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ohanabrown
Lokahi
281 Posts |
 Posted - 10/23/2002 : 01:46:52 AM
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Anoai, Ke Aloha
For those of you that composed your own slack key tunes.
How long did it take you? I know theres more but, I've listened to Andys and Frans composition and it sounds great!
Guys how long did it take you? And how did you happen to come across that melody? I know of several composers when they write, It's always because they had an experience, So they grab a paper an pencil and start scribbling around, The next thing you know, It becomes a big hit!
Now for slack key it might be a little different because , It's more instrumental, (music) And your not dealing with lyrics.
So is it just tone, feeling, melodies, That you hear. That leaves a tune in your head (like a tape recorder) going over and over in your head, Until you finally play it on your guitar?
So my question again? Composing your own Slack key TUNE!
Where does it start from, And how did you come across it!
Juss curious. Mahalo Nui!
Aloha, A Hui Hou.
Kevin
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Kevin K. Brown |
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1579 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2002 : 10:25:59 AM
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Aloha, Kevin,
I've only written (found) one little slack key piece, but I'm always glad to blather about this music. I have a bad habit of "noodling" when I have a guitar in my hands, stringing together licks and runs, instead of getting new tunes together. This is probably part of the reason that it takes me so long to learn new pieces. Anyway, I was in the Oakland airport waiting for a flight to O`ahu, noodling on my little travel guitar, and I played a lick that really caught my ear:
Low D, the first note of the alternating bass pattern, then on the top strings, D C# D and up to the D chord at the 7-8-9 frets for B G, followed by a bass D, high D, and a descending run against the D chord, C B A
It's silly to write all this out, makes it sound complicated when it's only stringing together a couple of very common licks. I think the ideas came from Ozzie's "Kani Ki Ho`alu" and Sonny Chillingworth's "Kaula `Ili" but just twisted a tiny bit. Any way, that little melody caught me, and I decided I would try to expand it to a complete piece. So I added a little more to the melody against the D chord - up to the D on the 12th fret, back and forth between the 12th and 10th, then end up on the G chord at 7-8-9.
After that I kept trying to make variations to stretch out the tune. We were renting a house on the beach at Waialua, so I could sit out on the lanai, listen to the surf, and try new licks. Somewhere along the way I came up with a slide in the opening run, then I added a descending D chord run starting at the 14th fret that I'm sure I stole from Ledward. After a while I new I needed a C chord section, a bridge of a kind, so I fitted in a little of that. Near the end of the trip I came up with a set of variations that "made sense" and that I could remember, and I've been playing the song the same way (but different every time, of course) since then.
It seemed like the only name possible was "Waialua Slack Key" 'cause I would hate to name a song "Oakland Airport Slack Key."
I don't know if I'll ever get around to writing another piece. I have a list of songs I want to learn that's up around twenty, and it only grows longer as I listen to the great players out there like you and Ikaika.
Fran
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E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
Slack Key on YouTube
Homebrewed Music Blog |
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2002 : 12:25:11 PM
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quote:
At the risk of sounding really boring, my song was kind of a homework assignment. Atsuhiko, a friend I met at a George Kahumoku workshop in NYC, encouraged me to compose a song. Atsuhiko who has written quite a few slack key tunes had been planning to record his songs for fun and told me to write a song to record too. The main idea was formed quickly and over time was completed until I felt it had a start, middle and end. We never did find time to record at all but a song was born. The song's about driving home on the NJ Garden State Parkway while dreaming about driving H1 out to Wai`anae to visit Uncle Ray and Auntie Elodia Kane.
This is what I posted previously. To fill out the answer a little bit, the song was motivated by my friend. Once I decided to come up with a song, I noodled around until I got little fragments that I thought were cool. Once I had 2 or 3 "ideas" that I thought would work together, I needed to figure out how it would flow as a single piece. This is the process that took a long time, because I would play the song differently each time and had no idea what to play first, second, third. Over the course of many months, not being focused on it, but just picking up the guitar and noodling with the song, I finally felt there was a beginning, middle and end.
I still have no idea if it is structurally correct within the slack key definition. That is, many songs have a structure perhaps dictated by or at least related to hula. Without any background in Hawaiian or hula, these are things where I simply lack the roots. In fact, I am hesitant to write too much on this topic because honestly I'm not qualified.
Another thing I noticed... when I played the song at my cousin's cocktail hour wedding reception with my brother backing me with strummed chords, there are measures with only 2 beats instead of 4. Even though the inspiration may not be totally from the heart, I try to play it from the heart. |
Andy |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2002 : 1:05:28 PM
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Fran and Andy's responses fit what I've observed about composition (and not just the musical kind): that it's often a matter of fitting together bits that are invented at different times. After all, the Latin roots of "compose" *mean* "to put together."
This process applies to the written word as well--when I was teaching, I used to tell my students that writing was more like film-making than the spontaneous creation of talking, since what you were doing was not real-time improvisation but the assembing of small, worked-on bits into something that, on presentation, came out sounding smooth, coherent, and and even inevitable.
This process seems to apply to melodies, chord sequences, and song structures (for example, whether you include a bridge or contrasting sections, what kind of turnaround you use, etc.)--most of us start with bits and pieces and work toward coherence.
That said, there do seem to be musicians who are able to spin out entire tunes pretty much as units--they seem to think in melodies--just as there are writers who can produce coherent copy on the first draft.
Then there are those of us who play for four or five decades and manage to cobble together maybe three "tunes" that are a) collections of licks and b)probably remembered rather than invented anyway.
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ohanabrown
Lokahi
281 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2002 : 3:10:12 PM
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Aloha Ohana's
Everything you've said really makes sense!
Mahalo for sharing your experiences with
all of us.
Andy, Because you've compose one tune I concider
yourself QUALIFIED! All it takes is "one tune" to give us your mana'o, On composing. Some of us hav'nt had the time yet to start.
Fran, I've listen to both tunes, Waialua Slack key and the Monorail? (patricks comp.) That you played, It sounded great! I wanna steal some of YOUR "Lick's". ha,ha, When you come to Oahu,try to see if you can make a quick hop to Maui.
You can join Slack Key Bill, and the rest of the Waihee Valley Slack key players. Hope you can make it. A Hui Hou!
Malama Pono!
Kevin.
( Great Job!Andy & Fran )
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Kevin K. Brown |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2002 : 02:52:09 AM
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I keep a TAB notebook and jot down phrases which come to me. If I think the phrase has a lot of potential, I'll try to go back to it within a few days and see if I can develop it. Many times it goes through three or four variations before it ends up as something I like. Occasionally, I go through my notebooks and look at old stuff to see if I want to use any of it. One of the key steps is to let my song sit for a couple of days and go back to it and see if it's any good, and if it is an unconscious rip off of something else I heard (I listen to music practically all day.) Somtimes I play pieces for friends who will give me honest critique before I play it "in public"
I haven't written much music with words. Much of my writing is now in an "A B A C A D..... format," That is, alternating a refrain melody with "verse melodies." I want to get into more complex "development" where I'm not just repeating melodies with different picking patterns. I guess that's my growing edge.
Raymond
San Jose, CA |
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rd2ruin
Akahai
USA
52 Posts |
Posted - 10/30/2002 : 01:45:10 AM
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I'm glad that someone brought this up, since I've been thinking about my own writing habits lately..
I'm not the most prolific writer, although I might be in Ridley, PA  (where it was sleeting, of all things, today). I usually noodle a bit until I find a neato phrase or progression and build from there. Before I start writing in earnest, I tend to avoid listening to any slack key music at all for a couple months, so that I'm not influenced directly by something I've heard recently. As goofy as it seems, I actually listen to the big hair band music of the 80's since it helps me recapture a little of that desire to write, since that was what I was playing when I first started learning guitar. I'll also occassionally totally ignore the guitar altogether for weeks on end before I start writing new material to flush out 'old' ideas I had that locked me in a block.
I enjoy writing far more than I like learning songs. I'm not sure I can even play a single song from any of my tab books all the way through. If I use the tab books at all, it's to incorporate some ideas into my tunes and explore different avenues I would have never have thought of, but I try to learn songs from the book that I've never heard before, using them more as lessons in progressions, etc, than songs in and of themselves. Typically, I'm rarely 'inspired' to pen a piece, they just come to me. Once I have a skeleton down, a memory or feeling will enable me to it to flesh it out. Maybe not right then, but after I've played it a few times. Some songs are finished in a couple hours, but more likely it takes days or weeks until I tie the feeling to the tune to complete it.
All this might not make a lot of sense, but it allows me to develop my own sound.
From personal experience I have found if you learn a kazillion songs by a handful of artist in any music genre, then start writing, you'll wind up writing songs that sound like one of the kazillion. Maybe that's why my early days of writing all sounded mysteriously like some bad Bon Jovi ripoff back in the day!
The important thing is that there's no 'right' way to compose. When I wrote heavy metal or blues or anything that had lyrics (I only write instrumental slack key) it was more of a conscious effort to build a tune. With slack key, I've found that it's more important to relax and let the tune take you where you want to go, instead of trying to carry it.
Cheers!
- Greg |
When you get a moment, could you do me a favor and explain to me what I was just talking about? |
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