Kaleponi

I’m sure I’ve mentioned that my lovely wife Lynn took up hula when we retired a few years ago. It’s been a central part of our life since then, bringing us a whole new world of friends, interests, and experiences. Hula has added to our enjoyment of trips to Hawai`i and to my enjoyment of slack key guitar as well.

One of the high points of my week is the hula practice we host, when the house is filled with charming dancers, their hands flowing through the story they’re dancing. The other day I set out to shoot a video and when I realized it was hula practice day I decided to play R. Alex Anderson’s classic Lovely Hula Hands. Then happily I managed to capture a bit of the hula practice to add to my video.

Slack key seems to go with an outdoor setting, playing in front of a burst of flowers feels just right, so I’ve been trying to catch the right light to showcase delicate blushing blooms of our peach tree. I’ve been playing Lovely Hula Hands for three or four years now. I started in taropatch but found that I needed to play the song in C for many vocalists, so I arranged a version in drop C as well. Then I began doing the two versions together with a modulation, and that’s the arrangement I’m playing here.

I usually have the Tony Yamamoto OMY guitar tuned to F taropatch, one whole step down from open G, and that’s the case here as well. I’m trying to learn to change the tuning of the lowest string when I modulate, like Ledward does, but I need a lot of practice yet. In the meantime, I just play both keys using the taropatch tuning. The first section is in Bflat, then after the modulation we’re in the key of F.

With all this guitar technique going on I got some requests for a version of the video that showcased the hands – sounds like someone wants to steal my licks, which is quite flattering of course. And since I learned all my stuff by stealing from other guys it only seems fair. So I created a second edit of the video that stays focused on the guitar and the playing.