Pua Tuberose

Welcome to Kaleponi Records, my musical home on the web. My name is Fran Guidry, and I play kika ki hoʻalu or Hawaiian slack key guitar.

Kaleponi is the Hawaiian word for California, where I live. Ki hoʻalu, or slack key, has a direct link to California history. The guitar was carried to the Big Island of Hawaiʻi by vaqueros from California. You can read more about the history of slack key guitar on the Dancing Cat Records web site.

Slack key guitar is named for the retuning that characterizes the style. Most of these new tunings feature loosened, or slackened, strings which give a deep rich sound.

My personal slack key history goes back to 1999 and my first visit to Hawaiʻi. When we turned on the TV in our Waikiki hotel room I was captivated by the playing of Keola Beamer. I knew in an instant that I had to learn to play this beautiful music. Over the years I've learned from great players and teachers like Ozzie Kotani, Keola himself, Patrick Landeza, Kevin Brown, Cyril Pahinui, Kawika Kahiapo, Raymond Kane, Dennis Kamakahi, and Ledward Kaapana.

Saturday, July 4th, 2015

I’ve enjoyed listening to Sonny Chillingworth ever since I connected with slack key and Hawaiian music. His “Spanish bass” style was instantly appealing, as was his soothing baritone voice. I’ve had a soft spot for Pua Tuberose ever since hearing his recording on the Sonny Solo CD. And of course the song moved up a few notches when I discovered that Ledward often includes Pua Tuberose in his slow song medleys.

The song is an old one, from the 1920s according to huapala.org and tells about the remembrance of a lost love who was somehow associated with the fragrant flower. The simple story of the lyric triggers a chain of surmises and suppositions, the hidden meaning expresses itself based on our own experience with lost love.

There’s a techie side to this video as well. I recently got a new recording gadget, an iRig Pro audio interface for my iPhone. So I used the iRig, a nice Shure mic, and my iPhone 6+ to record “Pua Tuberose” as a slack key instrumental. And just to make it interesting I shot the song twice, changing camera angles. I’ve also done a blog post and video at my Homebrewed Music blog going over a couple of tricks for the iPhone as a music camera.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 4th, 2015 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.