http://theGuitarWorkShop.com

 by Bruce Lamb

If you have read one of my earlier articles on how I got started playing guitar and in particular Hawaiian Ki ho ‘alu Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar I mentioned how us young teenagers livinge in Hawaii on the Island of Oahu would gather on the corner at night under a big mango tree and share our different music. I also mentioned we would play the popular music that was on the radio. Acoustic Blues was always my favorite style of music:

  I liked the deep pre-war acoustic stuff that was mainly played by some of the older black community. I think the only reason you could find this music in Hawaii at that time was that the late nite DJ was a black Guy.  And as it turned out most of the lyrics and progressions were remade by the hot new bands at theat time. Bands like the Rolling Stones were doing some of those old black songs like I can’t get now satisfactions, and I followard her to the station.  Also Eric Burden and the animals were also redoing old blues songs. Ok I know I’m showing my age now at 60 years old and it’s hard top believe that those songs by these new artist are over 45 years old now.

  Then i mentioned that the Hawaiian guys would always end the evening with a more traditional style of music by retuning their guitars. I could never get them to show us how or what they did but there was a siolent code between them.  While one guy was talking story or noodeling around with his guitar the other guy would be retuning. before long they were both in this new tuning. I think it gave them great satisfaction in keeping this secret from us.  As it turned out both guys would be in tune and would begin to play and sing Hawaiian songs. It was so enchanting and captivated me and I really wanted to try and play along but I could never figure out why my guitar was always so out of tune all of a sudden. It took me almost the entire summer to realize my old Stella guitar could be tuned in this magical type of tuning.

Finally the big secrete was revealed to me. I was working after school at the Marine Base in Aiea Hawaii as a janitor cleaning up the enlisted men’s club which is a bar for the young Marines. It was strange that at that time in Hawaii the drinking age was only 18 years old. Anyway I worked with an old hawaiian guy named Sammy. While we were on our lunch break I pulled my guitar out and Sammy said to me “hey bradda Bruce try pass me the guitar already” in his style of pig english. I handed him the guitar and he immediately began to retune the strings. Then the secret was revealed to me. Sammy began to tell me how many families in the Hawaiian communities actually had their own tunings that they played exclusively. The families would not share or teach anyone outside their immediate family this tuning because it was passed down from generations before. It was theirs for the keeping and is what made there families music different sounding from others. Its kind of like I guess how a magician won’t show how a magic trickh is preformed. The tuning that old Sammy showed me was the Taro Patch tuning.

The Taro Patch tuning is the most common tuning in most of the Hawaiian songs.  As it turned out I began to realize that this tuning was also used in many of  th old blues songs that I heard from the old records that I had. It was also known as open G tuning that many bottleneck blues players would use. This tuning is a major tuning. The guitar is tuned to a major G chord or has a major chord within the tuning. To achieve this tuning you have to lower the tension on the standard tuning o rknown as standard Spanish Tuning which is (E-A-D-G-B-E) on your guitar , from the lowest to the higest pitched string. To get the Taro Patch tuning you have to change the pitch of the guitar strings to (D-G-D-G-B-D) which when you strum across all the strings it is the sound of a G major chord. I srtongly suggest you use a electronic tuner to achieve this because you may break some strings untile you understand the tuning.

Well go ahead and give it a try, I’ll show you more of these tunings next time. Watch and learn these tunings at our website by our Grammy Award winning Slack Key Artists and instructors at http://www.TheGuitarWorkshop.com

by Bruce Lamb.

www.TheGuitarWorkshop.com

If you have ever had a chance to go to a Slack key guitar concert or festival most likely you have heard this interpretation from one of the many performers at the concert.

How did the Hawaiians come to owning guitars and learning how to play them? First off the guitar found its way to the Hawaiian Islands back in the 19th century. The Hawaiian king at that time King Kamehameha the 3rd I believe was given a few cattle as a gift from some Portuguese traders who stumbled upon the islands.

Now there are many different ideas on who actually gave the cattle to him but we do know he liked them and made it a law that no one was to harm them. Well Hawaii is an abundant land and cows being cows all they did all day long was eat and make more cows. The population grew and many of the cows began to eat the homes of the islanders, Grass shacks.

When more Spanish and Portuguese explorers began to discover the islands King Kamehameha employed some of the Spanish cow boys who were on the ships to help with and teach the Hawaiians how to handle the cattle. These Mexican and Spanish vaqueros or cowboys in English brought some of there most prized positions with them.

One thing every one knows is the these people love to sing and play guitar. Because the Hawaiian cowboys or (paniolo) in Hawaiian, has always had their own style and deeply rooted type of traditional music they fell in love with this new instrument and I’m sure they sensed that this could be adapted to there own style. At the end of each long day of chasing cattle the Paniolos and Vaqueros probably began sharing musical ideas around the campfires every night. Boy would I have loved to be around those jam sessions.

After a few years many of the Vaqueros began to head back home. Many of them stayed on and started families in Hawaii, but most longed for their own homeland. Many of the guitars that were brought over were left with their new friends and that seems to be the story on how the Hawaiians got guitars of their own. The Hawaiians began to develop their own unique style of guitar playing and tunings. Using their traditional chants and songs this type of music began to evolve into the slack key style.

The Slack key style is a full sounding music. The Hawaiians figured out that by loosening the strings they could develop full chord sounds by just strumming the guitar and using very few fingering positions. They started playing and experimenting with using their thumb on the picking hand and plucking alternating bass strings. Usually they will hit the sixth string then the fourth string with the thumb then pick a melody with which every finger got to the higher strings first.

Most players only use the thumb and index finger to play but some players have developed full picking patterns. Well that is the story of how the Hawaiians got guitars to the islands. On my next post I will be talking about the many players I have met and got the chance to record with. My fondest time ever spent was with the five days I spent with Uncle Ray Kane at his home about fiver years ago. I have some great video of him playing and singing with his wife Elodia who is an amazing singer with one of the most beautiful voices I’ve heard.

www.TheGuitarWorkshop.com

Aloha

Bruce Lamb

by Bruce Lamb
www.TheGuitarWorkshop.com

This is my introduction to the art of playing Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar music and how I got started playing this sweet style of guitar music.

Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar or Ki ho ‘alu in the Hawaiian language is a sweet easy going type of music. I have found it to be one of the easiest styles of guitar playing to learn and people love hearing it. This finger style guitar music has grown in popularity by leaps and bounds over the last several years. It may be because it brings peace and calming to people who listen to it in this troublesome time we are living in at the moment.

I got involved in this alternate guitar tuning music when I moved to Hawaii in my ninth grade summer in 1963. My  father who was in the military got transferred there and we packed up the family moved.  I guess this was probably the most influential part of my life at the young age of 15 and I had just bought a surf board with the proceeds from my paper route in San Diego. I was stoked out of my mind when my dad came home and told us we were moving to Hawaii. I have always been an adventurous type and saw this as an adventure of a lifetime.

I spent the summer there learning about the Hawaiian culture. My dad got a night job to make ends meet as a construction supervisor for a huge remodeling project going on at the International Market Place in down town Honolulu on the Island of Oahu. He got me a job there as well. This was a huge cultural center at the time. Thousand of tourist and locals would go there each evening to watch and hear the great Hawaiian luau shows.

I was 15 years old and working steps away from the stage of one of the premier Hawaiian shows of its time each and every night. The Hawaiian Ukulele, and Slack key guitar, and the beautiful falsetto, singing was captivating. And let’s face it I was 15 and this place had about 100 hula dancers performing every night.  I was soon a regular stage side fixture for each show. I knew every song and this music truly crept into my soul. I soon bought an old Stella guitar from a friend for 3 dollars and tried to learn to play this music.

Every night a group of us kids would gather on a corner under a mango tree and play music. Us “Haoles” or none Hawaiian and “locals” Hawaiians would share the love of our music. These sessions would always start off with the music of the day, “House of the Rising Sun” that kind of stuff, then the local boys would retune there guitars and leave us Haoles in the dust so to speak and begin their traditional music. That’s when I began to learn about the Slack-key thing.

Most of the Hawaiian slack key songs seem to have the same theme through out them.
The Hawaiians are a proud people and love their culture. They usually are singing about love, food, the land and ocean and the beautiful abundance of Hawaii. This music has power, depth, and passion. Although I don’t understand most of the lyrics in the songs I can quite often tear up just hearing this beautiful music because it brings me back to those beautiful islands, feeling that warm breeze, the smell of the ocean and flowers in the air and those beautiful dancers.

Ki ho ‘alu or Slack Key guitar is a Fingerstyle type of guitar music. The term slack key refers to English translation of the Hawaiian word to loosen the tuning keys on your guitar. Most of the hundreds of alternate tunings for guitar playing start with the guitar being tuned in C major tuning, or sometimes referred to standard tuning. The process begins with loosening or taking off the tension of the string by unwinding instead of tightening the string. This is a big lesson that was probably learned very quickly. Most people who start playing guitar tighten the strings to the point of them snapping.

This is the first part of my introduction to Ki ho ‘alu Slack Key guitar. I’ll be talking about some of the tunings and my hero players on the next post. I will also be posting videos of me actually tuning my guitar in several Slack Key tunings at our web site. www.TheGuitarWorkshop.com

Aloha and “a hui hou,”  (till we meet again)

Bruce Lamb