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parotatch
Aloha
37 Posts |
 Posted - 05/06/2006 : 11:18:36 PM
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Five inches of Hilo rain could not dampen the spirits
of 75 attendees who tried to take in all of the
musical karma at the Byron Yasui, Benny Chong, Brittni
Paiva Ukulele Workshop at the Naniloa this past Saturday.
Students were divided into two tracks, each attending an
hour and a half session with each instructor. Byron Yasui walked
the class through "chord coloring" or jazz embellishment
of the classic Hanalei Moon. He even gave us a little
chord theory too. This a cool down to earth dude. He
relates well to students I guess that's why he's a music
professor. Had a piece of old twine tied on to his uke for
his shoulder support.
Benny Chong's class was mainly a discussion of chord
structure. Byron referred to this man as "the greatest
jazz ukuleleist". I can see why -- Benny has chords you
wouldn't believe. Thumb/pinkey stretches covering large
expanses of frets. A former guitarist with the Aliis (Don Ho),
Benny evidently reawakened his childhood interest in the
uke only a few years ago.
No sandwiches for us! We got the buffet luncheon. Rising
Big Island wiz, Kris Fuchigami, played four Jake
Shimabukuro arrangements while we stuffed our faces. This
teen has been playing for a little over a year -- mind
boggling stuff! If one were to say, "he's just
replicating Jake's stuff"; well, just playing like that
from memory is quite a feat for a 15 year old. I now
understand why he walked away with the grand prize at
the Hamakua Music Scholarship recital.
Brittni helped the students explore "lead picking", going
through Europa, a Carlos Santana piece. She shared her
recent experience of performing and teaching on the East
Coast. I didn't know that some provinces of Canada
require every 4th grader to learn the uke. They can thank
James Hill for that.
To wrap up the six-plus hour workshop we all met back in
to main room and watched and listened as the three entertained
us with a little of their magic. Brittni wowed the younger
crowd with the Super Mario sound track. She played a lovely
arrangement of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and finished with
the "William Tell Overture". Byron and Benny (both are known
as B2 when they perform together) did a few jazz pieces,
ending with "Holiday for Strings". All three goofed up a few
times letting us know that they are human like the rest of
us and that the ukulele and music should always be fun.
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1579 Posts |
Posted - 05/07/2006 : 06:46:26 AM
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Thanks for the report, sounds like a ball. But I don't think James Hill would agree with you that he is responsible for the ukulele program in Canadian schools. According to his bio, uke instruction has been going on there since the late 70s, in other words, before James was born.
Fran
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E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
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