E Kanikapili Kakou — Songs, Music, Hula and Storytelling

Week 5: March 6th

“An Evening with Kiho’alu Slack Key Guitar Artists” — Stephen Inglis; Kamuela Kaho’ano; Dwight Kanae

Slack-key guitar (from the Hawaiian word kī hōʻalu, which means “loosen the [tuning] key”) is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaii after Portuguese cowboys 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 and detuning or “slacking” one or more of the strings until the six strings form a single chord, frequently G major.