“Meadows” is a slack key song I wrote during a full moon in Kailua-Kona. I think the song was influenced by the night air and night sounds – the occasional chirp of geckos, the distant sounds of traffic on Mamalahoa Highway and the waves in the ocean. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 912ce (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD Light strings) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
Here’s a recently found recording where I’m improvising some ideas around Leonard Kwan’s classic slack key song Opihi Moemoe. One of the most popular songs in the slack key repertoire, this song has been covered by everyone from Ledward Kaapana to Chet Atkins. Opihi MoeMoe is a fun piece that lends itself well to improvised variations, and everyone seems to bring something a little different to this deceptively simple song. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor K22ce (solid koa grand concert with Elixir HD Light gauge set) and an Ear Trumpet Labs “Edwina” microphone.
Here is an alternate take of the Bach Cello Prelude (BWV 1007) on guitar. I fell in love with the Pablo Casals recordings of the Bach cello suites a few years back. The prelude to the first suite is oft adapted for guitar, but it’s still a great piece to play. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 912ce (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD Light strings) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
Here is a fingerstyle cover of “Every Breath You Take,” the hypnotic signature tune from The Police. Many stories surround the writing, recording, and subsequent success of the song – for example one interesting tidbit is that Sting apparently wrote the song while sitting at Ian Fleming’s writing desk on his famous Goldeneye estate in Jamaica. With its classic guitar part, “Every Breath” has a mellow / dreamy feel seemingly at odds with its borderline creepy lyrics – though some may find the song is a tad less sinister as an instrumental 🙂 Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) a single Beyerdynamic MC 930 microphone in Honolulu, Hawai’i 8/25/14.
Here is an alternate take of “Punahoa Special,” this one recorded with a Telefunken M60 microphone. Punahoa Special is a signature showpiece of legendary slack key master Fred Punahoa. This is a song I was fortunate enough to learn directly from Led Ka’apana, one that Led had in turn learned directly from Fred himself. Though Fred Punahoa never made a full album under his own name, he did make a notable appearance on the Waimea Music Festival album, in addition to fostering amazing talents of the next generation such as Led and Sonny Lim. “Punahoa Special” is an often covered song in the slack key canon, and might also be the most popular song in Mauna Loa slack key tuning. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 414ce-NR (Rosewood/Spruce grand auditorium nylon string) and a Telefunken M60 microphone.
Here’s an alternate take of Keola Beamer’s Mino’aka (Smile), from his awesome Soliloquy album. Soliloquy is one of my favorite Dancing Cat era albums from Keola and a highly recommended listen. Keola’s book is one of the first I picked up when I really delved into the slack key style years ago, and this was one of my favorite songs featured in the book. In fact, I also recommend Keola’s book for beginner to intermediate fingerstyle players who are looking to learn some slack key. Although the version I recorded here is at a slightly faster tempo, I hope it still captures the original’s relaxed feel. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 912ce (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD Light strings) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
For your listening pleasure here is another collection of Ki Ho’alu a/k/a Hawaiian Slack Key guitar instrumentals. This compilation is an alternate mix from another one recently posted on my other channel (Blue Sky Guitar), and includes a few classic chestnuts – or rather, kukui nuts maybe – as well as original songs. The songs here are both energetic and relaxed, though I’d say the overall vibe is relaxing. I like to listen to some of those longer “relaxing music” videos while working on the computer and became inspired to produce some videos featuring my own performances. Hope you enjoy.
Here is an alternate take of a slack key song I wrote called “Fronds in the Wind.” Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone in Honolulu, Hawai’i 11/23/15.
“Meadows” is an original song I wrote during a full moon in Kailua-Kona. I think the song was influenced by the night air and night sounds – the occasional chirp of geckos, the distant sounds of traffic on Mamalahoa Highway and the waves in the ocean. This version was probably recorded within a year of when I wrote it. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 310ce (Sapele/Spruce, Elixir Polyweb 80/20 Bronze) and a matched stereo pair of Shure KSM141 microphones in Holualoa, Hawai’i, 10/9/07.
Here is an alternate take of “Makalawena,” an original song I named after a charmingly beautiful and relatively isolated beach on the Kona Coast. Makalawena is part of that long stretch of white sandy beaches you see right before landing at Kona International Airport at nearby Keahole Point. The beach is generally accessible via a short hike from the neighboring Mahaiʻula Bay section of Kekaha Kai State Park. I remember camping out at Makalawena as a kid, exploring the rare anchialine ponds with their delicate red shrimp, and swimming in the waters of the bay. Today still, the neighboring marsh is a protected nesting ground, home to rare birds such as the Hawaiian coot. The song’s bridge seems to capture the strange sense of converging energies that I feel in special places such as these. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 414ce-NR (Rosewood/Spruce grand auditorium nylon string) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.