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chunky monkey
Ha`aha`a
USA
1022 Posts |
 Posted - 04/23/2012 : 1:38:47 PM
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I was working on a new tune that's been around since the 1800s and I've only recently picked up on it. It happens to be Paliokamoa (I know Fran Guidry has a Youtube of it; I'm actually doing John Keawe's rendition). I got to thinking about how a song becomes a Hawaiian music (or slack key) standard. My playable song list includes many tunes that probably will never become standards; I just like them. I started trying to list all of what I think are standards that were written by living composers. I came up with Dennis Kamakahi, Peter Moon, Palani Vaughn, Frank Hewitt, maybe Moon Kauakahi, maybe Puakea Noglemeyer. I have some other lesser known composers in mind and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone important.
How many songs that are or will become standards have been written since 1990 or 1980 (for sure, some of Uncle Dennis's )? Most of what I think of as standards precede 1980 (certainly including lots of Peter Moon's and Palani Vaughn's work). Anyway, are we listening to any tunes from the 21st century that we all will bet on becoming standards? Or, does it take generations of learning and playing to create these? Thanks.
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2012 : 04:53:49 AM
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A "standard" implies acceptance by a particular audience over a longish period--the mainland tunes called standards are generally two or more generations into their popularity. The question of whether any of the songs we currently enjoy will still have a strong audience in twenty or forty years is pretty much unanswerable--like the question of whether Writer X will be considered a great writer or whether Painting Y will seen as great art. We're the early voters on these matters, and far from the most important ones. (And maybe we're wrong. Moby-Dick was a commercial and critical failure in its own time, only rediscovered in the 1920s--seventy years after its first publication. And van Gogh famously couldn't sell his paintings.) So it will be the next generation and the one after that who determine which of our generation's tunes are standards.
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Edited by - Russell Letson on 04/24/2012 04:54:25 AM |
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2012 : 05:25:38 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by chunky monkey
Anyway, are we listening to any tunes from the 21st century that we all will bet on becoming standards? Or, does it take generations of learning and playing to create these?
Interesting question. The cool thing is that if you perform/record the songs that you enjoy... and other musicians may pick it up, perform and record the song... then, I suppose the possibilities are there. |
Andy |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2012 : 07:21:10 AM
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| The methods of song distribution have changed so dramatically in the past 100 years, a factor that can't be overlooked when it comes to exposure and popularity. Today, we hear far more music than even a single generation ago did, much less the generations prior; that presents a challenge in picking out what will stand the proverbial test of time. It's tougher now to get as large a group to agree on what the "hits" are. |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2012 : 05:15:44 AM
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It's a decades-long process of voting with the feet--or the fingers and vocal chords.
A friend runs a bar band in which the repertory is covers of rock and pop songs from the last fifty-some years, and I think that the tunes his twenty-something audiences request and respond to (by, for example, knowing all the words and singing along) show an emerging set of rock standards. I know I've been surprised to hear how many tunes from my college years (nearly fifty years back) remain favorites--thanks to the internet and iPods, these kids have the same kind of access to all of rock history as I did to all of jazz and swing history (and all of classical music back to the middle ages), and they download and swap and generally mine the past the same way I did with reissue LPs. Then there's the role of all those Time-Life compilations and their late-night infomercial kin. We're assiduously repackaging the past as fast as we can acquire the rights.
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what makes a Hawaiian "standard"
