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Sellars
Aloha
Netherlands
30 Posts |
 Posted - 12/05/2006 : 08:52:52 AM
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Hi all,
recently I bough an Oscar Schmit baritone ukulele. I worked through Ozzies book with this uke and found it really suited to play slack key on a baritone uke.
Are there any other baritone ukers here?
any other reccomendations on slack key on a baritone uke?\
R
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I've always been crazy but that's kept me from going insane (W.J.)
Playing: Ukulele, Slack key guitar, Mandolin |
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sandman
Lokahi
USA
181 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2006 : 3:38:16 PM
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Heeday Kimura has a 22 page booklet, "How to Play Slack Key Ukulele", which can be applied to baritone ukes. I contacted him about it when I first got the booklet (it is copyrighted 1986 although I don't remember exactly when I bought it) and the author very graciously sent me a two page letter explaining his feelings about baris and slack key. It still includes slacking the strings, bari or otherwise, but Heeday said slack key on the bari is much more "authentic" because it mimics the lower pitch of the slack key guitar.
It's a neat book.
Sandy |
Leap into the boundless and make it your home.
Zhuang-zi |
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berean_315
Akahai
96 Posts |
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sandman
Lokahi
USA
181 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2006 : 6:55:24 PM
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Gerald, Heeday used a DGBD tuning for the baritone although he went to great lengths to point out that if two persons are playing a soprano and a bari the fingering would be different after tuning the ukuleles. The tuning section of his book is for GCEA; his letter to me assumed I knew how to finger a given chord differently on a bari.
To quote one of his most pertinent comments (and I hope this is ok without his approval): Bottom line, Sandy, is when playing your baritone just follow the slack key book as if you were playing a soprano, but keeping your basic baritone tuning (lower than the soprano tuning)[.] You can play slack key with the soprano, too, provided you change the top string to a low "G" string.
Sandy
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Leap into the boundless and make it your home.
Zhuang-zi |
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Sellars
Aloha
Netherlands
30 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2006 : 08:14:32 AM
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I tune my uke DGBD. Basically I'm doing nothing special compared to playing regular taropatch guitar. I use the D and G stings for bass predominantly if applicable. On a piece where i have to use the G string a lot in the melody line I either stick to the D string, simplifying the bass or use some sort of staccato sounding (banjo-like) triplets with the Gstring as a base, a melody string and a second melody string. Basically just making it up as it comes along. Whichever sounds good or biomechanically feels good.
Does this make any sense?
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoy it and thats what's most important n'est pas? 
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I've always been crazy but that's kept me from going insane (W.J.)
Playing: Ukulele, Slack key guitar, Mandolin |
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hikabe
Lokahi
USA
358 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2006 : 10:04:49 PM
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I play uke and guitar and can make the following claim. You guys are nuts. You can't play slack key on the uke because you don't have enough strings. If you are accomplished on slack key guitar, then you may be able to render music on the uke that sounds similar, but falls short of the full scope of slack key guitar technique. Nothing wrong with that. But ponder this. If I tuned my piano strings to taro patch, can I play slack keyboard? Some people will argue yes. But I believe it is just imitating slack key and challenge anyone (except Ledward or Ozzie) to come up with a decent playlist of slack key tunes for the uke.
When pushing the envelope, try to imagine what the envelope looks like from the outside... Akamai Okole |
Stay Tuned... |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2006 : 02:58:43 AM
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Hiram, have you ever heard Sheldon Brown play his baritone?
Another question: what do you think slack key is; that is, what is its essential qualities that make music a slack key style? (Hint: search the archives here for previous such discussions.)
...Reid |
Edited by - Reid on 12/14/2006 02:59:14 AM |
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hapakid
Luna Ho`omalu
USA
1533 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2006 : 1:44:51 PM
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Interesting discussion. I love the baritone uke played fingerstyle.
I think there are two characteristics which define slack key. One is the sound of a six-string (or 12-string) guitar with both bass and treble strings ringing together and in contrast and counterpoint. Second, there are the many idiomatic phrases that distinguish Hawaiian music. You can play those idioms on a uke, a steel guitar or a mandolin. We all do it. But you can't get the bass/treble contrast from a uke.
Slack key is Hawaiian music, but Hawaiian music is not just slack key.
Jesse Tinsley |
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Mika ele
Ha`aha`a
USA
1493 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2006 : 2:46:42 PM
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quote:
I play uke and guitar and can make the following claim. You guys are nuts. You can't play slack key on the uke because you don't have enough strings. If you are accomplished on slack key guitar, then you may be able to render music on the uke that sounds similar, but falls short of the full scope of slack key guitar technique.
I have a KoAloha Tenor D-VI Ukulele and play slack key just fine. 'Course, I have six strings and can tune it to TaroPatch C (G-C-G-C-E-G), or Open G (G-D-G-B-D-G) [or many others]. The tone is tremendous and a very nice change from my other instruments.
One big difference though, is the shorter string sustain. The ukulele notes don't last as long so I have to improvise different picking patterns, play faster, or just live with the different sound.
I get all the sympathetic string vibrations from the other strings as on my guitars.
If you don't believe it can be done then Daniel Ho is making money with magic and I am nuts. |
E nana, e ho'olohe. E pa'a ka waha, e hana ka lima. |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2006 : 2:56:33 PM
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Jesse, what do you think about the single pedal note per measure that is most often played in C tunings by people such as Keola and Leonard Kwan? Why couldn't that be done by a baritone, or even Low G tenor? I understand that there is essentially only 2 octaves for a 4 string `uke, and 3 to 4 octaves for a guitar, but why do you make a distinction (or maybe how?) if the bass on the guitar is a 4th string D (in Open G, for instance) and the treble is on the first string? After all, the `uke has 4 strings, if not spaced so widely. And, in fact, the semitone spacing could be made to *be* as wide as a guitar's if you don't follow rote tunings. I change `uke tunings to what I want them to be all the time.
'Splain me.
...Reid |
Edited by - Reid on 12/14/2006 2:59:54 PM |
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hapakid
Luna Ho`omalu
USA
1533 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2006 : 7:57:14 PM
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E Reid,
Most of us only know slack key from recordings because we can't claim direct family lineage to those who originated it in the 1800s and that means we have a modern understanding of the art form. That's my excuse.
I believe the counterpoint of bass and treble strings is integral to the whole idea of slack key, that is, creating the whole song with alternating bass rhythms, melody and harmony on single or groups of treble strings and grace notes from the open tuning adding sustain and fullness. But if you look at slack key as a group of classic melody and fill phrases, you don't need a guitar to play it. Cousin Mel Amina plays great slack key in standard tuning, but he is known for backing up Iz as part of a group, with help from uke and bass.
I play Hawaiian music on my baritone, but don't tune it to open G because barring at the fifth fret would just sound plunky. I can find all the Hawaiian idioms without tuning changes.
One of the classic slack key characteristics is the bass note signaling chord changes, even if you're only playing a few notes over and over. The subtlety of the chord changes, especially resolving to the root chord, is part of slack key's allure.
Jesse Tinsley |
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hikabe
Lokahi
USA
358 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2006 : 11:54:24 PM
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The KoAloha Tenor D-VI is just a small guitar(sorry Alan,beautiful instrument). You must be a guitar player and know guitar chord structures and technique or you can't play the D-VI correctly.
A good player can come up with an endless amount of "Hawaiian idioms" on the ukulele or bari that sound like slack key in the regular tuning. You can also do the same if you slack or alter the tuning. But the richness of texture and subtle complexities of the slack key guitar are lost in the translation when done on the uke. Nothing wrong with imitating styles on other instruments. I just argue the point that the uke cannot replicate slack key adaquately because it does'nt have the bass strings to counter-point the melody and chord progression.
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Stay Tuned... |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2006 : 05:46:05 AM
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This really is a discussion about the personal experiences or tastes of individual listeners. With a minor side excursion into the individuals' encounters with the ways most `ukuleles are built.
Since Taro Patch has dominated the choice of tunings in latter years, that "alternating bass" is often raised as a sine qua non of slack key. TP particularly lends itself to that because of the DGd string sequence. In fact, bunches of other styles use alternating bass and, conversely, bunches of slack key compositions do not. It is simply not a signature of the style, it is a signature of a particular tuning and a signature of the choices of particular players. Auntie Alice *never* used alternating bass, and you can't convince me she wasn't playing slack key. Elizabeth Tatar, in her article defining slack key in Kanahele, never even mentions alternating bass or counterpoint of bass and treble strings. She *does* mention "scale-like patterns", pahu and ipu rhythms,ornamentation and the familiar reliance on tonic and dominant. Just to continue with Auntie Alice a bit, her "figures" (those I know, which are about 14 - Russell knows some more, I think) are confined largely to 3 strings each, usually the middle ones. She does begin each figure with either a single G or D pedal note, for a single beat, in Double Slack (tonic and dominant). There is no bass-treble counterpoint, that I can detect. There are a lot of hammers and pull-offs. Buy Mark's Fingerstyle `uke book (I don't get a comission) for a few examples of alternating bass slack key, if you are so grooved on alternating bass.
Now, as for plunky `ukes: plunky, boxy `ukes are plunky and boxy because of the way they are most often built, the stiffness and weight of the materials of which they are built, the strings that are used, and the energy that is transferred to the body and the amount of that energy that is converted into sound (both the tone and its resonant frequencies). The vast majority of `ukes are inexpensive instruments that are built with little attention to these matters. When have you heard about `uke luthiers tap tuning tops, using chladni diagrams, shaving or scalloping braces, worrying about radiusing tops or backs, varying scale lengths, body depth and shape, etc.? There *are* certain makers who do these days, and I love them for it. Kawika Hurd does, Dennis Lake does (I have played Mark's `uke that Dennis built for him - the one on his Fingerstyle Book's cover - and it has sustain, like mad and you can get bell-like clarity up to the 22nd fret on the extension), the folks at O Kona do (I have one of theirs and it is built with the same techniques as a custom guitar), I am sure there are others, but I have not heard them, except for Danny Ho's (gorgeous). But that is a miniscule minority. When have you heard of carbon fiber or composite `uke strings with various tensions, as you do for classical guitars? Do you use a thumb pick; I do. This is a circular pattern yet again: you hear boxy, plunky pahu iki very often, and, therefore, you come to characterise a `uke as a boxy, plunky device. Why don't you try classical guitar strings of various diameters and stifnesses on your `uke, as a first step at getting out of the usual `uke mode? Will your bridge pull off? It will if it is carelessly made, it won't if made properly and with something other than a plunky sound in mind.
Now for the number of strings that characterise an instrument (circularity?). Is the 7 string guitar that George Winston plays a guitar? Is a harp guitar a guitar? As a matter of fact, is a harp `ukulele a `ukulele? Why is a a `ukulele with 6 strings not a `ukulele? Why, because my `ukulele and all the ones that I have seen only have 4 courses. Yes, courses, with as many strings put together as you can imagine. Why are multiple stringed 4 course instruments `ukuleles?
You guys should get out more.
...Reid |
Edited by - Reid on 12/15/2006 06:08:35 AM |
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Podagee57
Lokahi
USA
280 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2006 : 08:29:33 AM
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I know it's not a baritone but they're calling it slack key. Any of you able figure out what strings are "slacked".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpog_sEDi-g
To me slack key may not mean you have to have those alternating bass notes going all the time. But I would have to say that having those lower than normal bass notes in harmony with the higher notes is what separates the slack key sound from the sounds you hear in standard tuning. If you are not using those bass notes then I think that you are missing the real beauty of the slack key tuning.
After watching Keola perform here last week I realized that he rarely uses the alternating bass note style. However he does utilize them extremely well. When he hits one of those bass notes in conjunction with the higher notes...aaahhh, THAT'S the sound, that's the special harmony that makes slack key unique and beatiful. And you can't get that with standard tuning. You may be able to pull off some of the turn-a-rounds and runs with regular tuning, but not to have that extra low bass...well it just ain't the same. That said, I guess you don't need to play those bass strings to say you play slack key, but then it just sounds like a standard tuning.
You may not be able to replicate that particular sound on a baritone but it is not to say that you can't put it in a slacked tuning of some sort. |
What? You mean high "E" is the TOP string. No way dude! That changes everything! |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2006 : 09:11:31 AM
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quote:
I play uke and guitar and can make the following claim. You guys are nuts. You can't play slack key on the uke because you don't have enough strings. If you are accomplished on slack key guitar, then you may be able to render music on the uke that sounds similar, but falls short of the full scope of slack key guitar technique.
Just to stir the pot... aren't you talking about two different things?
No, you can't play slack key guitar on a uke because.... (wait for it) ... it's not a guitar!
But you can sure as hell play slack key `ukulele on a `ukulele. In fact, lots of people do. Every day of the year. Like Reid says, Sheldon Brown doesn't play any other way. Last time I heard him, he sounded pretty dang good.
Does slack key `ukulele sound exactly like slack key guitar? Nope.... because it's a `ukulele! Yep, different instruments, different techniques and different sounds. Both good, both common, both folklorically valid, both BIG FUN.
Boy, you'd think this would be obvious. 
To paraphrase St. Frank: Shut up and play yer `ukulele!
(Insert whatever smiley you need here to know that I mean this as a well-intentioned joke. I hate flame wars. Like Annie and Moana always say, "Play nice, fellas.")
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cpatch
Ahonui
USA
2187 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2006 : 09:23:35 AM
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| The tuning on the video is DGBE. |
Craig
My goal is to be able to play as well as people think I can. |
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