{"id":2012,"date":"2016-09-03T11:37:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-03T15:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=2012"},"modified":"2017-01-14T23:26:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-15T04:26:24","slug":"manu-kai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/manu-kai\/","title":{"rendered":"Manu Kai (Hawaiian Slack Key)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zwZJbN5n-M4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It must have been the winter of 1979-80 when I was browsing through a music store and came across Keola Beamer&#8217;s instruction book, <em>Hawaiian Slack-Key Guitar<\/em>. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2013\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Keola-Beamer-book-233x300.jpg?resize=233%2C300\" alt=\"Keola Beamer book\" width=\"233\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Keola-Beamer-book.jpg?resize=233%2C300&amp;ssl=1 233w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Keola-Beamer-book.jpg?w=389&amp;ssl=1 389w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 233px) 100vw, 233px\" \/>I&#8217;d never heard of the style &#8212; an extension of the parlor guitar style of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/poor-howard-fandango\/\">Spanish Fandango<\/a>,&#8221; favoring a variety of open and other &#8220;slacked&#8221; string tunings &#8212; but it looked approachable and there was a little plastic record included, so I picked it up and learned two or three of the pieces. This one in particular caught my fancy, and I recall practicing it in Dave Van Ronk&#8217;s living room one afternoon when he was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and him coming in and saying, &#8220;If you don&#8217;t watch out, you might play something pretty&#8221; &#8212; which was his way of saying he was pleasantly surprised.<\/p>\n<p>I was still playing it when I ended up in Vancouver for the first time a few months later on my first extended stateside hitchhiking trip, and my hostess there turned out to have spent a lot of time in Hawaii and had records by Ray Kane, Gabby Pahinui, and <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2026 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Pahinui-Isaacs-LP.jpg?resize=250%2C247\" alt=\"Pahinui - Isaacs LP\" width=\"250\" height=\"247\" \/>Atta Isaacs. I taped them all, listened to them quite a lot for a couple of months, and then moved on&#8230; it was pretty, indeed, but I had the same problem with it that I later had with bossa nova &#8212; I bought a couple of Baden Powell records and some Joao Gilberto, enjoyed them for a while, and then I wanted to hear something grittier.<\/p>\n<p>Many years later, I was writing for the <em>Boston Globe<\/em> and got the first releases from George Winston&#8217;s Dancing Cat record label, a half-dozen Hawaiian slack-key CDs, and called Winston to do a story on them, and he was so excited that anyone at a major newspaper knew anything about slack-key that he sent me a box of about thirty cassettes, of everything currently available in Hawaii. And then I got to interview Ray Kane, who was wonderful, and Ledward Kaapana, who blew me away both as a guitarist and as a live performer. And around the same time I happened to be back in Utah Phillips&#8217;s dressing room, and he was warming up by playing a slack-key instrumental and said that was the first way he learned to play guitar.<\/p>\n<p>So I had a second wave of interest in the style. Ray Kane convinced me that the singing was a big part of the tradition, and the traditional singing, unlike the guitar playing, was not a pretty sound that non-Hawaiians could embrace as background music. Like, for example:<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_Iy4CH_qpbo\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But I wasn&#8217;t going to start singing in Hawaiian, and even to play the instrumental style, by that time I&#8217;d realized I should have used Beamer&#8217;s tablature as a starting point for my own explorations, rather than just learning &#8220;Manu Kai&#8221; note for note. So that was that, for me&#8230; but it&#8217;s still a pretty little guitar piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It must have been the winter of 1979-80 when I was browsing through a music store and came across Keola Beamer&#8217;s instruction book, Hawaiian Slack-Key Guitar. I&#8217;d never heard of the style &#8212; an extension of the parlor guitar style of &#8220;Spanish Fandango,&#8221; favoring a variety of open and other &#8220;slacked&#8221; string tunings &#8212; but &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/manu-kai\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Manu Kai (Hawaiian Slack Key)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Manu Kai (Hawaiian Slack Key) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/manu-kai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Manu Kai (Hawaiian Slack Key) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It must have been the winter of 1979-80 when I was browsing through a music store and came across Keola Beamer&#8217;s instruction book, Hawaiian Slack-Key Guitar. I&#8217;d never heard of the style &#8212; an extension of the parlor guitar style of &#8220;Spanish Fandango,&#8221; favoring a variety of open and other &#8220;slacked&#8221; string tunings &#8212; but &hellip; Continue reading Manu Kai (Hawaiian Slack Key) &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/manu-kai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-03T15:37:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-15T04:26:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Keola-Beamer-book-233x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/manu-kai\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/manu-kai\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Manu Kai (Hawaiian Slack Key)\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-09-03T15:37:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-15T04:26:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/manu-kai\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":502,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/manu-kai\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/08\\\/Keola-Beamer-book-233x300.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/manu-kai\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/manu-kai\\\/\",\"name\":\"Manu Kai (Hawaiian Slack Key) - 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