We end this week of gorgeous Hawaiian music with the All Around This World as-good-as-we-can-muster version of the most classic of all classic Hawaiian songs, “Aloha ‘Oe,” which means “farewell to you.” Hawaii’s last queen, Queen Lili’uokalani, wrote the lyrics, in part to a melody borrowed from a popular song of the day, when she witnessed the parting of two people in love. Here is Huapala.org’s translation: “Proudly swept the rain by the cliffs/As it glided through the trees/Still following ever the bud/The ‘ahihi lehua of the vale, Farewell to you, farewell to you, The charming one who dwells in the shaded bowers, One fond embrace, ‘Ere I depart, Until we meet again.”
Tag Archives | Hawaii
Oh So Beautiful Kona
In our online class this week we celebrate Hawaiian Mele, classic Hawaiian songs and chants that tell glorious tales of the islands. Many Hawaiian mele proudly share the love Hawaiians hold for their beautiful home. Songs like “Wai Hu’ihu’i O Ke Aniani,” which we sing in class as “Konikoni,” offer lush lyrical images of the islands’ fragrant flowers. In “Pa Mai Ana Ka Makani” — also commonly known as “Kona” because it sings the praises of the Kona region of the Big Island — composer Lydia Nawahine Kekuewa lovingly recalls the area’s natural beauty. Let’s enjoy this video of Hoku Zuttermeister with Ioane Burns performing a swinging version of the song.
Steel Guitar Rag
Yesterday we looked kindly on the possible Indian origins of the Hawaiian slide/lap steel guitar. Whichever musician was the first to slide steel on a set of strings, guitar historians agree that the Hawaiian steel guitar made its formal debut on the continental mainland in 1915 at Hawaii’s pavilion at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, a massive 7 month long exposition that celebrated the completion of the Panama Canal and attracted millions of visitors. The steel guitar sound so intrigued and inspired Americans that in 1916 record companies sold thousands of copies of Hawaiian-inspired records and many Hawaiian model guitars, along with steel guitar “do-it-yourself’ kits that included song books, steel rods, finger and thumb picks and a mechanism to lift the strings far enough above the body of the guitar that pressing the slide on them wouldn’t make them buzz. Let’s watch Leon McAuliffe and Cimarron Boys play the Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys lap steel classic, “Steel Guitar Rag.”
Don’t call Ledward Kaapana a Slacker
Many music historians say that Hawaii first met the guitar when Mexican cowboys brought it to the islands in the 1800s. (Why did Mexican cowboys come to Hawaii in the first place? In 1793 a British captain gave King Kamehameha I a present of five head of cattle. The King forbade Hawaiians from harming them by law and allowed them to free reign of Hawaii’s “Big Island.” By 1830 there were so many cattle roaming freely on the Big Island–getting into mischief, destroying crops–that Kamehameha III brought in 200 Mexican cowboys, many bearing guitars, to ranch them.) Hawaiians took the guitar and changed the way the strings are tuned, enabling musicians to change the chords by sliding one finger up and down its neck. Sliding notes up and down the guitar fretboard seemed to be a natural complement to the swaying and sliding Polynesian folk songs. Let’s watch this video of Ledward Kapana playing “I Kona” on the Slack-Key guitar.
Hawaii — the most “American” of American States
This week we’re so lucky to be able to travel to one of the most delightful, most multicultural and, in many interpretive ways, the most “American” of all American states – Hawaii. White this glorious group of islands may not have formerly become the 50th American state until 1959–can you even imagine the American flag with just 49 stars…?–Hawaii has been in America’s sphere of influence, and part of the American consciousness, since the late 1800s. As we learned during our “folk and country” week, all American musical genres began as a mishmash of global sounds. This week we’ll see how Hawaiian music became part of America’s musical landscape long before Hawaii formally filled out the flag.
All Hail Hawaiian Haupia
We end our week of Hawaiian music and culture with something sweet. Haupia is a traditional coconut milk-based Hawaiian dessert. You are likely to find haupia as at a luau or other Hawaiian community party. It is especially popular as a topping for cakes at Hawaiian weddings. In this video our friend Jesse how to do haupia right. Enjoy!
Hi’ilawe Plays for Change
Beloved Hawaiian slack-key guitar master Gabby Pahinui began his work life as a road crew laborer but eventually caught the ear of the local record industry. He was the first slack-key guitarist to record a hit, “Hi’ilawe”–possibly the first slack-key guitarist to record at all–and in the ’40s and ’50s pioneered slack-key guitar playing to a point it which it came to channel the very soul of the islands. In the 1970s Pahinui and slack-key guitar played an important role in the “Hawaiian Renaissance,” boldly supporting the performance of Hawaiian music as a way inspire Hawaiians to empower themselves culturally and politically. Pahinui isn’t performing this video, but we do get a chance to hear “Hi’ilawe” as performed by some talented street musicians on behalf of Playing for Change, which describes itself as “a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music, born from the shared belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people.” Right on!
I Remember What Home Means to Me
“Pā Mai Ana Ka Makani” is one of the most beloved of all traditional Hawaiian songs. It was composed by Lydia Nawahine Kekuewa, a native of Kona, a district on Hawaii’s Big Island, in the early 1900s, Kekuewa hailed from a musical family — her brother composed some of Hawaii’s most widely-sung hymns. An essay by Hawaiian author and song collector Kīhei de Silva, a descendant of Keukuewa — who his mother and her sisters called, affectionately, “Tūtū Lady” — remembers her as “a much-feared and respected school and hula teacher.” “Pā Mai Ana Ka Makani” speaks to the love she felt both her for her husband Obed, police chief of Kona, and love for Hawaii — secure, beautiful and serene. “The wind blows,” writes de Silva, “and stirs memories of her loved-one, home, and youth. The beauty of Kona’s clouds and sea stirs memories of her loved-one, home, and youth.” In this video we share All Around This World’s version.
Did Lap Steel Start with Joseph Kekuku?
More Hawaiian guitar! Lap steel guitar is a style of guitar playing that originated in the late 1800s when, according to guitar-playing legend, Hawaiian guitarist Joseph Kekuku realized he could make a unique and, frankly, quite beautiful sound when changing the tuning of his steel guitar, resting it on his lap and sliding a metal bolt or bar up and down the fretboard to reach the desired note. Kekuku’s steel guitar style became synonymous with the sound of Hawaiian music and eventually spread worldwide, becoming a fad in the 1920’s and ’30s, especially after the instrument “went electric.” In this video we hear an acoustic lap steel guitar, playing blues “Hawaiian-style.”
Don’t Call George Kahumoku a Slacker
Hawaiian slack key guitar is an acoustic, fingerstyle genre that arose as a low-key genres based in the islands; only since the 1970s has it become well known worldwide. The name “slack key” comes from the practice of the guitarist’s loosening, or making “slack” the strings of a guitar until together they play a single chord. The classic slack-key tunes are simple yet bright and airy; they lilt and laugh and, for real, “sound” like Hawaii. In this video watch slack key guitar master George Kahumoku play this distinctly mellow kind of music.
