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Yesterday, while discussing the movie "The Descendants" with my brother (he was recommending it, I haven't seen it), I learned a little something about slack key guitar, or Ki ho'alu, one of the great acoustic traditions of the world. In the movie the signature aspect of slack key guitar music is used to delineate character, it seems. This is a fact that might well have been lost on me without my brother's input.
The guitar was brought to Hawaii by Spanish and Mexican cowboys. But the slack key style is native to Hawaii. As the story goes, some of those Hispanic cowboys left their instruments behind as gifts for the Hawaiian cowboys. Those early pioneers of the Hawaiian guitar applied the instrument to their own traditions and created a new art form. By the late 1880's slack key guitar and steel guitar use had spread to all the islands. King David Kalakaua supported a culture renewal for all things Hawaiian in the 1880-1890 period and would have encouraged using the new instrument for traditional songs. In fact, there were guitars at his coronation ceremony.
The term "slack key" refers to a type of fingering and tuning. The strings of the guitar are plucked, rather than strummed. And the guitar is tuned with slack keys (strings), rather than properly tightened ones. This slackness produces a lingering resonance behind the melody as the guitar is played. Different degrees of slackness in the strings allows for assorted modulation of chords. The guitar then becomes a more individualized instrument, speaking for the musician in a unique voice, evoked by his plucking and the degree of slack he gives to each string. Slack key music is mysterious, sweet and soulful, carrying, as it does a greater interpretation of a song's melody than what might be provided with a correctly tuned instrument. Slack key songs often evoke natural elements of the Hawaiian landscape--birds, trees, waterfalls, forests and volcanoes. Due to the distances between islands, styles developed that are unique to each island.
Here is an embedded sample of slack-key by one of the masters of the style, Keola Beamer. I found it very soothing.
There's lots more to know about techniques of tuning to be found at Wikipedia...which I'm sure will impress the musically inclined among us...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_key_guitar
To Learn More About the 100 Things Challenge...go here...http://jdbracknell.livejournal.com/165714.html
The guitar was brought to Hawaii by Spanish and Mexican cowboys. But the slack key style is native to Hawaii. As the story goes, some of those Hispanic cowboys left their instruments behind as gifts for the Hawaiian cowboys. Those early pioneers of the Hawaiian guitar applied the instrument to their own traditions and created a new art form. By the late 1880's slack key guitar and steel guitar use had spread to all the islands. King David Kalakaua supported a culture renewal for all things Hawaiian in the 1880-1890 period and would have encouraged using the new instrument for traditional songs. In fact, there were guitars at his coronation ceremony.
The term "slack key" refers to a type of fingering and tuning. The strings of the guitar are plucked, rather than strummed. And the guitar is tuned with slack keys (strings), rather than properly tightened ones. This slackness produces a lingering resonance behind the melody as the guitar is played. Different degrees of slackness in the strings allows for assorted modulation of chords. The guitar then becomes a more individualized instrument, speaking for the musician in a unique voice, evoked by his plucking and the degree of slack he gives to each string. Slack key music is mysterious, sweet and soulful, carrying, as it does a greater interpretation of a song's melody than what might be provided with a correctly tuned instrument. Slack key songs often evoke natural elements of the Hawaiian landscape--birds, trees, waterfalls, forests and volcanoes. Due to the distances between islands, styles developed that are unique to each island.
Here is an embedded sample of slack-key by one of the masters of the style, Keola Beamer. I found it very soothing.
There's lots more to know about techniques of tuning to be found at Wikipedia...which I'm sure will impress the musically inclined among us...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_key_guitar
To Learn More About the 100 Things Challenge...go here...http://jdbracknell.livejournal.com/165714.html