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Kapila Kane
Ha`aha`a
USA
1051 Posts |
 Posted - 06/19/2019 : 1:41:02 PM
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Not so much the staff, I can look that up. Of course, if I was at camp, I probably wouldn't be on Taropatch. How sweet it is!
Beautiful in Colorado, but, NO BEACH. If music be the food of love, play on;. Give me excess of it, that, surfing...
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Maliko
Lokahi
USA
139 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2019 : 11:08:01 PM
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Just finished final concert at 2019 George Kahumoku Slack Key Workshop. Hō! What a week. 2 individual lessons with Led Kaʻapana. And backed up by Kevin Brown and Sonny Lim on open mike night, where I petformed Kanaka Waiolina. Choke great workshops on all kine stuffs!
Fly home tomorrow.
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Put da "pila" back in "Kanikapila" |
Edited by - Maliko on 06/25/2019 12:00:15 AM |
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Eynowd
Lokahi
Australia
181 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2019 : 08:00:05 AM
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My family and I went, and we had a fabulous time. Being Australians was quite the novelty (well, my wife is Canadian, but she still got to play the Australian cards, as she's lived there for 11 years now).
I think I learned more about playing slack key in the first two days of the camp than I had in the previous two years by myself. Jeff Peterson answered a lot of the questions I had in the first Guitar 2 level class, without me even asking them. I now have a whole new path to follow to learning new tunes, and I'm quite excited to give it a try.
During the week, I managed to get private lessons with Jeff Peterson, Uncle Led and Uncle Sonny Lim, which were all great. All three made complimentary noises about my playing, which was very much appreciated.
Ironically though, I didn't get in a whole lot of actual slack key practice during the camp. Uncle George had picked two songs for all the workshop participants to perform on stage at the slack key show on the final Wednesday night, and he chose to play them both in the key of F, which is what he keeps his 12 string guitar tuned to. I'd never even tried playing an F or Bb chord in Taropatch, so most of my private practice time during the week was spent practicing changing to and from those chord shapes, so I wouldn't suck on the final night (not that anyone could have even heard my unplugged acoustic over the rest of the noise).
Jeff Peterson did give us some tips on how to play slack key in different keys, but it was all I could do to get the chord transitions down, so I ended up just doing a very basic 4-2-3-1 picking pattern across the whole thing. I'll probably look at putting some more practice into trying to learn stuff in other keys, now I have more of an understanding of what I'm doing.
I had other classes with Uncle Sonny (he taught us some good tunes that I'm going to try to learn once I get home), Uncle Kevin Brown and Jason Jerome (who was a uke instructor, but did a great class on the basics of performing a solo and how to go about thinking about what to play).
Months before the camp, Mark Kailana Nelson put me in touch with a gent named Martin from Canada, who was also going to be attending. Martin and I swapped emails for a while, and after he discovered we both had the Keola Beamer/Mark Nelson book, he suggested that we have a crack at learning the duet arrangement of "Akaka Falls" that's in the book.
So, we did that, and Martin and I got together a few times over the week to play it together. It took us a few goes through to get our respective timings more or less in sync, but by the end of the week, we'd gotten it sounding pretty good. There was an open mic night on the second last night of the workshop, so Martin and I decided that we'd get up and perform the duet on stage. That all went pretty well, aside from Martin losing his place towards the end of the piece. I've got some video of us performing together up on stage. We were both playing in C Wahine tuning, in case anyone's interested.
The Napili Kai Beach Resort is also an amazing location for the workshop. We had the room right next to reception, so the view from our lanai looked right out over Napili Bay.
My wife spent the entire camp doing the crafting classes and having a wonderful time (she doesn't play music at all). She's coming home with some kapa that she made and decorated, and whole bunch of woven bracelets, baskets, and even earrings that she made in her classes.
Our nine year old daughter got right into things as well. She spent the week doing a whole bunch of different things, including helping out in the kitchen nearly every day (she even helped pound the taro to make poi), learning Hawaiian style fishing, and learning to dance the hula for the performance at the closing concert. Considering she's never danced hula before, I think she did really well; her teacher - Wainani Kealoha - had very good things to say about it, even if Rhi's technique was still a little sloppy.
It was good to meet Maliko, too (I ended up playing next to him during the final performance).
We sadly left Maui yesterday and flew to O`ahu, to spend a week in Honolulu before we fly home to Australia next Wednesday. We're mostly just doing the tourist thing this week (I've already bought myself the red Jungle Bird shirt that Magnum PI used to wear - to match the black one my wife bought me for Christmas last year), and we're going to play it by ear about what else we get up to.
Uncle Led mentioned he's playing at a Gabby Pahunui memorial in Waikiki on Saturday night, so we're hoping to figure out where that is and go along to listen to him play again. Duke's also offered to arrange a kanikapila on Sunday, but I'm not sure if that's going ahead or not. If it is, we'll be there. |
Geoff - g'day from Canberra, Australia. |
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Earl
`Olu`olu
USA
523 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2019 : 04:57:26 AM
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That sounds like a wonderful camp experience, Geoff. I like guitar camps a LOT, for many of the reasons you listed. There is nothing quite like total immersion with 40-80 of your newest & bestest music friends. 
I have learned to play in several keys using Taropatch. I like keeping my guitar there for kanikapila so I can play slack key tunes when desired. (Sometimes I noodle quietly in the background when extended talk-story sessions happen). But many ukulele songs are in C or F, so I've had to adapt. A challenge is good, and learning is good.
Uncle George keeps his guitars in Taropatch F, one whole step lower than regular Taropatch G. You can always retune to that -- if you have enough advanced warning. There is a certain extra richness (with some guitars) tuned down there. But it normally requires medium gauge strings to avoid floppiness and buzzing. |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2019 : 10:11:40 AM
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| Learning to play or comp in F in G Taropatch is helpful - especially if the singer modulates to G. For an F6 chord (low to high), it's 3X0213, using the middle D open. D9 is 0X4520. As long as another guitar or ukulele is chording, the slack key guitar can just concentrate on back up and right hand thumb action. |
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Wondering who's at George's camp???
