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'J'c~, ' .Rawaiian -'·:-,:·Musle Poundatlon PURPOSES OF THE HAWAIIAN MUSIC FOUNDATION

• To perpetuate, develop and promote Hawaiian music. • To improve its quality. • To enhance the standing and welfare of the Hawaiian musical community.

The role of The Foundation is to serve as a catalyst to the Hawaiian music movement, doing whatever possible to keep Hawaiian music alive-and well.

Proceeds from the sale of this booklet go toward helping the Foundation support its many activities, including such programs as scholarship grants for study and research and for educational programs such as sending Hawaiian entertainers into 's schools. Your support is appreciated.

MAHALO

This booklet published by THE HA WAIIAN MUSIC FOUNDATION August 1973 qQ.;' 'lQ11I THE STORY of the By Donald D. Mitchell The

"This invention of the Hawaiian school boy is the most significant contri­ bution by Hawai'i to music, the introduction of an entirely new technique for the playing of stringed instruments, at least as far as the western world is con­ cerned,". wrote Helen Roberts, a graduate of the University of Chicago School of Music. Miss Roberts was commissioned by the Legislature of Hawai'i in 1923 to make a thorough study of Hawaiian music, She, learned the story of the steel guitar while its inventor, Joseph Kekuku, was in Europe playing before dis­ tinguished audiences which included kings and queens.

HAWAIIAN INVENTIVENESS The desire and ability to invent and to adapt, a well-known characteristic of the Hawaiian- people, was practiced widely while they were living in their ancestral culture. In the field of music the Hawaiian chanters developed a unique style and a vast repertoire of olis and meles. The musicians, while continuing to make and use instruments styled from those of the islands to the south, invented new ones to satisfy Hawaiian needs. Of special credit to the genius of the Hawaiian musician-craftsmen are the large double gourd drums (ipu), the coconut knee drums (pu-nlul, the feather gourd rattle ('uli-'uli) and the triple gourd rattle ('ulili). These were not made elsewhere in the Pacific. It is natural that the Hawaiian musicians would welcome and play the European instruments when they were introduced. But they were capable of. adapting them to suit their own musical tastes.

GUITARS COME TO HAWAI'I Hawaiian musicians developed a slack key method of tuning and playing the Spanish guitar soon after its introduction to the islands (about 1830). The Portuguese brought guitars in 1870 and also the smaller, four-string braga, which Hawaiian musicians adapted into the 'ukulele. The Portuguese in Hawai'.i made guitars and 'ukuleles for their own use and for sale. Guitars became extremely popular among local musicians. Those who could not afford to purchase them made their own. They were prized as solo instru­ ments, they accompanied vocal music and they provided the rhythm for' the hula. Both, men and women played guitars and children learned by watching their elders. YOUTHFUL MUSICIANS In the village of Laie, on windward Q'ahu in the 1880's, the cousins Joe Kekuku and Sam Nainoa became close companions through their interest in music. By the time they were eleven years old Joe had become quite skilled with his guitar and Sam was equally proficient on his violin. Playing by ear and imitating the older musicians in the village the boys learned the beloved Hawai­ ian songs of the Kalakaua era. Joe was fascinated with the sustained, soothing tones that Sam produced on his violin. He wondered if he could somehow create violin-like sounds on his guitar. He reasoned that as he pressed the gut strings against the frets his fingers seemed to absorb the vibrations. Why not stop the strings with something quite different from his finger tips? He tried the back of his pocket comb, and then a glass' tumbler and was pleased with the resulting sounds. The cousins continued playing together and sometimes Joe took the lead on his new guitar while Sam followed with equally mellow tones on the violin.

MUSIC AT THE KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS In the fall of 1889 life changed dramatically for Joseph and Samuel. They were invited to be boarding students at The Kamehameha Schools in Honolu lu. They found their fellow students friendly but Honolulu was a long way from family and friends in Laie. Music was the best cure for homesickness for two fifteen year olds from the country. Among their schoolmates was Charles E. King, destined to be one of the greatest composers and publishers of Hawaiian music. Joe's room in .Dorrnitorv C was a favorite place for the two boys to play music during their free time. They were joined by school mates, some to play and others to sing. One evening during a pause fora moment's rest from playing and singing Joe sat with his guitar across his knees and reached into his pocket for his comb. As he combed his thick, dark hair the comb caught in a tangle and fell onto the guitar strings. Joe then recalled the experiments at Laie and repeated his novel music with the comb to the delight of the boys in the room. Simeon Nawaa, who had entered Kamehameha a year earlier than the Laie boys said of them, "They were good entertainers, and to our astonishment, Joe, besides playing the guitar the ordinary way, would shift to running a hair comb or tumbler on the strings producing a sweet sound, while Sam, the accompanist, followed him on his violin." Joe told Simeon of his earlier experiments. Edwin Kekuku later added to the story of his brother's interest in new ways of playing the guitar. He recalled that Joe was playing his guitar in his dormitory room at Kamehameha when a friend entered and handed him a small package. Joe placed his guitar on his lap and opened the gift which proved to be a pocket knife. As he unwrapped the knife it fell across the strings and caused them to vibrate. Joe slid the back of the knife across the strings and thought the sound better than that made by the comb. As he continued to use the knife he rea .. soned that the sound was clearer than that made by the comb because the knife was made of denser material. He needed a bar of metal that was heavier and more convenient to hold than a kn ife. Joe spent hours in The Kamehameha Schools machine shop designing and making his steel bar with the help of his instructor John Padigan. At last he produced a slim cylinder of steel about four inches long, convenient to hold in his left hand and able to slide noiselessly along the strings. While listening 'to zither music Joe observed that the wire strings vibrated longer than the gut strings on his guitar. He changed to wire and was pleased with the sustained tones. With his problems solved Joseph Kekuku introduced to his fellow students at Kamehameha and later to the world, a new method of playing the guitar.

THE STEEL OR HAWAIIAN GUITAR . This invention became known in Hawai'i as the steel guitar, although the instrument itself, of course, was not of steel but was made of wood. Musicians and music lovers on the Mainland and in Europe called it the Hawaiian guitar. Kamehameha students carried Kekuku's new way of playing the guitar to their home islands. Joseph worked to perfect his method of playing by note. In 1904 he left for the Mainland where he entertained and taught for 27 years. Between 1919 and 1927 he toured Europe with the Bird of Paradise troupe. Mrs. Kekuku sent this writer photographs of her husband and' information about his career in January, 1932, some two weeks before his death. She wrote that Joseph is "a great teacher of the steel guitar 'and is the possessor of one of the most beautiful guitars in the world. He taught either notes or numbers." Kekuku died at the age of 57 years and was buried in l.aie, O'ahu. During his travels Joseph met Helen Roberts, who had written the story of his Invention in Bishop Museum's publication, "Ancient Hawaiian Music." He verified the fact that he had developed this method of playing the guitar by progressing through the use of the comb, the knife and finally the steel bar.

OTHER INVENTORS'OF tHE STEEL GUITAR? Two men, well known in Hawaiian music circles, have suggested that the steel guitar, or the method of playing it, was invented earlier than 1893 and by persons other than Kekuku. There seems to be little evidence to support these claims. David M. Kupihea, keeper of the royal fishponds and an accomplished 'ukulele player, has credited James Hoa with this invention. Hoa used a comb, knife and perfume bottles to play chimes on his guitar.' Apparently he did not progress as far as using a steel bar and we do not know that he played melodies. Charles E. King named Gabriel Divion, who came to Hawai'i from India, as the discoverer of the style of playing the guitar with his knife about the year 1885. (King graduated from Kamehameha in 1891 and was in college in New York state in 1893 when Kekuku entertained the boys with his steel guitar). King credited Kekuku, however, with inventing the steel bar which gave the Hawaiian guitar the status of a first class musical instrument. I i

WIDESPREAD POPULARITY OF HAWAIIAN MUSIC The steel guitar's popularity reached all parts of Hawai'i and soon replaced the violin and flute as the lead instrument in Hawaiian orchestras. A steel guitar player, accompanied by several men or women playing standard quitars.v'uku­ leles and a bass constituted a typical music group in the late 1890's and for many years to follow. In the year 1897 some 569 guitars were imported into Hawai'i. At this time several Portuguese men were making guitars and ukuleles as a full-time business. Many individuals, handy with tools, made their own guitars. .Thepopularity of the steel guitar increased as the love of Hawaiian rnusic : swept across the Mainland. During the decade following Kekuku's invention in . 1893 news from Hawai'i was featured frequently on the front pages of the. largest Mainland newspapers. Some events that brought national attention to Hawai'i were: the end of the Monarchy; receptions for Queen Lili'uokalani in Washington and othercities and requests from the leaders of the Republic for Hawai'i to be admitted to the Union. The Spanish-American War brought thousands of vounqrnen through Hawai'i where they were entertained on ·their way to and from military duty in the Philippines. Then, when Hawai'i became the first off-shore Territory of the United States it was in the news as it had never been before. For manv, to think of Hawai'i was to dream of its music, especially the appealing tones of the steel guitars.

MAINLAND MUSIC STUD.lOS GO HAWAIIAN Music studios in all the major cities enrolled large numbers of students in their·Hawaiian music classes. The following are but three of the many academies that advertised by brochures or through the newspapers: Reids School of Popular Music, Chicago, was one of several that engaged Joseph Kekuku to give lessons on the Hawaiian guitar. He was billed .as the "inventor and foremost authority on the Hawaiian guitar." Guitarland in Norfolk, Virginia announced that Tony Saks was teaching the "world famous method of playing the steel guitar." "Aloha De," the first. song taught could be, they claimed, learned by a beginner in five minutes. Saks, on his first visit to Honolulu in 1967 after teaching the steel for 15 years, remarked, "The steel guitar is soulful when it gets in your blood you are hooked for life. The haunting beauty of it reaches your heart." The American Hawaiian Music Academy of Detroit had as its musical director in the 1920's Jack Raleigh, widely known steel player. In 1923, Detroit station WJR participated in the first transatlantic radio broadcast. One number beamed to Europe was Charles E. King's IINa Lei 0 Hawai'i" with Raleigh playing the. steel. Since 1946 Raleigh has been a Honolulu businessman, lured here through his love of the steel guitar which he first heard played by Pali Lua in Toronto in 1918. Many of the instructors in the Mainland music studios were Hawaiian young men who taught steel guitar and 'ukulele by day and played in clubs and caba­ rets at night. They taught Mainland musicians to play the Hawaiian instruments in order that they might provide instructors to meet the needs of the large numbers of students. During the 1920's and 30's there were more steel guitar teachers and many more students on the Mainland than in Hawai'i. Some Mexican, Spanish and Italian musicians introduced themselves as being Hawaiian. Several of the most talented of the Hawaiian steel guitar players never returned to their native Hawai'i except for brief visits. Bill C.' Malone, in his fifty-year history, "Country Music, U.S.A." (1968) ·wrote that Frank Ferara (Ferreira in Hawai'i) claimed to have introduced the Hawaiian guitar into the United States in 1900. Ferara accompanied popular hillbilly sinqers and recording artists and has been credited with the early com­ rnercial success of the steel guitar.

SHARING MUSIC THROUGHOUT THE LAND Thomas Edison, who gave the world the phonograph in 1887, personally developed special recording instruments and provided wax cylinders for his .friend Helen Roberts to use in collecting Hawaiian chants and the sounds of the musical instruments in the islands in 1923. . "The phonograph has done much to disseminate over the world ... Hawaiian vocal and instrumental music," wrote Miss Roberts in 1926, "and it is through th is means that most of the steel gu itar music has been made known." Hawaii's representative to a large Atlantic City convention of dealers in phono­ graphs and records in 1916 reported on his return that the Hawaiian records had larger sales everywhere on the Mainland than recordings of any other popular music. The Victor Talking Machine Company, but o"ne of several recording com­ panies, listed 146 Hawaiian records, and announced that their sales numbered in the thousands of records each month. The sentimental sounds of the steel guitar gave the special Hawaiian charm and flavor in these recordings. Until the late 1920's all Hawaiian musicians had to travel to the Mainland to record their music. In 1928 the Brunswick Company engaged and Charl.es E. King to select local music groups and make 110 records in Honolu lu.

EARL VVEARS OF THE STEEL GUITAR A number of teachers in Hawai'i and in the larger Mainland cities published and sold their own instruction books. The first few pages were devoted to a description of the guitar, diagrams for tuning and instructions for playing the Hawaiian _ way. Some instructors recommended steel bars which they had developed and were offering for one dollar, and also an adjuster to convert a standard guitar for steel playing, for fifty cents. The steel bar was described as being three inches long and one and one-eighth inches thick with the lower edge rounded and smoothly polished. It was held in the left hand between the ball of the thumb and the middle finger, the index finger resting on the upper edge of the steel. The bar was placed lightly against the strings directly over the fret designated to play the desired note. The vibrato or tremolo was made by an oscillatory motion of the steel over the strings. The strings were plucked with curved picks worn on the thumb, index and middle fingers of the right hand. A typical instruction 'book, usually priced at one dollar, offered some 30 to 50 songs with numbers and symbols explaining where to place the steel bar to produce the proper notes, and the scheme for picking and strumming. The songs were Hawaiian, hapa-haole and popular tunes. Each collection was sure, to include "Aloha 'Oe." Waltzes were considered easy to play while "Moana Chimes" and "Hilo March" were numbers to challenge the beginner. Books published far from Hawai'i contained such pseudos as "Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula" and "Wicki Wacki Woo." The wooden guitars used before the mid-1930's usually had six strings. The three treble strings were of silver wire, the bass strings were heavier and wound with fine wire. The strings on the steel must be held higher above the frets than those on a standard guitar. This is done by slipping an adapter, sometimes called an adjuster, under the nut, which corresponds to the last fret before the tuning keys. This metal device, with grooves for the six strings, lifts them about a quarter of an inch and enables the steel bar to pass readily over them Without touching the frets.

EXPOSITIONS, CHAUTAUQUAS AND VAUDEVILLE During the years after the steel guitar became the popular lead instrument, Hawaiian orchestras appeared personally before countless thousands at inter­ national expositions. Here are comments from the earlier years: Hawaiian musicians played throughout the day at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle in 1909. The musical offering in the Hawai'i Building was one of the biggest attractions at the entire Fair. Hawaiian music was the lure which brought thousands of visitors each day t~ the Hawai'i Pavilion of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Fran­ cisco in 1915. More recently Hawai'i has featured its music and culture at world's fairs held in New York, Chicago, Brussels, Seattle and Osaka and at smaller state and regional fairs. Countless numbers of people in small Mainland towns heard their first live programs of Hawaiian music at the tent chautauquas. From 1903 to 1930 the Chautauqua organization sent out entertainment circuits from town to town during the summer months. A large tent was erected in eachtown for a week to provide a place for the concerts, each of which was presented one afternoon or evening. A typical Hawaiian troupe on the Chautauqua circuit consisted of five or six musicians gathered around the steel guitar player. While seated he played his wooden guitar which was placed on his lap. His solos, played in soft unamplified tones, commanded respectful, almost breathless attention from the audience. He used a wide vibrato to sustain the tones and cause them to carry throughout the tent. Bill C. Malone, in "Country Music, U.S.A." wrote, "Hawaiian bands became stellar attractions in American vaudeville and theater circuits ... The Hawaiian musicians introduced an instrumental style and an instrument which has exerted profound and lingering influences upon countrv music ... When a Hawaiian unit visited an American town or hamlet, it was certain to leave behind a number of enthralled partisans and at least one young boy who began badgering his parents to buy him a guitar and enroll him in a steel guitar correspondence course. In like fashion, American bands featuring the Hawaiian guitar and playing both Hawaiian and native American tunes began to spring up throughout thecoun­ try." The first steel guitar recordings were made in Apri I of 1927 and the instru­ ment was electrified in .1935, according to Malone's latest studies. He names Frank Ferara, Pali Lua, Sol Hoopii and Joe Kaipo as early recording stars. More about these popular steel players of the early years and stories of today's artists are told in Tony Todaro's forthcoming book with the tentative title "Seventy-four Golden Years of Hawaiian Entertainment."

THE HAWAIIAN GUITAR IN FILMS Most movie patrons have heard the strains of the steel guitar in the sound films with Hawaiian or South Sea themes. The steel was prominent in the musical groups that accompanied singers Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley and others in their Hawaiian motion pictures. Little publicity was given to the use of the steel guitar while silent movies were being filmed. Some of our readers may remember emotional scenes from the silent pictures in which the heroines, among them Mary Pickford, shed tears and seemed genuinely sad. This sorrow was probably prompted by Hollywood's famous steel player, Sol Hoopii who, at the director's bidding, played "lrni 'Au ia 'De" or "E Mama E." Hoopii's guitar furnished the "mood music" to trigger the emotions in many silent films.

THE ELECTRIC STEEL GUITAR Local steel virtuoso, , remembers that the first electric steel guitars were made by Rickenbacker,Inco about 1935. The earliest ones, now affection­ ally called the "frying pan" or the "pan cake" are collector's items. The circular cast aluminum sound box and neck gave this small instrument the appearance of a frying pan. It featured an electric pick-up and volume control but no tone control. Amplifying the steel greatly increased its popularity. lnventive players 'continued to improvethe Hawaiian guitar. Local musician Ernest Tavares developed foot pedals to make intricate chord progression more simple. This scheme used a harp tuning principle which is accomplished with foot pedals. Byrd reports that he has seen as many as eight to ten foot and knee pedals on a ten string guitar. An active player on this instrument gave the 'appearance of dancing. During the 1960's most of the Waikiki hotels and night clubs replaced Hawai­ ian music with the new rhythm played by Mainland musicians. During this time one prominent hotel advertised that it featured the only Hawaiian show in Honolulu. Visitors to Waikiki are now requesting Hawaiian music and dancing and are patronizing the performances by local talent. (

Honolulu. musicdealers report that the Hawaiian guitar is gaining in popular­ ity with ·the heightened interest in Hawaiian music. One shop has had increased sales in steel guitars since the Hawaiian Music Foundation began to emphasize Hawaiian music and to sponsor steel guitar lessons. A Mainland manufacturer, in a recent cataloque, lists steel guitars selling for '$149.50 to $1,895. A buyer may select an instrument with one, two or three necks, with" 6, 7, 8 or 10 strings and from two to six foot pedals. Japanese manufacturers offer steels, some of which are copies of popular American models at about the-same prices. Cylindrical or tapered steel slide bars sell for $2. Some players use a "pinkie slider" ($1.50), a hollow steel cylinder which slips on the little finger of the left hand and is used to stop the stri ngs. A two-neck electricalsteel guitar, with eight strings on each neck, is the type commonly used in Hawai'i today. It mayor may not be fitted with pedals. These instruments of metal, decorated with chrome and enamel,are essentially a framework to hold the strings and tuning keys. They bear little resemblance to the traditional guitar. Jerry Byrd calls the modern steel guitar one of the most versatile musical instruments in the world. It is both a solo and a backup instru­ ment and can accompany any type of music, classical or popular.

NUMBER OF STEEL PLAYERS TODAY About 50 members of the Musicians Association of Hawai'i list the steel guitar either as their principle instrument or as one that they are able to play professionally. Perhaps not more than a dozen of them are playing the steel regularly now. There is no count of the number of amateur and youthful steel players who have not joined the Union. Byrd reported that the Nashville, Tennessee Musicians Union has about 125 steel guitar players among its members. Most of them are able to play Hawaiian music although their greatest demand is for country and folk songs.

As we, celebrate the 80th year of thesteel guitar and the 38th year of the electric steel we pay sincere tribute to those who invented and improved this beloved instrument. We salute the countless numbers of players who, through talent and hard work, have delighted so many listeners in Hawai'i and in many other parts of the world.

Kani ke klka kila! Hana hou! Hana houl Play the steel guitar! Play again and again!