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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
 Posted - 01/05/2003 : 02:13:20 AM
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After 40+ years of playing, I learn material any way I can.
Seriously, it often starts out by ear, since the impetus to learn is often that a tune lodges in my head, refusing to turn itself down until I at least take a stab at playing it. So it's listen to a recording, noodle around, listen some more, go to my music library to see if I have an arrangement of it somewhere (and at least get the chords right), listen to more recordings to get a sense of how different artists come at it, noodle some more, and so on until I get it or I hit the wall technically. I do this for just about any genre, slack key, swing, or whatever.
Earlier--like 30+ years ago--I learned a fair chunk of the folk/fingerstyle repertory (Piedmont blues, rags, Travis stuff) via tab and recordings and later on from videos, until I got enough technique and confidence to work tunes out for myself--and, to tell the truth, I'm rarely able to play tunes exactly as transcribed anyway, so I've settled for whatever inexact approximation I can manage.
When I got interested in playing slack key, around 1994, I sort of recapitulated my earlier progress--there wasn't much material available, and since I wasn't an open-tuning player I was having a hell of a time figuring out chords and positions. Around '95 or '96, Uncle Ray gave a workshop at one of the San Mateo festivals and showed me "E Ku`u Morning Dew," and I scribbled down a few notes in tab. Took a workshop with George Kahumoku (in '96?), who even back then had a nice set of charts of chords and positions and such. Later, I sat in on a lesson Ozzie gave at Stanford and took home his tabs and tape. These all gave me a fingernail grip on the basics. But mostly I noodled on my own, exploring that taro patch tuning. Sometimes I'd stumble across a figure or turnaround that I'd heard, and I'd write it down in tab. Sometimes I'd get one of those songs-in-the-brain attacks and have to try to figure out a whole tune. But it was mostly fragments, bits and pieces.
Then the (relative) flood of instructional material started, and I was also finally at the place in slack key that I'd struggled up to with standard-tuning fingerstyle: able to mostly work on my own while mining tabs or videos for ideas or specific licks. I can't play tunes just like my slack key heroes any more than I can Doc Watson or Davy Graham or Dave Van Ronk material--but I see all these traditions as something that you play *with* as well as within, and I'd like to think that even if I had the chops to reproduce Uncle Ray's "Morning Dew" exactly, I'd still play it as Uncle-Ray-filtered-through-me. And in fact, after I heard the Sons original version of it, my playing altered to include that.
Here's the crux of this issue for me: as useful as it is to have a precise transcription of a particular performance of a tune, and as good as it is for one's technical development and discipline to work through a transcription and get all the licks just right, the larger goal for me is to internalize the music in a way that lets me play it comfortably and enjoy it and (if I'm playing out) lets others enjoy it. We have more maneuvering room than classical players, and we should take as much advantage of it as we can.
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Edited by - Russell Letson on 01/05/2003 02:16:21 AM |
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cmdrpiffle
`Olu`olu
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2003 : 08:50:51 AM
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Another fascinating thread.....
Im basically a freak. I play entirely by ear. I've tried to get into tablature, but it is seriously lacking the notation and depth of written music. My favorite way is to get the feeling of the music by listening to it thru headphones. Sometimes over and over.....trying to feel what the artist was conveying when they played it. Harsh reality floods back when I understand that the piece that makes it to disc...is rarely the best work. Like most everyone here no doubt, I rarely feel like my music is worth a damn. I can sit and watch the the most neophyte guitarist play the most uncomplicated piece, and be utterly astounded. You know the feeling...I wish my insturment sounded as good as their 75.00 no name guitar.
Its in the being. As in being there. The beautiful folks I've been lucky enough to meet...John, Julie, Jerry, Dusty..and others...all have had that Ki Ho'alu drive that makes what they play on their guitars SlackKey. I want that. I really do.
I got my first guitar when I was 8, in (okay seriously dating myself here) 1969. It was a Fender Stratocaster. It took me until I was a classman in secondary school.....like 10th grade I think, to get an amplifier. I started formal lessons for classical/popular when I was 10. Sitting in a room of students with Ramirez's with an electric guitar !!!
I'm one of those people who really can can spend hours playing a single note on different guitars....just to get the feel for the note. I said I was a freak.
I officially was introduced to slack key in 1996. I had been thru pretty much all levels of guitar by then, and was close to moving on, except for delta blues. (need that to think straight). I was enraptured by the ease of the style. Ease in all manners. Ease in playing, in listing, in the style...it just flowed.
Let me quote Russell for a moment here, cause he wrote very close to what I feel about music played by yourself:
Here's the crux of this issue for me: as useful as it is to have a precise transcription of a particular performance of a tune, and as good as it is for one's technical development and discipline to work through a transcription and get all the licks just right, the larger goal for me is to internalize the music in a way that lets me play it comfortably and enjoy it and (if I'm playing out) lets others enjoy it. We have more maneuvering room than classical players, and we should take as much advantage of it as we can.
I am not into spending a lot of time with other peoples work. I love and appreciate it, but for me, it is part of a learning process. I mean this with no dis respect. I have spent thousands of hours working thru others music, for the sake of growing. When I borrow someones music, I make it my own when I play it. To me, its what makes the kiho alu discipline grow.
To this day, I will not sit and play note for note, nuiance for nuiance, a piece of music. Blame 6 years of classical, with a heavy bent of Fernando Sor for that. Its nice, but its been done.
In my perfect world, the best way to learn would be to spend a month with all the people on this site, in say, a warm sandy place.....swim all day......play all night, around our beach fire.
Everyone the student, and everyone the master. I may play xyz better that the devil, buy I hav'nt heard abc until I heard it from one of you.
When I stress......thats where I go. A warm sandy beach with all of you.
Mike
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my Poodle is smarter than your honor student |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2003 : 02:02:56 AM
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Mike,
Three comments -- personally, I don't like to play others' stuff, too, especially in public. There are times when I might want to play it for myself for fun. And I still do try to learn other's work to "borrow" stuff from it. I learn so much from Ozzie's work. However, if I'm going to make some contribution back for all the great stuff I've been able to enjoy -- well time is running out.
Secondly, watch out for the perfectionism. (Hope I'm not reading too much in your reply.) As you know, most of the recent recordings, especially Dancing Cat, are highly engineered. Multiple takes, cut and paste. Not the kind of things anybody should be holding up as a model. I once had the opportunity to witness the Chicago Symphonie play Brahms' 4th with almost no rehearsal. (Actually a piece all those musicians probably knew well.) Got a recording of it, too, Angel Records. It was, and still is, the most phenomenal recording of the Symphonie I own. Funny thing, if I follow with a score, there are a fair number of mistakes. Note for note perfection is never what music was about until modern recording techniques came in and changed everbody's attitutde. (OK, some mistakes are obviously bad, and I'm not excusing a lack of practice. However, pick up some historical recordings of Horowitz or Rubenstein playing Chopin, follow with the notes, and you'll see my point. They were great musicians because of the depth of their knowledge and interpretation, because of the way they connected with Chopin's soul. By the way I am a Pole, and that IS soul music for us.)
Finally, you know that TAB is an earlier notation system than grand staff? Never was meant as an exact system but more as a "memory jogger."
Play on!
Raymond
San Jose, CA |
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cmdrpiffle
`Olu`olu
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2003 : 02:58:15 AM
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John and Raymond,
I read with complete attention what the 2 of you wrote. I will comment at length soon.
For now, thank you. You are both so very right. John, you've probably got me nailed as good as any. Heres to our red wine, rum, and long nights of Slack Key on a beach somewhere with friends.
Raymond, did you throw out Horowitz with Chopin? Soul music? are you kidding. My love is Polish, (Wowak), a dear friend the same, (Krakowiak).....
Thank you both for the comments. Im really starting to enjoy this slack key thing....
Mike |
my Poodle is smarter than your honor student |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2003 : 01:29:09 AM
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Mike,
Growing up Polish on Chicago's Polish West Side - well, I still love a good oberek -- actually my uncle was a pasionate Chopin devotee who had just about every recording of Chopin available. My second "LP" was a Rubenstein Chopin which has long since been worn out. (My first album was the first Jobim-Getz collaboration.)
I've worked out slack key arrangements of 7 Polish songs I especially liked when I was growing up, and have 3 more that I'm working on. I'm getting together an album that brings together what I know about slack key and some of the music that has been important to me throughout my life -- Polish, Latin, Fado, African and Hawaiian. While George Kahumoku has given valuable imput, as has Steve Sano gave some very valuable tips, the arrangements are really my own. I'm doing it because George was encouraging me to do an album, and I wanted to do something that expresses my "soul," and not just another recording of the standards. It should be available in a couple of months. I'm also very tempted to just do a CD of the Polish-American music I grew up with in solo guitar arrangements. Since it would only sell 5 or 6 copies, I could probably do them on my home computer.
Do widzenia,
Rajmund Stovich
San Jose |
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cpatch
Ahonui
USA
2187 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2003 : 03:02:47 AM
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Put me down for an autographed copy of each.
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Craig
My goal is to be able to play as well as people think I can. |
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marzullo
`Olu`olu
USA
923 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2003 : 12:57:20 PM
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aloha all,
this thread is really interesting to me.
i'm not as mature in slack key as some of you, and so my technique is not as well-thought out, and it's evolving pretty rapidly (over the span on a few months). what i do is:
- i work through tab, but less and less often. for me, it's now a way to get jump-started on a different tuning (i think better would be to sit down with someone who knows the tuning, though). i read music (grand staff for standard tuning, and tab) so it's a comfortable exercise for me. but, it encourages me to learn songs rather than the logic behind the song.
- i try to copy some songs without trying to be too true to the song. i then listen to what i have versus what the song does and see how they differ, and which i prefer. i've done this a few times, and occasionally learn something structural. for example, working through some of john kiawe's songs is getting me to try to be more adventurous with the bass line.
- i take some version of a song and try to sweeten it. this has been the most satisfying exercise for me. i've done this with bill's version of lahainaluna (his version is already beautiful) and with an arrangement of ho'okipa paka i learned from charles kaimikaua (a teacher in los angeles).
- i try to do some arrangements from scratch. i choose simple songs. i've come up with versions of blue hawaii, puamana, holoholo ka'a, pearly shells/ahi wela, isa lei, beyond the reef, and koke'e. sometimes i end up with a dull version, sometimes with a version i like but no one recognizes the song, and sometimes with something sweet. when it works, i'm really happy. this is especially fun if i need to figure out some new inversions of chords; i've been coming up with some minor chord figures for drop C recently in doing beyond the reef.
- for the last two methods, i then write down the tab. in doing so, i sometimes start adding to or regularizing the bass line. the exercise of writing down the song somehow encourages me to do this. it probably says something about how i think.
- when i get frustrated, i put the geetar down and work on the ukulele for awhile. playing the uke is just plain ol' fun. we have a regular saturday ukulele kanikapila at which one can play fancy and sing as loud as you wish, which clears out the brain cells as well as the lungs.
raymond, i like your idea of listening to many arrangements, since it gives you ideas and also helps define a common core that is the song itself. i'll give that a try.
aloha,
keith
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Keith |
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marzullo
`Olu`olu
USA
923 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2003 : 1:05:55 PM
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aloha e kahili, e komo mai!
opihi moemoe is a great song (and a great name for a song, too!) the first time i heard his keala's medley, though, i was entranced. kwan was amazing.
your advice is the kind i hear from other hawaiians: simple, to the point, and true. there's no substitute for sitting around with friends and playing and learning from each other.
what island are you on? do you still get together with friends and play?
keith
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Sarah
`Olu`olu
571 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2003 : 2:10:13 PM
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Aloha käkou,
'Opihi Moemoe. Now there's an interesting case in point, tab-wise. I've learned most stuff from tab, but in this instance, the tab was useless to me beause I couldn't get the timing/rhythm. I never could get off the ground with it till Andy and I were "sitting around playing" one time, and I asked him about it and he showed me how the rhythm went. Now I love to practice it :-)
Mahalo e Andy!
Sarah |
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cpatch
Ahonui
USA
2187 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2003 : 2:48:10 PM
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Sarah, that's why I like to listen to a song as many times as possible before picking up the tab...it puts the song into memory so I can hear the timing in my head as I learn to play it.
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Craig
My goal is to be able to play as well as people think I can. |
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kamalu70
Aloha
USA
18 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2003 : 9:02:30 PM
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Aloha kakou:
Been "sneakin" on to this site for a while now...finally decided to register and make it official, and this is my first post. I've been playing kiho`alu since...well, longer than I like to admit. I'm pretty much self-taught so my learning curve is pretty flat. In general, the way I've learned is just to listen to as much of the recorded music out there as possible, and by playing with others. I used to constantly seek out other players to jam with...that's where most of my learning took place. It's been my experience that you can learn things from players at any level, whether they are beginners or seasoned pros, they will always know something you don't, or play something in a way that you never imagined.
As far as learning specific songs...I do it totally by ear. I don't read standard music notation (even after 7 years of classical piano lessons), and I don't even have the patience to read tablature. If a recorded piece moves me, I'll just listen to it over and over until it's in my brain, then I'll just work it out on the guitar from memory. Usually it's pretty easy for me if I'm in the right tuning. Often times, once I think I got the tune down, I'll go back and listen to the recording again, and of course what I've been playing, even though it may sound pretty good, is usually a little different from the recorded version. That's when you know you've put your own stamp on that tune, and I'm not really interested in playing someone else's composition note for note anyway. Hope that helps.
kamalu |
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rossasaurus
Lokahi
USA
306 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2003 : 02:19:00 AM
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Aloha and Welcome Kamalu,
Glad you came out of the shadows to join us.
Ross |
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kahili
Aloha
USA
13 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2003 : 03:47:28 AM
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Howzit Keith
I've recently moved back home. I live on the island of Oahu. I was living in San Diego. Isn't that where you live? There were a few guys I jamed and did gigs with there. Check out the Hui O San Diego, uncle Bobby O. He plays slack key and can hook you up with other hawaiian musicians.
I don't know if any of the guys I use to jam with here are still around. Maybe there's enough guys who live on Oahu in this forum who might want to get together. Oh! oh! what am I getting myself into?
Kahili |
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marzullo
`Olu`olu
USA
923 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2003 : 12:57:31 PM
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hi kahili,
yep, i'm in north county san diego. i don't know of hui o san diego and bobby o, but i'll start looking! do you know where they play?
i hope you get some oahu responses! getting people together to play is one of the best things to happen from taropatch.net...
keith
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Keith |
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kahili
Aloha
USA
13 Posts |
Posted - 01/12/2003 : 3:38:45 PM
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Hi Keith
E kalamai, I gave you bum scoops, the club's name is Hui O Hawaii of San Diego. Bobby plays with the Hui O Hawaii Seranaders as well as with pick-up groups. Here's the club house ph. number (619) 466-2948.
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