Slack-key guitar

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Slack-key guitar is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawai‘i. Its name refers to its characteristic tuning: the English term is a translation of the Hawaiian kī hō‘alu, which means "loosen the [tuning] key". Most slack-key tunings can be achieved by starting with a classically-tuned guitar and detuning or "slacking" one or more of the strings until the six strings form a single chord, frequently G major.

1 History
2 Techniques and Tunings
- 2.1 Common slack key tunings
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] History

In the oral-history account, the style originated from Mexican cowboys in the late 19th century. These paniolo (a Hawaiianization of españolo) gave Hawaiians the guitars and taught them the rudiments of playing, and then left, allowing the Hawaiians to develop the style on their own. (Musicologists and historians suggest that the story is more complicated, ^[1] but this is the version that is most often offered by Hawaiian musicians.) Slack key guitar adapted to accompany the rhythms of Hawaiian dancing and the harmonic structures of Hawaiian music. The style of Hawaiian music that was promoted as a matter of national pride under the reign of King David Kalākaua in the late 19th century combined rhythms from traditional dance meters with imported European forms (for example, military marches), and drew its melodies from chant (mele and oli), hula, Christian hymns (hīmeni), and the popular music brought in by the various peoples who came to the Islands: English-speaking North Americans, Mexicans, Portuguese, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, Tahitians, and Samoans.

The music did not receive a mainland audience during the Hawaiian music craze of the early 20th century, during which Hawaiian music came to be identified outside of Islands with the steel guitar and the ʻukulele. Slack key remained private and family entertainment, and it was not even recorded until 1946-47, when Gabby Pahinui cut a series of records that brought the tradition into public view. During the 1960s and particularly during the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance of the 1970s, slack key experienced a surge in popularity and came to be seen as one of the most genuine expressions of Hawaiian spirit, principally thanks to Gabby Pahinui, Leonard Kwan, Sonny Chillingworth, Raymond Kāne, and the more modern styles of younger-generation players such as Keola Beamer, his brother Kapono Beamer, and Peter Moon.

Currently, the music is most well-known (outside of Hawai'i) through George Winston's Dancing Cat Records record label, which has most often showcased the music in solo settings. Some other popular players include Ledward Kaapana, Ozzie Kotani, Cyril Pahinui, Dennis Kamakahi, George Kahumoku, Jr., and his brother Moses Kahumoku. One indication of slack key's increasing visibility beyond the Islands is that when The Recording Academy instituted a GRAMMY Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album, the first two winners were slack key collections: Slack Key Guitar, Volume 2 (Charles Michael Brotman, Producer, Palm Records, 2005) ^[2] and Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, Volume 1 in 2006.^[3]

[edit] Techniques and Tunings

Kī hō‘alu is often characterized by the use of an alternating-bass pattern, usually played by the thumb on the lower two or three strings of the guitar, while the melody is played on the three or four highest strings, using any number of fingers. Many kī hō‘alu players incorporate various embellishments such as harmonics (chimes), the hammer-on, the pull-off, slides, and damping. Slack key compositions exhibit characteristics from indigenous Hawaiian and imported musical traditions. The vamp or turnaround (a repeated figure, usually at the end of a verse) is descended from the hula tradition, and other harmonic and structural features are descended from hīmeni and from the hula ku'i encouraged by King David Kalakaua. ^[4]

Nearly all slack key requires retuning the guitar strings from the standard EADGBE, and this usually (but not always) means lowering or "slacking" several strings. The result will most often be a major chord, although it can also be a major-seventh chord, a sixth, or (rarely) a minor. (There are examples of slack key played in standard tuning, but the overwhelming majority of recorded examples use altered tunings.) The most common slack key tuning, called "taro patch," makes a G major chord. Starting from the standard EADGBE, the high and low E strings are lowered or "slacked" to D and the fifth string from A down to G, so the notes become DGDGBD. As the chart below shows, there are also major-chord tunings based on C, F, and D.

Another important group of tunings, based on major-seventh chords, is called wahine (Hawaiian for "woman"). G wahine, for example, starts with taro patch and lowers the third string from G to F#, making DGDF#BD. Wahine tunings have their own characteristic vamps (as in, for example, Raymond Kāne's "Punahele" or Gabby Pahinui's 1946 "Hula Medley") and require fretting one or two strings to form a major chord. A third significant group is Mauna Loa tunings, in which the highest pair of strings are a fifth apart: Gabby Pahinui often played in C Mauna Loa, CGEGAE.

There are many slack key tunings--George Winston has identified fifty^[5]--with some tunings only commonly used for a single song, or by particular players. The most common tuning is Taro Patch, which is a G-major tuning. Mike McClellan and George Winston have developed schemes that organize the tunings by key and type. The chart below follows their categories and naming conventions.

[edit] Common slack key tunings

Common Slack Key Tunings	Notes Used
G Major or Taro Patch	D G D G B D
G Wahine	D G D F# B D
D Wahine	D A D F# A C#
Open D	D A D F# A D
C Major or Atta's C	C G E G C E
Mauna Loa	C G E G A E
C Wahine or Leonard's C	C G D G B D
C 6	C G C G A E
Old Mauna Loa	C G C G A D
Open C	C G C E G C
F Wahine	C F C G C E
Open F	C F C F A C
Double Slack F	C F C E A C

[edit] Notes

^ For example, Elizabeth Tatar, "Slack Key Guitar," in Hawaiian Music and Musicians, ed. George S. Kanahele, University Press of Hawaii, 350 - 360. ISBN 0-8248-0578-X
^ [1]"Slack key wins first Hawaiian Grammy," by Tim Ryan, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 14, 2005
^ [2]"'Masters' of the Grammy," by John Burger, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 9, 2006
^ Tatar, "The Technique" and "The Chant Tradition" sections of "Slack Key Guitar" in Hawaiian Music and Musicians
^ [3]George Winston's on-line Short History of Slack Key Guitar, "Chart of Recorded Tunings"