 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2005 : 6:00:08 PM
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Sorry 'bout the delay, but as a new 'patch member, it's taking me awhile to get through all these posts.
This has been a fascinating topic. My wife is a hapa girl (Hilo mom, sailor dad) who grew up in Kansas City Missouri. I finally got her on a trip to visit her Aunties, cousins, and extended o'hana on Oahu and Hawai'i back in 2001. That trip changed her life and mine. We have made the trip back to see o'hana each year since. In catching up on learning about Hawaii culture, history, and all, we turned to the Internet and found "Aloha Joe" Internet Radio. www.alohajoe.com I first heard slack key on his show, but couldn't tell you who played what song. On one of our trips to Hawaii, we picked up a DVD of a Music Festival. There were a couple of slack key players having a ball playing that incredible music. I got Keola Beamer's instructional book, and have been hooked ever since. Now that I've found Taropatch, I know that I'll never go back to standard tuning by choice. Thanks to all who have encouraged and entertained me in the 'patch.
Frank |
Frank
Deep in the Heart of Texas |
Edited by - HeartOTexas on 10/16/2005 4:05:26 PM |
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javeiro
Lokahi
USA
459 Posts |
Posted - 10/21/2005 : 5:27:22 PM
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What a collection of beautiful stories! As a part Hawaiian (a very small part,1/8th) who was born and raised on the windward side of Oahu, I am amazed and heartened to hear that this music which is near and dear to my heart has touched so many who had no other connection at all to the islands. Even to the point of not only learning the music, but the language as well, such as Reid and Sarah. And I am ashamed to admit that I have reached the age of 60 and only fairly recently have finally decided to put in the effort to learn a little more about my Hawaiian heritage and more pointedly, slack key guitar.
I grew up listening mostly to Hawaiian music because that’s what my dad liked. I honestly didn’t appreciate it much at the time but was always intrigued by the music of Leonard Kwan, who was popular when I was an early teen. I always wondered how one person could make a guitar sound like that. To this day when I hear Leonard’s “Nahenahe”, it immediately brings me back to those simpler days (don’t we all think our younger days were simpler?) camping and fishing out in the country with my family with that beautiful music playing in the background.
I learned to play the guitar from a high school friend and together we formed a band playing mostly Ventures and other popular music of the era. We played together for several years at school dances, military clubs, parties etc. probably as many others have done too. But after I got out of college, went to work, and got married; the pressures of everyday life did not leave much time for the guitar. So I sold all of my equipment and I never touched a guitar again for many years. During all of those years, I still wasn’t much of a Hawaiian music fan.
It wasn’t until much later in life that I happened upon Ron Loo’s slack key instruction on television that I decided that I wanted to learn to play. My dad, though he only played the ukulele, had always had a really beat up Martin guitar with cracks and holes in it sitting in a closet. He claims that someone left at a party long ago and they could never figure out who it belonged to. Must have been some party! I picked it up and took it to Island Guitars and for $350 they fixed the cracks and holes and put a new set of strings on it. They told me it was made in 1927. It didn’t look too good but it sure sounded great! So that’s what started it ….. Ron Loo on TV.
Several years later we moved to Washington to be closer to our two children and three grandkids. We’ve been here three years now and I think I’ve been to more slack key concerts here than when we lived in Hawaii! Like they always say, “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” So now that we’re here in the Pacific Northwest, we seek out all the Hawaiian music we can find, slack key or not!
Isn’t the power of this music truly amazing?
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Aloha,
John A. |
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rossasaurus
Lokahi
USA
306 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2005 : 3:45:04 PM
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Hoh boy. I can't believe I avoided reading these stories all this time; I guess i was just saving them for the right crisp Fall afternoon. I enjoyed reading everybody's story.
I think I first heard Ki ho`alu from CD's at the public library in Eugene, OR. They had a wide selection of LP's, and eventually CD's, to check out, so I would go in every week or two and pick out a half dozen albums I'd never heard before. One time i ended up with one of those Steel Guitar Classics collections, no, it was Sol Ho`opi`i now that I think about it. Well that led me to the Ho`opi`i Brothers, which led me to Uncle Raymond's Punahele and on and on. So simple(sounding), so sweet. That was my first exposure to Slack Key.
One Summer in the '80's my GF at the time and I went to Maui to work briefly on a farm in Kula then holoholo'ed over to Kaua`i where we camped at Kauapea. We had such a wonderful time there, but I'm amazed I never heard any ki ho`alu then; the only music we heard while we were there was Toots and the Maytals who came to Kahului once. What's this got to do with slack key?....patience grasshoppah.
I didn't pick up the guitar really 'til 2002 when I went up to Hood River to hear George Kahumoku. From the first minute, he had me laughing as he pulled all kine stuff from one of his ever-present coolers....ti leaves, water, song sheets, audio gear, everting from da coolers! Hah, George one magic healer with his laughter, like so many Hawaiian kine.
That was the ticket for me; the prior year for me had been full of loss; job, health, parents, home, partner, boom.
I was living in a tent out in the Cascades, in a grove of ancient cedar trees 25 times older than me, not far from a fabulous hot spring, Bagby hot springs, licking my wounds, soaking in the cedar log tubs......and listening to Hawaiian music, yeah!
That's it for me, Ki ho`alu is a healer, Hawaiian music is healing to our timeless souls.
George mentioned there was a workshop coming-up in less than a week at Napili, Maui, “you should come” he said.
I did.
Mahalo nui to all my teachers.
Oh, I have to talk a little more story. My dad used to present/produce these outdoor nightime dances out near China Camp, near San Rafael, right on the water looking South-East toward Berkeley. This was just post-war, late '40's early '50's. He had lots of records from those days, and when I was going through his things after he passed, what did I find but an old Raymond Kane record! Wow, I never imagined my dad had even heard slack-key before. Reminds me, I gotta put it up on the wall for Russ. |
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PearlCityBoy
Lokahi
USA
432 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2005 : 5:13:44 PM
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Howzit Ross--great to hear your story. I was just talking with Allan G. today and we were commenting on how sweet your Taropatch CD submissions are (those who are getting the CD will soon find out). Hey brah, hard to believe you've been playing slack key for only three years. Keep up the great playing and singing!
Aloha,
Doug |
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Ambrose
Aloha
USA
8 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 6:11:32 PM
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| I first heard about slack key from Leon Siu on the Big Island in 1970 He used to sing as a duo with his beautiful wife Malia. I was lucky enough to have a mutual friend named David Crawford who lived in a beautiful old hale in Glenwood on the way to Volcano. The house was a great gathering site for all kinds of artisans and vagabonds and intellectuals and psuedo intellectuals. I was 20 years old and in the military and how I got connected with all those great people is still amazing to me. I think because I was always lugging around my little O-18 and knew abunch of blues songs. But anyway, Leon first showed me open G and a couple of chords. Then I started playing slide right after that and learning to fingerpick rather than use a plectrum. I also me Thor Wold who wrote Nanikuli Blues I believe with Leon. Then I met Boone Morrison an architect who introduced me to Eddie Kamae and Feet Rogers and did a nifty workshop near Halina Pali at an old Ranch house. Boone had a band in Honolulu called the Vaqueros I think. Raymond Kane was there too. And I can't remember the name of the great female singer that was there but everyone there told me she was the one that Gabby was singing about in Moonlight Lady. She was a beautiful woman. We did a concert at the Volcano Art center after the workshop and it was some good time brah. I think I played Boil that Cabbage down with Eddie and the fiddle player they had with them. It was the only song I ever could sing!!! So...I got to meet Sonny Chillingsworth but he was playing in reg. tuning and we had to ask him to slack the strings. Go figure. I saw Gabby perform drunk one time in Hilo. Someone requested Moonlight Lady, so he gets up off his chair wobbles over to the mic and pulls up his shirt and sticks his prodigious belly out and shakes it and snorts out the words Moonlight lady and sneers and sits down. Everybody ignored him that night after that and the music wasn't too good. So much for hotel music. I'd rather sit around a campfire with a bunch of portogee paniolos eating laos than see a performance like that again. Oh yah Sonny was playing at the Honokaa Club which is also a hotel but I didn't have the same experience there! So I got to see nome neat stuff in the late 60's and early 70's on the Big Island. I did a couple wedding gigs with Alfred's Dance Band in Honokaa and Waimea. But that was mostly saxophone tunes and old standards for dancing. What a trip. |
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garson
Lokahi
USA
112 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2005 : 06:48:46 AM
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| Hawaaian music used to mean what I heard as a kid on Author Godfrey's Saturday morning radio show. But then my wife and I went to Oahu to vist her daughter, and her roomate was a good guitarist. I mentioned that I used to play guitar and liked open tunings cause you could bar to get chords rather than putting your fingins in those fancy patterns. He said slack key was the thing for me, and that the good names were Pahanui (any kine), Kaapana, and Kane. At the record store I found "Led Live" and "Hawaiian Slack Key Masters". Later I got Ray Kane and Leonard Kwan on Dancing Cat. That's all I listened to for a few years, and then I started to try to copy bits of some songs, not even hoping to play anything right. Just try to get the feeling I said. Good way to relax. Then a friend who lives in Hana sent me a CD by Duke Walls (thanks Duke). Wait a minute I said, I can do this. So I got serious about learning things note for note. I found TaroPatch.net (thanks Andy), and then George's Workshops (thanks George). Now I have learned enough to think that SOMEDAY MEBBIE I can do this. |
Jim Garson |
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javeiro
Lokahi
USA
459 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2005 : 12:12:39 PM
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| Jim, you're on the right track. Just keep workin' and you will get it! |
Aloha,
John A. |
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OHIO-HAOLE
Akahai
USA
86 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2005 : 4:07:20 PM
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| Gettin in here late...first heard slack when I was marine stationed at Pearl Harbor in 1973...heard Beamers "This is our Island home we are her sons"..I knew something was up with those tunes...couldn't figure it out on regular tuning...then many years later got a hold of Ozzie's book...now I'm hooked.Only know 4 tunes so far..busy playing rhythm with a little folk group I'm in...but dip into slack whenever I can...It's so spiritual and nahe nahe...Ken. |
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sandman
Lokahi
USA
181 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2006 : 1:26:20 PM
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I was going through some LPs (remember those?) in the garage today and found my introduction to slack key. It was on a record I bought in 1965 when I was at the East-West Center at UH. It was "Kalakaua: Hawaii's Merry Monarch" and it included Keoki's Mele by George Kainoa. It was to be many years before I found out what it was all about.
Sandy |
Leap into the boundless and make it your home.
Zhuang-zi |
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basilking
Lokahi
124 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2006 : 4:20:19 PM
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I'm new to this Forum, happy to have come across it! My first slack key experience was ~25 years ago in Honolulu. Worked on a TV series there. Liked hangin' out with the drivers after wrap, 'cause they played guitar/sang/drank beer on the tailgate of some truck. "Cool", thought I, mainly an electric player at the time.
Don't know to this day the name of the song [have played it for my Hawaiian mother-in-law & wife, all the uncles, many recognize it, but don't know the name either]. Back to tailgate - asked the player if he would teach it to me, and he [reluctantly, but graciously] assented to "try". I managed to actually get it pretty quick, recognized the tuning. After playing it to somewhat surprised satisfaction of teacher & other guys[plus more beer...] I made a small "joke".
I said words to the effect of "Boy, you're a great teacher, I think I understand this slack-key thing, let me try one of our mainland haole tunes this way!" Scepticism ensued, but I was encouraged to "try".
My friends [felt privileged to be accepted by these guys] didn't know I could play in open G. Peeled off a version of "Both Sides Now" I'd adapted from 1st "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" album, no fuss no muss. More beer and accolades, but I 'fessed up I already knew that haole song & G tuning; was even more accepted for having "come clean". Again, felt like a privilege, as these guys were big, tough, old school local guys with the customary attitude.
Never went much further w/slack key for some years, til I really listened to Ledward [whose albums I'd embarrassingly had for a good while, but mainly attended to the amazing singing]. Last ~10 years I've off and on worked to acquire a modest repertoire of slack key tunes, paid plenty more attention to Ray, Sonny, Gabby & his sons, Leonard K, et al. I still refer to that open G w/C bass tuning as "the key of 'L'..." because I've seen Led use it a fair amount, and Leonard did too. |
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Lawrence
Ha`aha`a
USA
1597 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2006 : 6:17:07 PM
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Interesting story Mr. king of Basil. Is that because you like the spice, or are from North Europe?
Leonard... I got to meet him not long before he passed on. A very sweet, cordial gentleman he was. I told him he was one of my heroes and he got embarassed and blushed but he signed my 1995 Slack Key Festival poster nonetheless.
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Mahope Kākou...
...El Lorenzo de Ondas Sonoras |
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