GUITAR SPACESHIP
Custom Search
Click on the musicians' names for more information about their lives and their music
Slack-key guitar is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaiʻi. Its name refers to
its characteristic tuning: the English term is a translation of the Hawaiian kī hōʻalu, 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.

In the oral-history account, the style originated from Mexican cowboys in the late 19th century.
These paniolo (a Hawaiianization of españoles—"Spaniards") 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, 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, Peter Moon, and Haunani Apoliona.

-- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: April 27, 2009
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack-key_guitar)