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 The Steel Guitar Forum
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 What is Hawaiian Music ?
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George Keoki Lake Member From: Edmonton, AB., Canada |
posted 26 December 2005 01:22 PM
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I received this message from noted composer, author, teacher, entertainer KEITH HAUGEN in Hawai'i and thought many of you would like to respond to this intriguing question..."What is Hawaiian music"? If you'd care to participate, Keith's e-mail address is shown at the bottom. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Aloha: For years, ethnomusicologists and others have wrestled with a definition of Hawaiian music. A committee from the Hawaiian Music Foundation undertook to define it in the 70s, and at that same time, I used to ask my UH students in Hawaiian music classes to write their thoughts down at the beginning and end of the semester. The "opinions" of people from all walks of life vary considerably and I have decided to include a chapter on the subject in the book I'm writing about the history of Hawaiian music. I am nearing deadline, but still have room for the opinions and thoughts of others on the subject of "What is Hawaiian Music?". Not every one in my collection will be included, obviously. There are many duplicates...but the definitions range from "it must be chanted" and "it must be in the Hawaiian language," to Web Edwards, who felt it had to be "sung and played by Hawaiians" and others who feel it must be played by "a combo including `ukulele, guitar, and acoustic bass." Some feel it must include the steel guitar; others say it must include slack-key guitar. Some say you must be able to dance hula to the music for it to be Hawaiian. Radio personality Ron Jacobs thought it was any music that he heard when he was away from Hawai`i that made him homesick for Hawai`i, and so on. Do you have a good definition? What do you think is Hawaiian music? Want to share it with me, and with our readers? Keep it to a sentence or two, a paragraph at the most. And although you have been selected to participate in this fun exercise and we'd love to hear from YOU, feel free to also send this along to others whom you think might have a good definition. If your definition is used in the book, we'll credit you for your mana`o, and we'll identify you.. So, tell us how you would like to be named and defined: e.g. John Doe, musician, or Leilani Doe, composer, or June Doe, radio personality, Palani Doe, teacher, Pi`ilani Kamaka`eha, Hawaiian, etc. You might be a researcher, writer, reviewer, record producer, singer, songwriter, kumu hula, dancer, bartender, student, recording artist, engineeer, distributor, program director, or simply Hawaiian music fan or Island resident, kama`aina or malihini. Or maybe you come from Podunk, Iowa. Mahalo a nui loa. Keith C. Keith Haugen, hakumele/mea kakau P.O. Box 1976, Honolulu, Hawai`i 96805 USA hakumele@aol.com |
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Ray Montee Member From: Portland, OR, USA |
posted 27 December 2005 02:34 PM
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Hawaiian music...soft, delicate words that describe the Beauty of the Land...skies, moon, waters, sands, flowers/vegetation....from deep within one's heart "love/Aloha".....carefully woven into an enchanted melody line that brings forth a rich, wholesome sound of Hawaiian steel guitar, accoustic rythmn guitar,Uke, bass and slack key guitar to be blended with those rare native voices. The voice of Hawaii..... |
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Matt Rhodes Member From: Houston, Texas, USA |
posted 28 December 2005 08:32 AM
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My definition is as follows: "Music recorded by people of Hawai'ian descent in a recording facility located in the state of Hawai'i." Skip, I would have agreed with your excellent definition a few decades ago, but contemporary music recorded in Hawai'i today borrows elements from all around the world, just like the other genres. The lines defining the "original sound" as heard in the first half of the 20th century have been blurred. A good number of the younger artists don't seem to fit in with what we heard from that era, but they're still getting Hawai'ian airplay. These same artists' CDs are stocked in the "Hawaii" section at some of the better-equipped music stores. Matt |
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Tony Harris Member From: England |
posted 28 December 2005 08:46 AM
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This reminded me of a TV programme I once saw about conductor/composer/pianist Andre Previn. He's done everything in music from conducting some of the greatest orchestras in the world, composing film scores, and making very successful albums of jazz piano with his own trio (and look out for Bizet's Carmen in a jazz setting with Barney Kessel). He was saying to a class of music students that he liked ALL kinds of music, then stopped himself and said,"No! Wait! I CAN'T STAND Hawaiian music!" |
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John McGann Member From: Boston, Massachusetts, USA |
posted 28 December 2005 09:00 AM
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ol' Andre never had a chance to hear the good stuff, I bet. ------------------ |
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Terry Edwards Member From: Layton, UT |
posted 28 December 2005 09:28 AM
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Hawaiian Music: Melody and lyrics that capture and preserve the unique culture of Hawaii both past and present. Hawaiian music has the ability to stimulate the senses using instrumentation and melodies that bring the islands to you no matter where you are. Terry |
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Mark Lind-Hanson Member From: San Francisco, California, USA |
posted 28 December 2005 09:38 AM
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Music written or composed by Natives of the islands, either in Hawai'ian (or any other language)- performed on instruments either indigenous to the islands (or) adapted from other sources (one would definitely NOT dicount the use of ukuleles, steel, or slack key guitars in its production)- used in conjunction with Hawaii'an cultural events (luaaus, hula presentations, cultural ceremonies of local importance). Music wrttien or composed by mainlanders IN the Hawaii'an mode- which may not be SPECIFICALLY defined as such ("Hawai'ian music) but falls under that genre. I think the definition of above, of "anything that reminds one of living in the islands" is still perfectly valid. You might want them defined under an A) and B)... once an O'ahu keiki myself... |
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Donny Hinson Member From: Balto., Md. U.S.A. |
posted 28 December 2005 01:24 PM
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I'm certainly no expert, but I'd say you almost have to have a Hawaiian guitar in there, somewhere!  The "slack-key" thing seems (to me, anyway) a recent iteration, probably brought about by the scarcity of Hawaiian guitar players. I've got Hawaiian music on (78's) going back to the '20s, and there ain't no "slack-key" guitar in there. It contains though, without exception, a Hawaiian steel. The steel is the underpinning of the genre, much like banjo underpins bluegrass and fuzz guitars underpin rock music. Basically, Hawaiian music today seems mired in a "schmaltzy" era, similar to what country went though in the '70s, sounding more like something done by Mitch Miller and The Sandpipers! Lush voices and string padding are the norm, and gone are the simple combos that used to perform the music. Even Lawrence Welk's brand of Hawaiian music sounded more "authentic" than most of what we hear nowadays. And no, it doesn't have to be sung in Hawaiian, any more than a Polka has to be sung in Polish. |
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George Keoki Lake Member From: Edmonton, AB., Canada |
posted 28 December 2005 03:00 PM
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Long before the Hawaiian Steel Guitar came upon the scene, Hawaiian music was played on violins, banjos and wind instruments. Just listen to some of those really old recordings.  |
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David Doggett Member From: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
posted 28 December 2005 04:25 PM
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Well, you can be a splitter or a lumper. But any reasonable definition has to be really broad. Any attempt to restrict the term to any one of the subgenres is going to seem pretty silly. There was pre-European native Hawaiian. But that changed with the Portuguese guitar and the hymns of the Boston missionaries. From those three influences grew Hawaiian folk/pop music of the early 20th century. The introduction of the steel guitar to that is fairly well recorded. That again changed the music. That came to the mainland and was a major part of American pop music for a couple of decades in the '20s and '30s, and was played by touring Hawaiians as well as mainlanders of all races and ethnic groups. That music inspired the mainland inventions of the resonator guitar; and the first electric guitars were lap steels for playing Hawaiian music. That influenced country, bluegrass, blues and rock. I'm not sure when slack-key started. A good guess would be that it goes back to the introduction of the Portuguese guitar; but that it was a local folk tradition that didn't get recorded and popularized like the steel guitar stuff. There would certainly seem to be a link between the open slack key tunings and the open steel tunings. Slack-key is clearly in the Hawaiian folk/pop tradition. Some Hawaiians consider it more pure than Hawaiian steel guitar music. Then there is the modern Don Ho schmaltz tourist school of Hawaiian music. That's probably what Andre Previn hated. You can try to exclude that stuff. But if it ain't Hawaiian, it certainly ain't anything else. So it seems that the long history and evolution of the several subgenres precludes narrowly restricting the term to any one of them. If you want to distinguish them, you just gotta use a modifier. |
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Ray Montee Member From: Portland, OR, USA |
posted 30 December 2005 03:53 PM
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Manny K's latest CD "My Island Paradise" as well as his earlier release of "In This Enchanted Place"....are classic examples of WHAT traditional Hawaiian music is all about. These are aged songs from generations ago and relay the way it was in those days. Really great melody lines...... |
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Don Kona Woods Member From: Vancouver, Washington, USA |
posted 01 January 2006 12:44 AM
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Just a footnote about slack key guitar: I have traveled some throughout the South Pacific (Polynesia and Micronesia)and slack key guitar is everywhere present and the standard way the guitar is played. How did this type of playing evolve throughout the South Pacific and why is it the prevalent way Islanders play today? Interesting thought! Aloha, |
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Jim Florence Member From: wilburton, Ok. US |
posted 01 January 2006 12:12 PM
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You can't define Hawaiin music any more than you can any other. But I was stationed there for six years, played steel there all that time, and I still love Hawaiin music, Whatever that is. Jim |
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retcop88 unregistered |
posted 09 January 2006 05:51 AM
Hawaiian Music ,Well I always thought if one ate beans and mixed them with sweet Pineapples they would soon be making Hawaiian music. ------------------ |
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Donny Hinson Member From: Balto., Md. U.S.A. |
posted 09 January 2006 05:36 PM
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I know that Hawaiian music, in some form, predates the steel guitar. Obviously, there were natives beating drums and using gourds to produce tribal Hawaiian music centuries ago, but that's not what I (and, I believe, most people), think of as Hawaiian music. I think that we should keep our definitions in 20th century terms, as that's the time period where all most all this music was recorded and popularized. I choose to have steel guitar and ukelele as almost essential components, while others may not, but we have to draw the line somewhere when we're asked to define something. The same would be true of defining rock-n-roll. In that case, I would say that electric guitar and sax were defining instruments of the genre, with the sax being supplanted nowadays by keyboard. Though you can play Hawaiian music without steel and uke, and though you can play rock-n-roll without guitar, sax, or keyboard, I really don't think it would fit the general concensus of what the sound was actually like. If I tried to say here that Scottish music must have bagpipes, I'm sure that I'd probably have people arguing that you don't really need bagpipes for Scottish music. However, I'm pretty confident saying that the general concensus of what defines it as Scottish music is the bagpipes. |
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James Cann Member From: Phoenix, AZ (heart still in Boston) |
posted 13 January 2006 05:43 PM
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quote: . . . as does Scottish music the bagpipes, which were indeed in Asia Minor before Scotland. In modern Scotland, you'd find pipes more as ceremonial touch for regimental shows, parades, and festivals, with fiddle and guitar as, if not more signature to "Scottish music." The two--pipes and steel--seem more signature to than defining of their genre, but now I wonder if I'm trying to bust up 'two synonyms.' [This message was edited by James Cann on 13 January 2006 at 05:44 PM.] |
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