Opihi moemoe --Yellow ginger lei --Kilakila Haleakala --Willy's tune --Meleana e --Nahenahe --Auwe! --Punahele --Kaneohe Mama --Manini --WaEahila --Hawaiian love ...

Even if you don’t know exactly what a Hawaiian slack key guitar (or ki ho’alu) is, you can probably easily recognize its music. It’s that smooth, sweet sound that evokes island breezes and warm sunny ...

For more than 150 years, slack key guitar, or ki ho’alu, has been the “house music” of Hawaii. Islanders were introduced to guitars by Spanish and Mexican vaqueros and quickly adapted the sound and ...

They were Mexican workers on foreign soil and, as usual, they brought their music with them. It is believed to have been the 1830s and the workers were cowboys, brought to the Waimea area of Hawaii’s ...

One of the greatest acoustic guitar traditions in the world is a fingerstyle guitar unique to Hawaii. Slack key guitar or “ki ho’alu,” which translates to “loosen the tuning key,” starts with standard ...

Slack key guitar is the sound of Hawaiian fellowship, protest, and love for native land. Most scholars trace the origin of the indigenous fingerstyle technique—named for the fact that the strings are ...

Slack key virtuoso Jeff Peterson performs a concerto he composed with a North Carolina orchestra. Maui-born musician Jeff Peterson earned multiple Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards for his slack key ...

According to Matthew Swalinkavich, known by fans as Makana, there are obvious reasons that few musicians master slack key guitar. "It's a very challenging style technically, and it's hard to learn ...

The best musicians are usually the most versatile, such as Jim “Kimo” West. Van Nuys resident West is the guitarist for “Weird Al” Yankovic, whose latest effort, the chart-topping “Mandatory Fun” (RCA ...

STEEL guitar may be the most endangered of the instruments associated with Hawaiian music. The ukulele is certainly alive and well; you see it everywhere, and Roy Sakuma is presenting his 40th Annual ...