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Bill Campbell
Akahai
USA
90 Posts |
 Posted - 08/19/2007 : 5:32:17 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Admin
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Given Ozzie's lineage,
BTW, I am sure that you are aware that Ozzie's 'lineage' is 100% Japanese. If you don't believe it, call him, and he will tell you. He told me this, very proudly, when I spoke with him about releasing my CD of Hawaiian slack key instrumental music, 'Kauai On My Mind'. He told me that 'he did not have a drop of Hawaiian blood in his body', and that one need not have such in order to be able to perform this beautiful music in a manner that would be acceptable to Hawaiians. He had received an advance copy of my Master, and he encouraged me to release the CD. If there was ever a more gentle, honorable, gentleman that Ozzie Kotani, I would like to see him. What a wonderful performer, teacher, and role model he is. |
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2007 : 5:45:31 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Bill Campbell
BTW, I am sure that you are aware that Ozzie's 'lineage' is 100% Japanese.
Yes, true. I was referring to his slack key lineage, if it's possible to use the word that way.quote:
If there was ever a more gentle, honorable, gentleman that Ozzie Kotani, I would like to see him. What a wonderful performer, teacher, and role model he is.
Amen, to that. I couldn't agree more. |
Andy |
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Bill Campbell
Akahai
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2007 : 6:07:45 PM
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[quote IT IS SLACK KEY in the pure sense, although none of the strings are "slacked".[/quote]
WTF!!! If that ain't a contradiction, I don't know what one is. This may not be a sentence, even though it sounds for all the world like a sentence!! |
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Bill Campbell
Akahai
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2007 : 6:13:52 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by hapakid
When slack key phrases are played on the uke, violin, piano, etc., it becomes part of the wider world of Hawaiian music, not slack key guitar.
Great point, Jesse. Whenever I have a problem trying to work out a slack key arrangement, I go to my Clavinova (electric piano), and mess with it until I get something that sounds like what I am looking for. However, in no way, shape, or form does the Clavinova sound like slack key, even though I am playing the SAME notes in the SAME sequence as I will be doing on my acoustic guitar. |
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Bill Campbell
Akahai
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2007 : 6:17:28 PM
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quote:
I was referring to his slack key lineage, if it's possible to use the word that way.
Aloha, bro Admin. That is an interesting topic in itself, 'slack key lineage'. Could you elaborate on that one? Do I have a slack key lineage, even though I don't have any Hawaiian blood? |
Edited by - Bill Campbell on 08/19/2007 6:20:08 PM |
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2007 : 7:15:06 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by hapakid
It makes me accept that lineage is no determination of quality or genuine-ness, but something in the music has to relate to Hawai'i. Just an opinion.
I really liked Jesse's comment. But to address your question...
quote:
Originally posted by Bill Campbell
That is an interesting topic in itself, 'slack key lineage'. Could you elaborate on that one? Do I have a slack key lineage, even though I don't have any Hawaiian blood?
I think the idea of slack key lineage is separate from blood line. I think you have one. How did you learn and who were the teachers who influenced you? Again, these are questions to which there may be no right or wrong answers. |
Andy |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2007 : 8:21:19 PM
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Bill wrote: quote:
So, now you are going to defer the fight to someone with a better grasp of technical musical language. Is that who we need to define what 'slack key' music is now? I sure hope not.
I know just enough music/musicology talk to be dangerous, so I wouldn't commit to a technical definition of any musical form without being sure that I was using the right language to describe what I hear. Certainly when I'm wearing my writer hat, I try to consult theory-competent people. In this case, that would mean a musicologist and/or a technically proficient trained musician, just to make sure that I'm the terminology correctly. (Is that a triplet I'm hearing? Those are parallel thirds, right? What would you call this time signature?)
When I was drafting the "what is slack key?" section of my book, I used both what traditional players said about it and conventional musicological descriptions (for example, Elizabeth Tatar's in Hawaiian Music and Musicians, Amy Stillman's from the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, and various comments by Peter Medeiros). I figured this covered the bases--how the practitioners described their practice and how that translated into the common language of musicology that is more familiar to the majority of my audience. To anticipate one kind of response to this rather academic approach: I don't include feelings (that is, emotional response) because feelings are subjective and variable--I know a very fine guitarist who doesn't much like slack key--he finds it repetitive and too simple harmonically. And my own emotional responses to slack key are much like my responses to the Bach cello suites, despite their obvious differences. The music itself, however, can be recorded, analyzed, and compared to other musics without having to deal with anyone's subjective state.
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Edited by - Russell Letson on 08/19/2007 8:25:09 PM |
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Hula Rider
Lokahi
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2007 : 07:13:21 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by noeau
Does any of it matter? I think that if one is trying to sell something and gives it a name. I hope it lives up to that name. But in the backyard for free , who cares?
I do. To those of us who have devoted much of our lives to the transmission of the culture, the ability to define aspects of that culture, and its expressions, both tangible and intangible, matters a great deal.
For example, if I am trying to teach my daughter how to make her great grandmother's haupia, my use of the term "coconut creme" versus "coconut juice" matters a great deal. Also, it matters a great deal that the term "haupia" refer to the traditional coconut milk and arrow-root starch dish. Already, we are diverging from a strictly traditional dish when we use cornstarch as a substitute for arrow-root. But the dish retains its intrinsic character as a starch-based coconut pudding. I do NOT call the currently popular agar-based coconut dessert "haupia" because it is a gelatin-based dish, not a starch-based dish, despite being flavored with coconut. To me, accurate terminology is important whether haupia is being served in a commercial restaurant or at a "free" family meal on the back lanai.
Thus, when I teach Hawaiian music, I think it is important to retain accurate terminiology, regardless of the venue. I have a friend who plays Hawaiian songs and uses an open-G tuning. He considers himself to be playing "slack key." But it does not sound like slack key. It sounds like a rock and roll musician playing a Hawaiian song in open-G. The Hawaiian "feel" is totally absent, despite the Hawaiian words and the tuning. Thus, despite some of our jam sessions being in the back yard and free, I still would not call what he plays "slack key."
Malama pono,
Hula Rider |
Edited by - Hula Rider on 08/20/2007 08:11:40 AM |
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Hula Rider
Lokahi
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2007 : 07:26:43 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by jmk
Very interesting thread. I haven't had time to read all the posts yet, but as a hula dancer I can't help responding to the
"I don’t see to many hula dancers smiling when the guitarist plays a “pa’ani”.
When I'm doing a hula, I am pleased to have have a solo'ist take a pa'ani during my hula. Gives me a chance to catch a breath, keep time to the music and enjoy. Please do the pa'ani
I fully agree with you. It is delightful to have an opportunity to focus on the musicality. I think working with musicians who pa`ani during the hula is nice for a number of reasons. It gives the dancer a chance to catch his or her breath, puts the focus on the musicality of the performance, and lends a nice bit of visual variety. Just as the other musicians will "lay back" while one of the band takes lead, it's nice when the dancer "lays back" for a verse.
Malama pono,
Hula Rider |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2007 : 07:37:57 AM
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Hula Rider's example of making haupia demonstrates just how traditions shift and drift: it's possible to substitute recipe ingredients and retain the essential nature of the food--up to a point. And given what happens to a food-supply system, recipes are going to drift, especially as people move from a rural setting (where the ingredients might include home-grown or wild foods) to an urban one (where the grocery store replaces the garden and the woods or whatever).
It's going to be the same with music: outside influences (jazz, swing, reggae, rock) will work their way into the tradition; and outsiders will hear the authentic stuff and incorporate elements of it into their own playing, or try (with varying degrees of success) to imitate what they enjoy. It's the function of "conservatives" or "preservationists" or whatever one calls them to pull the edges in toward the center--even though that center itself is going to keep tending to shift as it passes into the care of new generations of keepers. For a tradition that has to live in a world-culture environment (like a recipe that has to live in world of supermarkets and manufactured food), it's very hard to maintain the old, original characteristics, and it requires conscious effort and maybe even an analytical approach.
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Hula Rider
Lokahi
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2007 : 07:48:48 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by noeau
I am not trying to argue here. But geneology is very important but the lineage thing I am attempting to discuss goes like this. No matter who you learn from if you play well you play well if you play junk you play junk. The same goes for lineage in a martial arts style. Sure teacher lineage is important but again if you fight...etc.,etc.,etc. That is where i am coming from. There is a point in everyone's life where they must express themselves for who they are and it does not matter who our teachers were. The only thing we can do is honor them by being the best we can. Philosophically we do not have to explain ourselves to anyone. And when we do it is usually when we must speak of our own thoughts and merits. We will show homage to those who in fluenced us throughout our lives. But in the long run none of it matters. Just live as well as we can and that is that. I'm not saying I know it all but hell I have lived long enough to have learned a few tricks about life. I'm not saying that every one has to accept my thinking all I doing is adding to the mix. So with due respect I'll close .
PS. I heard your songs on your web site. You have nothing to worry about if you question your style of guitar. Sounds like ki ho'alu to me. My foot tapped and I smiled and all the other stuff too.
Aloha
E aloha no - Yes, I certainly agree with you - lineage/geneology is important, but not the be-all, end-all. If you play well, it really dosen't matter where you learned. If you play poorly, with no heart, it dosen't matter who you learned from.
Sometimes I like knowing a persons musical or hula geneology because it gives me a context and an additional way to relate to the person's art. For example, if I know someone was trained by Uncle George Naope, I will enjoy from a different perspective than if I know the person comes from Aunty Maiki's training. Sort of like being ono for ahi versus being ono for uhu on a given day.
But at other times, I don't really want to know any background until after I have seen the person's performance.
Malama pono,
Hula Rider |
Edited by - Hula Rider on 08/20/2007 08:14:29 AM |
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Hula Rider
Lokahi
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2007 : 08:07:24 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Basil Henriques
As I've said, there are newspaper articles and other documented proof, their names were Don Luzada, Mr. Ramon and Mr. Kussuth..and they came from California.
There is NO other reference to King Kamehameha III employing any other Vaqueros.
So where does the perception come from that they were numerous or that there was many of them ?
Probably oral family tradition. Possibly the King himself did not bring over the others, but they were invited later by the original paniolo or foremen of the incipient ranching industy. My husband's great-great-grandfather was one of the later vaqueros/paniolo who emigrated to Hawai`i to train the Hawaiians.
Malama pono,
Hula Rider |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2007 : 6:49:37 PM
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Russell,
I've been thinking about your recent posts -and of course I haven't seen your ms...... but......
in the last few years there have been a couple of excellent neuropsych studies - actually full length books by good researchers but written for the educated layperson - about how music actually works in the brain. Some of the advances in functional scans are yielding fascinating information . A significant part of their conclusions is that music "works" to a large degree because it has emotional effects. (And oftentimes the same piece of music will produce very similar emotional effects across different cultures.)
The point I want to offer is that it is very very incomplete to talk about how a style of music works without discussing its emotional effects. It's a kind of "scientific reduction" which has gone out of vogue with most cutting edge scientists. (At least that's my, and a few "experts," reads on the situation.)From all the work you have been doing on your book, I would urge you to consider rethinking the issue of discussing the emotional effects of slack key as part of the defining characteristics of the style. |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2007 : 7:54:52 PM
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My research budget doesn't run to MRI gear--CDs and LPs are all the alphabet tech I can justify. But seriously, my training is in literature, and while I recognize that we read poetry (or listen to music) for the feelings it generates, what we all have *exactly* the same access to are the text and whatever information we can accumulate about its author, cultural context, material history, and so on. When there's a decent body of data about the neurophysiology of aesthetic response, there will be interesting work to do, but meanwhile there are plenty of old-fashioned descriptive/historical/taxonomic tasks in the queue. I certainly include testimony of players and listeners about why they value the music, but that doesn't exhaust the description of the tradition's history and development--and that's a story that needs telling.
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2007 : 07:15:51 AM
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This quote is from an interview with Milton Lau by the Honolulu Star Bulletin. It sums it up perfectly in my opinion.
The sound of slack-key is "distinctive to Hawaii," said Lau. "People play with open tuning everywhere in the world, but here, where it's done from the soul and the heart, helps relate the sound of slack-key to the Hawaii experience."
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Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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Topic |
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Defining Slack key
