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Eynowd
Lokahi
Australia
181 Posts |
 Posted - 01/06/2016 : 5:45:14 PM
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To paraphrase the Bard, that is the question...
I'm having a moment of self-doubt right now. Any advice
When I started playing guitar a couple of years ago, I really only ever intended to do it purely for my own enjoyment; I had no intention of ever performing. Truth be told, I didn't think I'd ever be good enough. Turns out I was quite mistaken in that opinion, and have surprised a lot of people (especially me!) with how quickly I've come along.
In standard tuning, I find the thing that works best for me is to focus more on learning to play the chords and changing between them. I often find myself just mucking around with different chord progressions and strumming patterns, rather than learning specific songs. Because of that, I'm finding I'm getting a much better handle on playing better, so when I do get together with other people to play, I can pick up songs reasonably quickly (albeit just strumming the chords).
With slack key, I've been working my way through Ozzie's book for a year and a bit now, and - if I'm by myself - I can play five of the six taropatch tunes reasonably well ('Awiwi never clicked for me, so I'll need to go back and tackle it again at some point). I still make plenty of mistakes, especially if my mind wanders while I'm playing (which is often, sadly).
I feel that while I know a few tunes from tab, I don't really understand what it is I'm playing. Because of that, I don't get how to improvise and play something other than just what's written in the tab; when I play a tune, it's the same way every time. It's somewhat vexing, because I'd like to see the code behind the Matrix, so to speak, so that I can really make it my own. Problem is, I have no idea how to do that. People say "just press" or words to that effect, but I'm not sure which bits to press, without the tab to guide me.
There's no one in my city (at least that I know of at present) that even really listens to Hawaiian music, let alone plays slack key. There's a couple of 'ukulele groups, but they seem focused on playing old-time rock and roll songs, rather than Hawaiian music. So, there's no one that I can turn to locally for lessons or even to play Hawaiian music with.
I have a friend who plays a lot of open mic nights (a couple a week, usually, sometimes more), and he's gently pushing me to perform more. It's because of him that I have performed a couple of times before (one normal folky stuff, and one time with slack key). While it scared the hell out of me, I actually did enjoy it, far more than I expected to. He gets that slack key is where my main passion is, and thinks that because no one else in town is playing slack key, it would help me really stand out at nights like this.
Problem is, I just don't feel ready to perform, especially slack key, despite part of me wanting to. I know and enjoy a few tunes, but I don't feel like I understand enough (nor am I proficient enough) to play solo for people without screwing it up badly. (I had an informal folky jam session with a couple of friends the other day and tried a couple of slack key tunes, and even in a relaxed environment like that, I couldn't play them well enough. :(
So, I guess - after all that - at what point is one ready to perform slack key for others? (and perhaps a secondary, and possibly even more important question: how does one go about learning to see the code behind the Matrix and really grok slack key, if travelling to Hawaii and soaking in the music is out of the question? Other than just learning more tunes, which bits are best to learn to really understand what's going on, and to create something new?)
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Geoff - g'day from Canberra, Australia. |
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1573 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2016 : 07:30:45 AM
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As far as performing, go with your gut ... and with your experiments of playing in front of others and in front of a microphone/recorder/smart phone.
As far as the code, it's exactly the same as any other kind of guitar music but with the notes in slightly different locations. So ...
learn chords up and down the neck. There's a G at 000000 and another at the 5th fret and another at 7-8-9. Find the Ds and Cs, either by using a digital tool or a book and fingers. Then find the As then the Es then the Bs. Find the C minor, A minor, E minor, and D minor. Find the F and F minor. As you figure these out you'll see that many of the chord shapes are moveable, are related, are variations of each other.
learn common chord progressions. The most common of all - V (5 chord) I (1 chord). Songs like "Kani Ki Ho`alu" and "Salomila" use only the V and I chords and the slack key vamp is V I. I IV V adds the C chord. II V I is the classic "uke vamp" and really opens up the range of tunes you can play. VI II V I gets you into "advanced" songs like "Haole Hula" while adding the III and IV minor gives "Honolulu I Am Coming Back Again."
Add "Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key" to the Ozzie book to get some new ideas.
Use your knowledge of chords as mentioned above to start improvising. "Manuela Boy" for instance, lays out at the open strings, but you can play a harmony version at the G chord at 7-8-9. Same with "Salomila" but the other way around, it starts at 7-8-9 but there are variations at 000000 and at the 5th fret if you play something that "sorta sounds like Salomila."
Learn from CDs and YouTube videos. Digging songs out by ear is incredibly liberating and empowering. We have great tools that let us capture a song, slow it down without changing pitch, repeat small sections over and over. Figuring out what Ledward is doing in "Aloha Ia No O Maui" or Uncle Ray in "Keiki Slack Key" will spill over into all your other songs.
Play and play and play and play. Play the stuff you know until sheer boredom causes you to try adding new stuff.
Fran |
E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
Slack Key on YouTube
Homebrewed Music Blog |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2153 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2016 : 07:53:54 AM
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| Music is communication. Playing for others is just that. Who knows, maybe you'll connect with someone who may share your interest, or spark that interest in someone. Like Slipry1 says, "The more you do it, the better you get." Listen, watch, observe. Led told me that he tells his haumana (students) to not be afraid to make mistakes, jus' press! Greater familiarity with the instrument (where the "right" notes AND the "wrong" notes are) gives you more freedom to improve and improvise. |
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Earl
`Olu`olu
USA
502 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2016 : 05:52:59 AM
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Fran has given you some great advice already. Another approach is to take a tune from standard tuning and convert it to Open G. I suggest "Yesterday" and "Puff the Magic Dragon".
I use Yesterday to show how an open tuning works well for learning tunings. You can do a credible version of Yesterday using only barre chords at fret 5, 7, and 2 --- with just a couple of exceptions. The Em chord is [202002] in taro patch. The The B chord is barred at the 4th fret. The F# chord (optional but nice) uses the taro patch F shape [xx4324] placed between frets 2-3-4. if you move that one up one fret it becomes a variation of G.
As for performing, I never had much interest originally. Then I started going out to coffeehouses and open mics to hear live acoustic music. After a while I figured out that I could do at least that well. I started and never looked back. There can be hiccups along the way, but even if you make a mistake, half of the audience won't know unless you signal it (with an obvious grimace or head shake). The other half will be so envious that you can get up there and play anything in front of people, they won't care about minor flubs either. Go for it! |
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2016 : 11:31:43 AM
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Are any of us truly ready? Lol. I certainly never feel ready but I suppose that did not stop me. I think it's great to share what you know. If you're inspired to play Hawaiian slack key, play it proudly and perpetuate the art. Perhaps, the best thing is to just get up and play. Let the audience tell you if you were ready or not.  |
Andy |
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kihoaluatl
Akahai
USA
57 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2016 : 2:20:37 PM
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All sound advice from people who I consider pros. Harry Koizumi's Youtube channel (Harry's Guitar) has a great tutorial on "chord inversions" that Fran described above.
The more you do it the more enjoyable it becomes. I no longer worry about the headshakes, the applause and handshakes outnumber them by a mile.
tom |
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Eynowd
Lokahi
Australia
181 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2016 : 12:44:44 AM
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Thanks for the encouragement, guys, especially Fran for the tips and pointers.
I've decided that I won't be performing tomorrow (partly because I've been sick with a chest cold for the past three weeks and don't particularly need a coughing attack mid-performance). I do plan to try performing slack key again later this year, but more when I'm feeling ready and more comfortable with it.
I've gone back to the Mark Kailana Nelson lessons on Jamplay.com this weekend, and picked up where I'd stopped a while back (when I decided to learn the last two taropatch tunes in Ozzie's book). Coincidentally, Mark talked at length in those about different chords and making a tune your own, rather than just playing the same way from the tab every time (which is where I'm at at the moment). So, I can see a fair bit more noodling around with different chords and sounds and trying to work out more stuff like that in the coming weeks, which will also take the self-imposed pressure off me to bring the tunes I know up to performance "standard". I'll dig into Harry's YouTube channel again and work on his riffs and inversions as well.
I do want to try working out a few tunes by ear as well. Fran: I've wanted to learn your arrangement of Grandfather's Clock pretty much since I first heard it, so that's going to be fairly high on the list.
But for now, rather than concentrating on expanding my repertoire by learning more tunes by rote, I'll just chill out and work on skills instead, and work on different chord sequences and see what I can come up with.
Mahalo again :D |
Geoff - g'day from Canberra, Australia. |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2016 : 07:47:18 AM
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Don't underestimate the value of noodling--it's one of the ways to discover how things fit together, both harmonically and physically. Once you've listened to enough of a tradition (whether it's slack key or the blues or swing) to realy internalize its structures and feel, you'll find that just sitting on the sofa with a guitar and messing around can lead to discoveries. You might stumble across a figure that you've heard, or a way of fingering or articulating a passage that has given you trouble (this is quite different from deliberate, focused work on a problem section), or even invent something new (or newish) that is a variation on what you've already mastered. That's why we call it "playing" the guitar. To "jus' press" I'd add "just mess around."
Slack key, like most traditional musics, is built from components--vamps, licks, progressions--that assemble into finished pieces. Messing around is one way to discover/notice them. After that, it becomes easier to apply the toolkit/component parts to particular tunes. Getting competent--and comfortable--enough to play in public is a different set of problems, and has as much to do with how you feel as with how well you play.
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1573 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2016 : 12:45:01 PM
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I learned a lot from Patrick Landeza when I was getting started in slack key, and one of the things he stressed was that slack key is Hawaiian music, it's a repertoire as well as a style. In fact the style is widely variable, but one element that ties Gabby Pahinui and Jerry Santos and Auntie Alice Namakelua together is the repertoire of songs they chose.
So learn to sing or hum "My Yellow Ginger Lei" then find that melody on the guitar. After that go for "Kaimana Hila" or "Papalina Lahilahi." Each song will teach new licks, new positions.
Fran |
E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
Slack Key on YouTube
Homebrewed Music Blog |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2016 : 07:48:05 AM
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What Fran said--the other side of messing around is what you mess around *with*. When I was learning to play swing, my technical vocabulary increased with every tune I learned my way around, since Tin Pan Alley songs are also built out of families of components. I had the good fortune to be playing in situations where I had to learn new material in order to keep up with my bandmates, and every tune I learned made the next one a bit easier. Subtract the band context and the cumulative learning process remains the same as the one Fran describes. (I've recently started sitting in at a jazz night where the core repertory is bop and West Coast cool, so I'm repeating the process of absorbing new-to-me material and the harmonic vocabulary, tune by tune, with lots of stuff with flat-nines, sharp-elevens, seven-flat-fives, and similar extensions, in horn keys and at tempos nobody ever could dance to.)
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slkho
`Olu`olu
740 Posts |
Posted - 04/05/2016 : 08:05:30 AM
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PERFORM.
...I always treat my playing, or performing as an advanced form of practice. no pressure that way. it was very intimidating at first...was I good enough?, was I ready enough? do I suck as bad as I sound? People will like, or not like you...doesn't matter. play the best you can, your love of the music will show.
I suck at it, but I enjoy it immensely...I first please myself...and you know what, people will see it too.
~slkho |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2153 Posts |
Posted - 04/05/2016 : 4:16:34 PM
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| No sked! Playing for people is educating them. You stretch yourself. |
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To perform or not to perform?
