Hey Everybody,
Just a note to anybody who visits this site: it is no longer active. Please enjoy the site (it is not going anywhere), but know that posts – if any – will be few and far between. I am now focusing all of my time on a new ‘ukulele related site that I am very proud of: http://liveukulele.com.
Jam on!
~Hippie Guy
We are getting hits from around the world:
Taking ideas from one person is stealing. Taking ideas from many is research ~ Carlos Santana
It’s about the music, not the artist. Remember that ~ “Moon” Kahele
“Sorry” just means you got caught ~ Uncle Bobo
It’s been a while since I have written anything, so let me get you caught up…
First of all some of my friends and I have been working on a new ‘ukulele website – Live ‘Ukulele (name and URL subject to change).
We went to the Hawaii Music Celebration down south in Na’alehu. Performing there was Uncle Keoki Kahumoku along with bruddah Kekoa (one of my buddies from the Pahala workshops!), Sean Na’auao and Robi Kahakalau, Paula Fuga, the RSP Crew, and Inoa’ole. The first three performances were the best. Then RSP came in and was really bad. I was surprised because their recorded songs are good (but it might have been the sound engineer’s fault, he had the bass up way too high). Inoa’ole would have been good if the sound guy brought the bass down for them.
Another ten day Pahala ‘Ukulele, Slack-key, and Steel Guitar Workshop is coming up in November, with the teachers being (drum roll please): Keoki Kahumoku, Herb Ohta Jr., John Keawe, George Kahumoku, Brittni Paiva, Jeff Peterson, Diane Aki, Sonny Lim, Lelehua Yuen, and Konabob (and maybe Led Ka’apana). November 30 – December 8, $950 per person, bring your aloha.
And finally today we went to see the Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau perform at the Lanihau shopping center. They were great! With them for a couple of songs was Hoku Zuttermeister. After the show all three of the Sons signed my old ‘ukulele, so the uke now has the signatures of Alex Kawakami (of Manoa DNA), Louis “Moon” Kauakahi, John Koko, and Jerome Koko!
Opening for the Sons was Sonny Lim along with a guy who had a triple necked ‘ukulele:
Last Friday my family and I once again made the long drive from Kailua-Kona to Pahala for the ‘Ukulele and Slack-key Guitar Workshop. This was my second time in Pahala for the workshop, so I knew a lot of the people from the first time.
Teaching walking bass and steel-guitar along with three time Grammy winner Keoki Kahumoku and ukulele master Herb Ohta Jr. was Konabob who I know from the Holualoa kani ka pila. I learned a lot from Konabob about the steel-guitar; it is a very neat instrument that can do quite a few things that the guitar can’t. Uncle Herb’s classes were kind of slow because I knew a lot of the things he was teaching us already, but after class he showed some of us kids how to play “G-minor Fleas” and later “Step it Up” which my friend and I have been trying to figure out for a while.
I met some new and nice people this weekend, one of them was Chuck Moore who builds Moore Bettah ‘Ukuleles. He is a really nice guy. I showed him how to play “Step it Up” and in exchange he tried to convince my mom and dad to bring me back to the 10 day workshop in November.
I ran across some info about ‘ukulele history on Curt Sheller’s site and thought that it would be an interesting thing to post about. Curt also has his own line of uke books and lessons.
One of my Worth strings came apart yesterday. I was figuring out Jake’s “Heartbeat” when the A-string on my uke started to buzz and sound muted. It turned out that the string had split and frayed, wrapping around itself. I don’t know if this is normal after a month or if I was playing too hard, but I replaced the frayed string with a new one right away so the old one wouldn’t have a chance to break and scratch my ‘ukulele.
Has anyone else experienced this problem or is it just me?
I went up to the Kings Shops in Waikoloa last Saturday for their lei day celebration. It was cool; there were beautiful lei on display and I got to see Brittni Paiva perform. Brittni put on a great show. She played a few songs that I hadn’t heard before. One of them was “Journey Home” and I got it on tape:
As far as I can figure out the notes of the harmonics go like this:
(G-string on the left to A-string on the right)
12th fret: GCEA (octave above open strings)
9th fret: BEG#C# (octave above barred 4th fret)
7th fret: DGBE (octave above barred 7th fret)
5th fret: GCEA (two octaves above open strings)
3rd fret: DGBE (two octaves above barred 7th fret)
I think this is right, if its not drop me a comment and let me know. Hopefully this info is helpful to somebody.
I found a “tour” of the Kamaka ‘ukulele workshop online. It has some cool pictures that show the process of building an uke.
