28th Annual Hawaii Slack Key Guitar Festival

[bakubo]

The 28th Annual Hawaii Slack Key Guitar Festival at Kapiolani Park was held this afternoon. It was 6 hours long and I arrived around the 3rd hour and stayed for an hour or so. I only took 8 to 10 photos and here are 3. I had a digicam in my pocket also and took a few video clips and then put them together in Microsoft Movie Maker. It turns out that when I saved it full-size 640 pixels it was 140mb, so I changed it to 320 pixels to get it down to 78mb for the youtube upload. Picture quality after all that along with the compression youtube does isn't so hot, but sound is not bad. Here is the short video with some pretty good music. The first part is the guy in the first 2 photos and the second part is a trio with the guy in the last photo. Actually, I would have done more video, but I had forgot to put a higher capacity SD card in the camera so I didn't have a lot of memory space.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NACv6VQt3hM

[bossel]

It must have been a nice, relaxed atmosphere with good music (not that usual boom boom boom)!!

[Greg Beetham]

Not bad Henry, like you say the video is a tad fuzzy but the sound is good, unfortunately my system lost the plot about half way through the second performance and all I got was a green utube screen, but still had sound though. I can see why they call it slack key, with all those minor type chords, nice music just the same, good photos too.
Greg

ps. I thought initially that first performer was you, ha ha, he looked like yourself quite a bit I thought.

[bossel]

ps. I thought initially that first performer was you, ha ha, he looked like yourself quite a bit I thought.

Yeah I thought the same but wasn't completely sure...

[bakubo]

Not bad Henry, like you say the video is a tad fuzzy but the sound is good, unfortunately my system lost the plot about half way through the second performance and all I got was a green utube screen, but still had sound though. I can see why they call it slack key, with all those minor type chords, nice music just the same, good photos too.

Yeah, it isn't the clearest video, is it? After the size reduction and conversion to WMV and then upload to youtube where they do their own conversion and compression it isn't so great, but the sound is still okay. After uploading I played it all on youtube and it was okay, but then a little while later youtube seemed to be having some problems because it had the same problem you experienced. I tried a few other youtube videos and they had the same problem. Maybe they have fixed things by now.

ps. I thought initially that first performer was you, ha ha, he looked like yourself quite a bit I thought.

I hadn't thought about that, but yeah he does resemble me. During the hour I was there he played several songs and then the group of 3 did some. During the whole 6 hours they had a bunch of people performing. If I had been there with friends, had a straw mat to put on the ground under the trees, an ice chest with some cold drinks, and some food it would have been fun to just hang out there all afternoon. As it was, I just walked over there alone and stayed for just awhile. Nice music though. Here is more info about it:

http://www.slackkeyfestival.com/

[David Kilpatrick]

Nice to hear that. The first performer lapses into straightforward celtic fingerstyle thrash however, great temptation when you are in open G (basically the same as Dobro or slide guitar tuning - taropatch tuning in Hawaii). It's also the same basic tuning as 18th century European cittern, and modern 5-string banjo and was used by the Rolling Stones for several blues-rock classics. So it's all too easy to go into country style, rock, minstrel banjo or galant-baroque when in that tuning.

The really difficult thing is to get the authentic Hawaiian slack key sound, because it's far more subtle than any of the other musical styles played in this tuning.

David

[aster]

Hi Bakubo, : )

Ah, I can just imagine the smooth subtle tones the ear catches while these guitarists are playing .... : a magic sounds trail it must be while walking by. : ))

Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

[bakubo]

Nice to hear that. The first performer lapses into straightforward celtic fingerstyle thrash however, great temptation when you are in open G (basically the same as Dobro or slide guitar tuning - taropatch tuning in Hawaii). It's also the same basic tuning as 18th century European cittern, and modern 5-string banjo and was used by the Rolling Stones for several blues-rock classics. So it's all too easy to go into country style, rock, minstrel banjo or galant-baroque when in that tuning.

The really difficult thing is to get the authentic Hawaiian slack key sound, because it's far more subtle than any of the other musical styles played in this tuning.

I know next to nothing about slack key guitar playing -- or any other kind for that matter. The guy in the last photo who is sitting talked a bit before one of his songs about how the style has evolved and been influenced by other styles over the years. I think I recall him saying that in the '30s, '50s, and '60s, in particular, different styles evolved. The guy who introduced him said he had been playing since he was a child and is well known in the Hawaiian music world because he has played on many recordings over the years. I missed his name though. He also said that different recordings he has made over the years were of different styles, but for his most recent one he had gone back to a traditional style.

I suppose, as with many things, if it is not evolving it is dying. Japanese have told me that the Japanese-Americans who live in Hawaii, California, and elsewhere often speak a more traditional Japanese with older expressions and slang and also maintain customs that are not as common in Japan these days. In Japan the culture and language has, of course, continued to evolve, but the Japanese in America often learned things from their grandparents and parents so it is the Japanese and culture common at the time they left Japan. Of course, these days with all the modern forms of communication and travel that is changing here too, I think. It is an interesting subject.

[bakubo]

Ah, I can just imagine the smooth subtle tones the ear catches while these guitarists are playing .... : a magic sounds trail it must be while walking by. : ))

Yes, the sounds were really nice. If I had known more about what to expect maybe I would have tried get a couple of friends to go with me along with all the other items I mentioned earlier that would have made it a nice afternoon.

[Birma]

I had to use Wikipedia to discover what on earth Slack Key Guitar was . Nice to see some traditional music flourishing. Thanks for the interesting topic and pics Henry.

[bakubo]

I had to use Wikipedia to discover what on earth Slack Key Guitar was . Nice to see some traditional music flourishing. Thanks for the interesting topic and pics Henry.

Some time back I had to look up slack key guitar also.