Kaleponi

When we talk about influential slack key players the late Leonard Kwan is sure to be part of the discussion. From my earliest days of trying to learn slack key I was told to listen to Uncle Leonard. His compositions are standards, his licks are savored, his recordings are cherished, he even has a tuning that bears his name – Leonard’s C is a common term for the drop C version of C wahine. We call this tuning “Drop C” because it’s a single string away from taropatch open G, and that string, the sixth or lowest pitched string on the guitar, is dropped from D to C to create the new tuning.

We have several recorded examples of Uncle Leonard using this tuning including his composition Nahenahe and arrangements like Palolo, Hula Blues, and perhaps his best known, Silver Threads Among the Gold. Drop C was just one of many tunings he used though. Taropatch open G and double slack G wahine are two that he shared with many other players. He also recorded using less common tunings like his own F wahine and the rarely recorded D wahine. You can download the liner notes to the complete recordings here.

One of the taropatch masterpieces we received from Uncle Leonard is his medley arrangement of My Yellow Ginger Lei and E Huli Huli Ho`i Mai. It’s a stunning combination with the gentle flow of My Yellow Ginger Lei punctuated by the drama of the second song. I’ve studied and copied and enjoyed this piece for years, and I know I’m not the only one who cherishes it. You can hear Ledward Kaapana pay tribute to Leonard Kwan when he weaves the My Yellow Ginger Lei medley into his version of Radio Hula.

For no particular reason a few weeks ago I picked up a guitar tuned to drop C and started noodling on My Yellow Ginger Lei and before I knew it I had worked out an arrangement. I modeled my version on Uncle Leonard’s classic, alternating between My Yellow Ginger Lei and E Huli Huli Ho`i Mai. Of course I didn’t follow the original note for note, I can never resist mixing things up a bit and trying new paths through a song. In this case I thought of the vocal melody along with Leonard’s classic instrumental, and added bits and pieces as they popped into my head. After fooling with the tune for a week or so I set the cameras and mics up in the studio and shot this rendition.

Just in case there’s some interest in this approach to My Yellow Ginger Lei, I moved the cameras around a little and shot a tutorial version of the arrangement. I slowed the tempo and played one chorus of each tune instead of two. There are plenty of variations between the video above and this tutorial version, and I’m afraid that next time I play the song it will be different again, but hopefully the ideas demonstrated in the tutorial will helpful.

After I shot this video I pulled out my copy of Tabledit and created a tablature of the tutorial which you can download here:

PDF

Tabledit TEF

The TEF version can be played using the free TEFview Tabledit player.

I hope you’ll enjoy exploring drop C tuning using these videos and tablature.

July 21, 2018

I’ve installed updated versions of the .TEF and .PDF files with improvements and corrections thanks to Pekka Happonoen and Bill Campbell. The link above will connect you to these updated files.