Na Lei O Hawai`i (Song of the Islands) – `Ukulele and Slack Key

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.

Na Lei O Hawai`i (Song of the Islands) – `Ukulele and Slack Key

Thursday, August 27th, 2015

Ledward Kaapana has quite a collection of instruments but he has a couple of favorites that he keeps close at hand. One is his 1992 Martin 000-16 and another is his Moore Bettah `Ukulele custom built by Chuck Moore of Hawai`i Island. We decided to do a tribute to Chuck featuring this gorgeous instrument.

Led has been teaching me Charles E. King’s Na Lei O Hawai`i commonly known as Song of the Islands and featured in the 1942 movie of that name. Once we found all the chords in my taropatch F tuned guitar we had plenty of fun with our `ukulele and slack key guitar duet.

Led’s uke is tuned to the normal C6 tuning, with a low G string. My guitar is in taropatch F spelled C F C F A C from low to high.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2015 at 8:37 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.