Kaleponi

I’ve given slack key workshops at a number of local Aloha Festivals over the years. Several times I preceded or followed Hiram Bell and his always compelling `ukulele workshop. I was invited back this year, and coincidentally a friend expressed an interest in learning the lovely old North Kohala song, Paliokamoa. My friend had seen the version I did last year. I decided to create a tutorial on the song in the form of a video and tablature.

Naturally I used the project as an excuse for some video fun. I set up a couple of cameras zoomed in on my hands and played slowly through the chorus and verse of the song along with a brief outro. Then pulled the clips into my new Edius 6.5 video software where I used the mask function to merge the two videos into a demonstration clip showing the picking and fretting in closeup. Here’s that video:

Then I used Guitar Pro 6 to create a tablature of the arrangement as I played it for the cameras. You can find the tab here in PDF format.

If you compare this performance to the earlier one I think you’ll see and hear that the outline of the chorus and verse parts are the same, I’m following the same chords and general melody when I don’t goof it up. But the details, the individual notes, their timing, the hammer-ons and pull-offs and slides, and different. I hope this tutorial video and tablature will help you get started on playing the song but I encourage you to make the song your own. A big part of that is to research the song, learn the history, read the lyrics, and listen to other performances.

The lyrics and history I found are in an article by a member of the author’s family. For other versions, I’ve enjoyed the recordings by Gary Haleamau, Elmer “Sonny” Lim, and Mike Kaawa and I encourage you to seek them out.