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markwitz
`Olu`olu
USA
841 Posts |
 Posted - 10/03/2010 : 09:53:30 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by sm80808
All I have to say from watching those videos is Chino Montero, keys slacked or not, is a great guitarist and surely a master.
Chinooooo !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_P2aRuGus |
"The music of the Hawaiians, the most fascinating in the world, is still in my ears and
haunts me sleeping and waking."
Mark Twain |
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slipry1
Ha`aha`a
USA
1511 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2010 : 2:29:07 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by sm80808
All I have to say from watching those videos is Chino Montero, keys slacked or not, is a great guitarist and surely a master.
You Bet! I played a gig here in Seattle with Amy, Chino, Roddy Lopez and me at the Kona Kitchen a couple of years ago. Chino kept egging me on to do more, and it got to the point where I thought, as I like to say, "I can't play this good!". I had one of the most fabulous times in my life. AS for Jeff, I would give one of my private body parts to play like he does. And, as far as flat picks are concerned, Led played with a flat pick (Under the Double Eagle) when I sat in with him at the Kona Brewery. Does that make him "non-Hawaiian"? Sometimes, greatness transpires a genre. I say, don't judge an artist unless you can play as well as he (or she) does. |
keaka |
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markwitz
`Olu`olu
USA
841 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2010 : 4:13:33 PM
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| Not being a musician, I don't get the observation about the use of a flat pick. Someone please educate me on this. |
"The music of the Hawaiians, the most fascinating in the world, is still in my ears and
haunts me sleeping and waking."
Mark Twain |
Edited by - markwitz on 10/03/2010 4:14:03 PM |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2010 : 4:31:52 PM
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Flat picks are also called "straight" picks. They are held between the right thumb and forefinger for us "righties", vice-versa for those in their right mind. Flat picking is usually the "antithesis" of fingerpicking, using the fingers to pick (fingerpicks can be attached to the appendages in question for volume, tonality and style preference). It's good to know a bit of both.
I fingerpick ki ho'alu and flatpick in the polka band. |
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2010 : 06:09:44 AM
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For the sake of clarity, Ki ho`alu is played using the the thumb to play the bass parts and the fingers to play the lead/melody parts. Flat picks are not part of ki ho `alu, although sometimes a rhythm guitarist will use one when backing a slack key player. Some electric bass players also use a flat pick. Under The Double Eagle isn't ki ho` alu either, it's a Josef Wagner Orchestra piece picked up by bluegrass players as a tour de force`.As I said elsewhere, Led listens to a lot of different styles, and plays a lot of genre's. You can't automaticly call everything Led does "Ki ho `alu".
Unko Paul
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"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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no ka oi
Aloha
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2010 : 06:51:05 AM
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| There are also players who use a flat pick like a thumb pick and the third a fourth fingers instead in first and second. Same alternating bass. |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2010 : 4:00:45 PM
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| "Under the Double Eagle" is popular with polka bands, also. |
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hwnmusiclives
`Olu`olu
USA
580 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2010 : 03:11:44 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Peter Medeiros
Where Gabby would put five beats in a four four measure, or better yet, make up the Hawaiian lyrics, because at that moment in time in the performance he forgot the words. Peter would push the envelope so far that after four or five modulations the rest of the band he was playing with would be wondering if they were still playing same the song that they had started with. Sometimes the changes in tempo and feel would be so avante garde, there would be no question that the music Peter was playing was not Hawaiian music.
I most humbly disagree. I have written here many times that the attempt to define music by a point in time or a stylistic twist or turn that is part of the natural evolution of a music and a culture is short-sighted. In one breath you say there is no "black and white," and at the same time you say that some of what came from Gabby's mouth and Peter's hands was not Hawaiian music. By whose definition of "Hawaiian music?" Because as far as I can tell, there is as yet no agreed upon definition of what constitutes "Hawaiian music." My studio is lined with conceivably every book, video, and more than 3,000 recordings of or about Hawaiian music, and I have yet to find any agreement on what "Hawaiian music" is. You may be engaged in conversations about this with other scholars, but there is no scholarly definition in print to which we can yet point for this definition.
But if we were to define Hawaiian music, momentary deviations from the definition would not mean that the music - or the musician - were no longer Hawaiian. These deviations propel both the music and the culture forward. Without these deviations, a culture dies. If slack key still sounded like Auntie Alice's slack key, how many fans would it have today?
I think we tend to pick some point in time - a point in time that we are comfortable with - and say "the sound of Hawaiian music in this place and time is the only kind of Hawaiian music." How can we forget that at every place and time throughout history the figures we now call "traditional Hawaiian music" were taking crap from the kupuna for "taking it too far?" Who does that list include? Going in reverse chronological order, The Brothers Cazimero, Peter Moon, Sunday Manoa, Kahauanu Lake, Richard Kauhi, Pua Almeida, Alvin Isaacs, John Almeida, Lena Machado, Johnny Noble, Sonny Cunha... I am back to about 1900. Sonny Cunha was considered a radical in the early 1900s. And now he is considered an essential thread in the fabric of Hawaiian music.
You accused Gabby of the occasional five beats in a 4/4 measure. In the course of his research, Keola Donaghy recently discovered the same in Lena Machado's 1935 version of "Mai Lohilohi Mai 'Oe." I pulled out my copy of the recording, and sure enough, she did. I dare anyone to say that Lena Machado did not make "Hawaiian music."
This thread was about what constitutes a "master." I honestly don't know. But I do know that any definition of "Hawaiian music" that is in its nature exclusionary rather than inclusionary is inevitably going to leave out some artist that we could all agree made Hawaiian music - and made it well.
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Bau
Lokahi
USA
226 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2010 : 03:32:55 AM
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That is a very inciteful post. 
One of the concepts I've struggled with is what defines a culture,or genere and how do you define elements you want to use from that perspective to express a certain idea or feeling or how to give a piece of music a certain 'flavor' as an artist.
Also about the elvolution of music and culture. As you well pointed out , it is in constant flux.
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Edited by - Bau on 10/16/2010 03:33:53 AM |
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2010 : 07:25:06 AM
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Then every thing I ever play, on any instrument, is Italian music? I was born here in the US,so perhaps it's all Native Amaerican Music? I suspect the Lakota, Shoshone, Chinook, et all, would disagree. If I sing in the shower, does that make the water a musical instrument? The fact that we imperfect humans can't agree on a "definition of Hawaiian music" doesn't make everything sung or played by a Hawaiian person Hawaiian music. What about Willie K's operatic recordings? If he sings something by Puccini, does he gain Italian heritage? Or does Puccini become a Hawaiian composer? By that reasoning, nothing most TP members play fit the qualifications to be Hawaiian Music, since most of us are Mainlanders with no Polynesian blood. When I sing it, it becomes Italian, what if Auntie Wanda sings it with me? Here's a video of us singing one of our English/Native American/Italian favorites, see if you can guess which part of it is which.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T8U_752LvA
Unko Paul
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"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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slipry1
Ha`aha`a
USA
1511 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2010 : 07:47:20 AM
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| 5 beats in one meaasure of a 4/4 song is, imho, a way to accomdate words that take 5 beats to say (or sing). I've encountered this in hillbilly music ("Rise When The Rooster Crows" by The Binkley Brothers Dixie Clodhoppers, eg), Hawaiian music (see above), jazz, (when one improvises rhythmically or scat sings), etc. Sigh...... another case of trying to tag music and song with "Right" and "Wrong". C'mon, folks! As St. Ledward says, "Jus' Press!", so press on, have a good time and open yourselves (not all of you, from the above quotes) up to the constant variety of art. |
keaka |
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2010 : 08:14:17 AM
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We're all "Mongrel Dogs who teach", anyway, ain't we?
Unko Paul |
"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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hwnmusiclives
`Olu`olu
USA
580 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2010 : 08:41:01 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by rendesvous1840
Then every thing I ever play, on any instrument, is Italian music? I was born here in the US,so perhaps it's all Native Amaerican Music? I suspect the Lakota, Shoshone, Chinook, et all, would disagree. If I sing in the shower, does that make the water a musical instrument? The fact that we imperfect humans can't agree on a "definition of Hawaiian music" doesn't make everything sung or played by a Hawaiian person Hawaiian music. What about Willie K's operatic recordings? If he sings something by Puccini, does he gain Italian heritage? Or does Puccini become a Hawaiian composer? By that reasoning, nothing most TP members play fit the qualifications to be Hawaiian Music, since most of us are Mainlanders with no Polynesian blood. When I sing it, it becomes Italian, what if Auntie Wanda sings it with me? Here's a video of us singing one of our English/Native American/Italian favorites, see if you can guess which part of it is which.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T8U_752LvA
Unko Paul
Um... No, no, and no. Nor did I imply any of the above. In fact, I am trying desperately to imply the opposite. It is not about who makes the music. It is about what defines the genre of music.
Ethnomusicologists forge precise technical definitions of genres of music - especially as they pertain to the music as a representation of a culture. These definitions have little to do with instrumentation. (Does it matter of Gary Aiko if playing an Arco upright bass or a Fender Precision bass? Can Hawaiian music legitimately employ the accordion? Is Harry Owens' Orchestra any more or less Hawaiian than Alvin Isaacs and the Royal Hawaiian Serenaders - the instrumentation of which were quite different? I chose those two artists for comparison incidentally since they both held fort at the same hotel for many years - the Royal Hawaiian Hotel - and Alvin Isaacs started with Harry Owens - and the music he made after his departure from that band was very different than the music he made with that band.) And they have little to do with periods in time. However, such definitions have much to do with song form and structure. If you think of the hula ku'i as the prevalent Hawaiian song form (the verse-vamp-verse-vamp-rinse-lather-repeat form often employed for hula), then is a song that doesn't follow that form still Hawaiian? A good example might be David Nape's "Old Plantation." That form is far afield from anything that had been considered typically Hawaiian song form up to the time it was written. It is now a favorite of many Hawaiians. But if it does not follow the hula ku'i form, should the song be considered Hawaiian?
And, to be quite honest, the point of my entire diatribe is not that a working definition of Hawaiian music is needed. Rather, my point is that some people have made the need for such a definition way too important. That is to say... That it has become a hobby for many to separate into piles like so many marbles that which is Hawaiian and that which is not. And the answer - for me, at least - is why should it matter?
The argument reminds me of Stephen Colbert's concept of "truthiness" - something that approximates truth without being unburdened by facts. (This is, in fact, a paraphrase from a New York Times article today on the five-year anniversary of the coining of the word "truthiness.") "Truthiness," Colbert says, "defines those who appeal to raw feelings at the expense of facts." In all of the years I have been exposed to Hawaiian music, the only thing that has ever defined Hawaiian music has been one's own thoughts and feelings on what is or is not Hawaiian. So, if so many care what is or is not Hawaiian music, the experts should arrive at set of criteria for defining "Hawaiian music" so that we will once and for all be able to give a "yea" or a "nay" to certain recordings and artists. That was all I implied with my previous comments - not that music made by Hawaiian is necessarily "Hawaiian," but that attacks on legends (say, what is a "legend," anyway?) of Hawaiian music should not be taken lightly without being able to quantify exactly what about their music was anything less than "Hawaiian."
If I were to wear the hat of the egotistical musician (and, as I have learned, it takes a certain amount of ego to play in front of other people - and to want to in the first place), I might argue that stating that some music is Hawaiian and other music is not is merely a new way of exalting one's own work as being better than somebody else's. When, in fact, the better way of touting one's own "mastery" is to allow their music to speak for itself.
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 10/17/2010 : 08:25:54 AM
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Thanks for the link, Russell -- and double thanks for the blog, Amy!
Couple thoughts:
Firstly, notice that this overview is mainly about popular Hawaiian music. Folk music, which would include slack key until very recently, tends to be far more conservative.
That being said, folk music is also influenced by pop music--and sometimes becomes pop music. And, after a while, popular music often becomes folk music.
I'll wager the reggae version of "Country Roads," "White Sandy Beach," "Ku‘u Home o Kahalu‘u" and many others are well on their way to becoming folk songs in Hawaii in the same way as "Angelina Baker" and "Boatman Dance" are now in some circles.
And, I'd like to add the there might be a new "era" in the making that dates from the huge success of Dancing Cat records and the international recognition of slack key.
20 years ago there would be not discussion of what makes a slack key "master" cuz few of y'all would have ever heard of slack key. Nor would a slack key CD make it to the Billboard World Music charts, nor would slack key dominate the Grammies, nor would there be a huge interest in learning the music, both in Hawaii and elsewhere.
And, coincidentally, that same "era" pretty much marks the rise and domination of Hawaiian reggae on the local airwaves.
Hmmmm... wait a minute: slack key: a small group of passionate devotees vs Jawaiian: a huge local listener base, massive airplay, and generally disdained by the followers of this forum.
isn't this the usual dichotomy between "folk" and "pop" music?
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Slack "MASTER" designation
