Another Round of Website Changes – Gateway to the Old Pages

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.

Another Round of Website Changes – Gateway to the Old Pages

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

I’ve been really lazy about updating Kaleponi.com lately, I’m embarrassed to say. Been having fun with video cameras and guitars, traveling around on various adventures, and failing to keep the site updated with the news and the clips.

My excuse has been that I’m determined to change Kaleponi.com to a WordPress blog engine but I’ve been too lazy to do the work. Now that I’m in beautiful Kailua for a few weeks I’m hanging out on the computer and building the new site. Lynnie thinks I’m weird and I have a hard time disagreeing. But regardless of the poor use of tropical time, I’m making some progress and the new structure will make updating easier.

This is likely to be a work in progress for a while as I figure out how to integrate the old website with the new one without breaking existing links. In the meantime, this post will serve as a gateway to the old pages.

You can find the whole site at http://www.kaleponi.com/old

The former News pages start at http://www.kaleponi.com/news

The videos from the old site are at http://www.kaleponi.com/music

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 31st, 2011 at 3:06 am and is filed under News, Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.