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Slack-key guitar (from Hawaiian ''kī hōalu'', which means "loosen the uningkey") is a
fingerstyle Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectr ...
genre of guitar music that originated in
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...
after Portuguese
cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...
s introduced Spanish guitars there in the late 19th century. The Hawaiians did not embrace the tuning of the traditional Spanish guitars they encountered. They re-tuned the guitars to sound a chord (now called an " open tuning") and developed their own style of playing, not using a flat pick, but plucking the strings. Most slack-key tunings can be achieved by starting with a guitar in
standard tuning In music, standard tuning refers to the typical tuning of a string instrument. This notion is contrary to that of scordatura, i.e. an alternate tuning designated to modify either the timbre or technical capabilities of the desired instrument. Vio ...
and detuning or "slacking" one or more of the strings until the six strings form a single chord, frequently G major. In the early 20th century, the
steel guitar A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conv ...
and the
ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...
gained wide popularity in the
mainland Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it egardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity" The term is often politically, economically and/or dem ...
, but the slack-key style remained a folk tradition of family entertainment for Hawaiians until about the 1960s and 1970s during the second
Hawaiian renaissance The Hawaiian Renaissance (also called the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance) was the Hawaiian resurgence of a distinct cultural identity that draws upon traditional kānaka maoli culture, with a significant divergence from the tourism-based culture ...
. Devotees of the slack-key guitar style tout the alluring resonant sound of the open lower strings juxtaposed with melodies played on the higher strings. Players of the genre typically use pull-offs, hammer-ons, and string harmonics as techniques. There are many different tunings for slack-key guitar, and the tunings were historically guarded fiercely as a trade secret and often passed down in families.


History

In the oral-history account, the style originated from Portuguese cowboys in the late 19th century. These ''
paniolo A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquer ...
'' (a Hawaiianization of ''españoles''—"Spaniards") provided guitars, taught the Hawaiians the rudiments of playing, allowing the Hawaiians to develop the style on their own. Musicologists and historians suggest that the story is more complicated, 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 music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part ...
. ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' described the music as "liquid, rippling, and hypnotic". The style of Hawaiian music that was promoted as a matter of national pride under the reign of King David
Kalākaua Kalākaua (David Laʻamea Kamananakapu Mahinulani Naloiaehuokalani Lumialani Kalākaua; November 16, 1836 – January 20, 1891), sometimes called The Merrie Monarch, was the last king and penultimate monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, ...
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 Hula () is a Hawaiian dance form accompanied by chant (oli) or song ( mele). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visua ...
, 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 Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or other ...
,
Puerto Ricans Puerto Ricans ( es, Puertorriqueños; or boricuas) are the people of Puerto Rico, the inhabitants, and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and their descendants. Overview The culture held in common by most Puerto Ricans is referred ...
,
Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Aust ...
ans, and Samoans. The music did not develop a mainland audience during the Hawaiian music craze of the early 20th century, during which Hawaiian music came to be identified outside the Islands with the
steel guitar A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conv ...
and the
ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...
. 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, Atta Isaacs, Leonard Kwan, Sonny Chillingworth, Raymond Kāne, and the more modern styles of younger players such as
Keola Beamer Keola Beamer (born Keolamaikalani Breckenridge Beamer February 18, 1951) is a Hawaiian slack-key guitar player, best known as the composer of "Honolulu City Lights" and an innovative musician who fused Hawaiian roots and contemporary music. Keola ...
, his brother Kapono Beamer, Peter Moon, and Haunani Apoliona. During this period, luthiers such as the
Guitar and Lute Workshop The Guitar and Lute Workshop (GLW) was a manufacturer of custom guitars, ukuleles, and period stringed instruments based in Honolulu, Hawaii between 1970 and 1976. The workshop was known primarily for the talented luthiers employed in either constr ...
in Honolulu specialized in the development and manufacture of guitars custom made to order for slack-key performance. Many currently prominent Hawaii-based players got their starts during the Cultural Renaissance years: Cindy Combs, Ledward Kaapana, George Kahumoku, Jr., his brother Moses Kahumoku,
Dennis Kamakahi Dennis David Kahekilimamaoikalanikeha Kamakahi (March 31, 1953 – April 28, 2014) was a Hawaiian slack key guitarist, recording artist, music composer, and Christian minister. He was a three-time Grammy Award winner, and in 2009 he was inducted in ...
, Ozzie Kotani, three Pahinui brothers (Bla, Cyril, and Martin), the Emerson Brothers and
Owana Salazar Owana Kaōhelelani Mahealani-Rose Salazar (born October 30, 1953) is a Hawaiian noble and musician. She is thought to be the only female steel guitar player in Hawaii trained by Jerry Byrd. A descendant of Robert William Wilcox and Theresa La� ...
. These artists, and slack key in general, have become well known outside Hawaii largely through
George Winston George Winston (born December 26, 1949) is an American pianist, guitarist, harmonicist, and record producer. He was born in Michigan and raised mainly in Montana ( Miles City and Billings), as well as Mississippi and Florida. He is best known ...
's Dancing Cat Records record label, which has most often showcased the music in solo settings. One indication of slack key's increasing visibility beyond the Islands is that the first four winners of the
Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album The Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album was an honor presented to recording artists from 2005 to 2011 for quality Hawaiian music albums. The Grammy Awards, an annual ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone ...
were slack key collections: ''Slack Key Guitar, Volume 2'' in 2005, '' Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, Volume 1'' in 2006, ''Legends of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar—Live from Maui'' and "Treasures of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar – Live in Concert from Maui." Players from outside Hawaii have also taken up the tradition, for example,
Chet Atkins Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music st ...
(who included slack key pieces on two of his albums), Yuki Yamauchi (a student of Raymond Kāne's and an advocate of Hawaiian music in Japan), pianist
George Winston George Winston (born December 26, 1949) is an American pianist, guitarist, harmonicist, and record producer. He was born in Michigan and raised mainly in Montana ( Miles City and Billings), as well as Mississippi and Florida. He is best known ...
, and Canadian Jim "Kimo" West (perhaps better known as guitarist with
"Weird Al" Yankovic Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic ( ; born October 23, 1959) is an American singer, musician, songwriter, record producer, actor and author. He is best known for creating comedy songs that make light of pop culture and often parody specif ...
).


Techniques and tunings

George Winston George Winston (born December 26, 1949) is an American pianist, guitarist, harmonicist, and record producer. He was born in Michigan and raised mainly in Montana ( Miles City and Billings), as well as Mississippi and Florida. He is best known ...
has identified fifty slack-key tunings. Some are only commonly used for a single song, or by particular players. Mike McClellan and George Winston have developed similar schemes that organize the tunings by key and type. The chart below follows their categories and naming conventions. The tunings were often passed down in families from generation to generation, and tunings were often guarded as fiercely as any trade secret. ''Kī hōalu'' often uses an alternating-bass pattern, usually played by the thumb on the lower two or three strings of the guitar, while the
melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...
is played on the three or four highest strings, using any number of fingers. Many ''kī hōalu'' players incorporate various embellishments such as
harmonics A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', th ...
(chimes), the
hammer-on A hammer-on is a playing technique performed on a stringed instrument (especially on a fretted string instrument, such as a guitar) by sharply bringing a fretting-hand finger down on to the fingerboard behind a fret, causing a note to sound. Th ...
, the
pull-off A pull-off is a stringed instrument playing and articulation technique performed by plucking or "pulling" the finger that is grasping the sounding part of a string off the fingerboard of either a fretted or unfretted instrument. This intermediate- ...
, slides, and
damping Damping is an influence within or upon an oscillatory system that has the effect of reducing or preventing its oscillation. In physical systems, damping is produced by processes that dissipate the energy stored in the oscillation. Examples inc ...
. Slack key compositions exhibit characteristics from indigenous Hawaiian and imported musical traditions. The
vamp The VaMP driverless car was one of the first truly autonomous cars Dynamic Vision for Perc ...
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 kui'' encouraged by King
David Kalakaua David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
. Tatar, "The Technique" and "The Chant Tradition" sections of "Slack Key Guitar" in ''Hawaiian Music and Musicians'' Nearly all slack key requires retuning the guitar strings from the standard EADGBE, and this usually means lowering or "slacking" three or more strings. The result is most often 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 Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...
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"''. G wahine, for example, starts with taro patch and lowers the third string from G to F, making DGDFBD. 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 Mauna Loa ( or ; Hawaiian: ; en, Long Mountain) is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The largest subaerial volcano (as opposed to subaqueous volcanoes) in both mass and ...
tunings, in which the highest pair of strings are a fifth apart: Gabby Pahinui often played in C Mauna Loa, CGEGAE.


Common tunings


Notable players

*
Keola Beamer Keola Beamer (born Keolamaikalani Breckenridge Beamer February 18, 1951) is a Hawaiian slack-key guitar player, best known as the composer of "Honolulu City Lights" and an innovative musician who fused Hawaiian roots and contemporary music. Keola ...
*
Kealii Blaisdell Keali'i Blaisdell is an American musician whose popularity has drawn thousands of fans to his appearances. His 1996 release; ''"Ka Ulu Mae'ole"'' sold well at many island music stores and was played heavily on radio stations in Maui The isla ...
* Sonny Chillingworth *
Ry Cooder Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder (born March 15, 1947) is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in traditional music, an ...
* Daniel Ho * Leland Isaacs Sr. * Ledward Kaapana * George Kahumoku, Jr. *
Dennis Kamakahi Dennis David Kahekilimamaoikalanikeha Kamakahi (March 31, 1953 – April 28, 2014) was a Hawaiian slack key guitarist, recording artist, music composer, and Christian minister. He was a three-time Grammy Award winner, and in 2009 he was inducted in ...
* Raymond Kāne * John Keawe * Ozzie Kotani * Leonard Kwan * Patrick Landeza * Sonny Lim *
Makana Makana is a mountain located on northern shore of the island of Kauai, Kauai, where it rises above Limahuli Valley. ''Makana'' is a Hawaiian language term meaning gift or reward. It is often used as a person's name or as part of a name. Limahul ...
* Peter Moon * Cyril Pahinui * Gabby Pahinui * Jeff Peterson *
Fred Punahoa Fred Punahoa Konanui (also spelled "Punahou") (April 25, 1919 - March 10, 1985) was a Hawaiian musician and slack key guitar player from Kalapana, Hawaii Kalapana is a town and a region in the Puna District on the Island of Hawaii in the Hawa ...
* Jim "Kimo" West *
Patrick Simmons Patrick Simmons (born October 19, 1948) is an American musician best known as a founding member of the rock band The Doobie Brothers. Born in Aberdeen, Washington, he has been the only consistent member of the band throughout their tenure. Simm ...


See also

*
Music of Hawaii The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part o ...


References


External links


A Brief History of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar (KI HO`ALU)Mika'ele McClellan's page on slack key tunings (via archive.org)TaroPatch.net: Online Resources & Community for Slack Key playersTagata Pasifika: Le Igi
Television New Zealand story on a Le Igi teacher.
Igi - Samoan Guitar Picking
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slack-Key Guitar Hawaiian musical instruments Slack-key guitar tunings Guitar performance techniques Guitars