Thank you, and welcome to all the new members!
Added 2020-03-26 18:14:11 +0000 UTCHello all! We are in the midst of uncertain and I'm sure for many of you, stressful times. I wanted to thank all of you for keeping the group together, and for continuing to support this project. I've been off of work for almost two weeks now, playing a lot of guitar and writing down a lot of music. I'm constantly reflecting on what could make this Patreon site better as we continue to grow. I've received many many suggestions from our members, and I thank you for sending those along. We've covered several genres so far and it is hard to define what exactly we're doing, but I suppose it all falls under the fingerstyle blanket.
I've discussed performing a Hawaiian Slack Key piece in the past, and though I'm not planning on recording one for April 1st, I recently came across a beautiful piece recorded by Keola Beamer titled "He Punahele Nō ʻOe." I was very moved by the melody and harmonic movement in this one so I wrote it down, and I want to share it with you. It is attached below.
It was transcribed from Keola's performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcbSDLKAfmI&list=RDPcbSDLKAfmI&start_radio=1
"He Punahele Nō ʻOe" is in C Wahine tuning. The word "Wahine" in Hawaii and Polynesia refers to female. Here is what Keola has said of Wahine tunings, he writes very eloquently and states this better than I could.
""Wahine" refers to the female of our species. Because Wahine tunings contain a major 7th note, they were perceived by the founding fathers of our art to have a personality or "sound type" that was more complicated than the normal Major (Male or Kāne) tunings. There is respect here, an unspoken intuition that women may be more complex creatures than men.
Speaking from a musicianʻs point of view, the "Wahine" class of tunings are beautiful, generally darker and more evocative than the Major tunings. There is the very real element of tonal coloration here, but please keep in mind this entire Wahine/Kāne discussion amongst slack key players over the years, is somewhat of a generalization. In the hands of a true Master, any tuning can transform into any coloration."
Please enjoy this bonus, unscheduled update, an expression of my gratitude to all of you for being here.
Comments
I live in Hawaii, so I'm surrounded by slack key. There are probably more guitar players per square mile on Oahu, than just about anyplace on earth, and many of them are monster players. I freely admit to not thinking that much about slack key (seemed very simple and diatonic to me), until I took a class at UH with an incredible slack key guitarist named Ozzie Kotani. I was shocked at how much classical right hand technique was involved, and at how Ozzie's complex and inventive songs were. I urge you folks to check him out. Keola Beamer's guitar player is also amazing. Thanks Andrew for sharing this....I hope you will post a clip of you playing through this? Like many guitar players, I am a lousy sight reader. I pretty much need to hear the tune, for the TAB to be meaningful. Aloha!
Richard Baldwin
2020-08-07 02:34:28 +0000 UTCSuch a beautiful tune! Thank you for including this and especially for you explanation of the piece. I love "slack tune" pieces and having traveled to Hawaii so much for my work have had the pleasure of seeing a lot of it performed live. Nice going Andy!
mark blomquist
2020-04-15 18:34:14 +0000 UTC
