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Uncle Dave
Akahai
USA
58 Posts |
 Posted - 01/19/2007 : 07:23:48 AM
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Aloha Ukers. It's my good fortune to have chatted on this site as a newbie. Sarah Whitaker gave me permission to post the website of her slack key number in my lesson book. Her rendition of Ka Manu is a classic signature slack key piece of Aunty Alice Namakelua. I sat in to take in some sessions with Auntie Alice when she was giving Hawaiian culture lessons for C&C Honolulu Parks & Recreation way back when I was also at C&C of Hon. To instruct the Wahine G (C for small ukes) in my book I'm using Sarah's site as an example of the real old style of Hawaiian slack key where the chord pattern is repeated and maintaing the tempo to accompany the singing; as opposed to the contemporary style of instrumentals. This is very difficult to do as I mention in my book. And Sarah sings it in the original Hawaiian. For a haole gal doing slack key who speaks and sings Hawaiian gives great honor to my culture. Mahalo Sarah. Go to this site and play the Hi-Fi.
http://www.soundclick.com/pro/view/01/default.cfm?BandID=38765&content=lyrics&SongID=1661658
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mike2jb
Lokahi
USA
213 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2007 : 1:03:17 PM
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Dave, I'm also a big fan of this recording Sarah has shared with us on the soundclick site. I got hooked when I first heard it and spent a weekend trying to duplicate at least a basic version of it (on guitar). In the end my beginner fingers could play a simple version of the guitar line or my voice could sing the melody, but I could not do both at the same time.
Don't know if this will help your ukers at all, but Ron Loo has a tabbed guitar version of this in his first Slack Key Notebook, with sample lyrics running along with the tab. Or for those with access to Ozzie Kotani's book, I suspect you could simply cut and paste a few bars of his piece "`Ewalu" and come up with a passable background for "Ka Manu".
Sarah, of course, has gone beyond those basics with her beautiful vocal and with the addition of embellishments ("figures"?) in the style of Auntie Alice.
-Mike |
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Uncle Dave
Akahai
USA
58 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2007 : 09:09:57 AM
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| Aloha Mike. Yes I have Ron Loo's book. But I have to take it up a step from his arrangement because he starts on the A bass and we ukers gotta start on our D/G bass. But yes, the tabbing with the lyrics he has is very helpful for any body wanting to tackle it. Because I'm like the Pahinuis and sing rubato style (too much kanikapila) I cannot keep the steady tempo and sing Ka Manu like Aunty Alice could and how Sarah does now. But I'm using it as an example in my lesson book nontheless. |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2007 : 11:54:30 AM
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Uncle Dave,it is interesting that you should mention the rubato style as a consequence of kanikapila. Sarah, and many others of us who live so far away from the source, essentially learned alone (although Sarah has had short stints of instruction from Ron Loo, Ozzie Kotani, Kevin Brown, Uncle Sol Kawaihoa and Keola Beamer). The single thing that impressed her and me most, in the beginning, was how Uncle Ray Kane could have an absolutely metronomic thumb, yet be very expressive, and modulate tempos (tempi?)with his other fingers - and he rarely uses a tempo pattern where obvious melodic phrases stay within Western notational bars. That is, he starts and ends phrases wherever it sounds best, yet keeps that thumb working like a machine so that the bass line stays within the measures. We studied Uncle Ray's videos a lot, and Sarah, for a while, actually used an electronic metronome to get her started. She mastered it pretty quickly. I, on the other hand simply can not do that.
Besides being thumb challenged, another thing that prevents me from keeping that steady pulse is that I can't shake my Western music background (and I think that is true of many who come from Western musical traditions and can't quite get over it when playing slack key) - what has been engrained in my head by being a Grand Opera buff, for instance. What sounds good to me always comes out sounding like Puccini. Even simple little songs like Auntie Nona's Kahuli Aku, I will turn into something that sounds like an aria, by inserting pauses, or speeding up and slowing down, and I can't help myself. Sarah never does that; she gets expressiveness in lots of other ways (she moves her picking hand all over the place to get the tone she wants, and amplitude modulates, for instance), especially in her vocals and melody lines.
...Reid
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Uncle Dave
Akahai
USA
58 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2007 : 10:41:22 AM
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Some players have that built in metronome for sure, like Sarah apparently. I was in a small combo once and we had three Hawaiian kanikapila jammers. I was rythim guitar. After about a year I brought in a drummer to give us that steady bass drum beat. His background was coutry-western and he gave a good solid beat. but the band leader told me to get rid of him because the bass drum was throwing him off. typical kanikapila uker. He was rubato type too, go with the flow, the mood, the mana. We had disagreement and not only was the drummer bounced but so was I! LOL. I need to work on my internal metronome for sure. What tuning does Sarah use for Hi'ilawe? Do you have an audio on it?
Aloha, Uncle Dave. |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2007 : 2:31:26 PM
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Ho, Uncle Dave, a drummer in a Hawaiian band is pretty funny - at least, unusual.
Thumb independence and control is really the holy grail of guitar players in any style, and often not achieved. I remember reading a biography of Segovia, which I have, which recounted his comment to an aspiring guitarist, who, he said, had a "very unmusical thumb". Because of the comment, the guy gave up playing and was only barely prevented from committing suicide. A little extreme, but that kind of thing happens.
Sarah does two kinds of Hi`ilawe.
The one she did with Kevin and Ikaika Brown at the Maui Slack Key Festival in 2003 was an Auntie Alice style version. We first heard a hummed partial sample like that by Keola on his instructional video, but, then, we heard a friend of ours on Maui, Kawika Lengkeek, do a similar full vocal melody sometime later, taught to him, we think, by Uncle Manu, the father of Willie K.( Kawika didn't remember it when we asked him about it). Sarah put that vocal melody together with what she knew about Auntie Alice's figures (and her own variations of them). Whenever she plays Auntie Alice style, she plays in Double Slack, G Maj 7, DGDF#BD.
She also does a version, tabbed by Ozzie Kotani, that is much like Gabby's, but in Leonard's C.
We haven't recorded either of them in our home setup. But, since we are on a program of recording each weekend, we could do something like that with Hi`ilawe. We have about 6-8 songs in the can, and we recorded 3 today, that are raw, and that I will work on mixmastering the next week. (Our goal is to both have a good quality record of Sarah's repertoire and have a CD that we can give to family and friends.)
Aloha no,
Reid
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Edited by - Reid on 01/21/2007 2:34:25 PM |
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Uncle Dave
Akahai
USA
58 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2007 : 11:11:35 PM
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| Reid - you gotta market that CD so the world can enjoy too! Mahalo for sharing. |
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Mika ele
Ha`aha`a
USA
1493 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2007 : 08:33:52 AM
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Uncle Dave,
Do you, or did you teach Brittni Paiva -- ukulele? |
E nana, e ho'olohe. E pa'a ka waha, e hana ka lima. |
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Uncle Dave
Akahai
USA
58 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2007 : 2:32:40 PM
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Aloha Mika'ele
I taught her soccer believe it or not but only her mom remembers that I think, ha. If she only left that uku at home during soccer practice I could have sent her to UCLA, ha! In fact Brittany taught me Sanatana fugures. Maybe that's why I weaved psuedo-Santana into my Na Pipi Hiamoe. BTW got your book and tapes today. I want to compare other renderings on historical evolution of ki ho'alu with what my uncle and tutu told me long ago. Did you hear the legend of an Irish man who came from Chile to also do wrangling training on the Big Island and he supposedly brought a stringed instrument of European origin that was the tonal substance of old Maunaloa tuning? Can't find any info on that in Waimea archives but one old timer told me his name was O'Neil (?spelling?). I did track down Ramon and I often wondered if he is ancestor to Ramon Amaduha in cowboy hall of fame and connected to the Anduha ohana of Portugal wala 'au wala 'au mo'olelo nui no 'wau, e kala mai (talk, talk, talk story, so sorry, I ramble too much I know).
a hui hou a me e malama kou kino.
Uncle Dave |
Edited by - Uncle Dave on 01/22/2007 2:34:45 PM |
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