Hawaiian folk music started off as chanting, accompanied by rhythm instruments such as the gourd and drum.  The chants were used to transmit information, such as genealogy and mythology, and also to tell stories.  The word for song in Hawaiian is melee.  Chanting alone, often for religious purposes was called melee oli.  When drums and dancing were added, such as the occasions when hula was performed, the song was called melee ‘auana.

Starting in the late 18^th century, during the age of exploration, the people of the islands were exposed to outside influences.  The European and American missionaries brought their church hymns.  Later Mexican cowboys, or paniolos, introduced the guitar and the falsetto singing style.  Portuguese farm workers brought over instruments that developed into the ukelele, or the jumping flea, as it was referred to.

Between 1900-15, the Hapa Haole style of music came to be when English language songs were created that featured superficial Hawaiian elements.  Hawaii had recently been annexed and Hawaiian musicians traveled across the states performing on the vaudeville circuit.  In 1915 Hawaiian performers were featured at the Panama Pacific Fair in San Franciso, and a radio broadcast, Hawaii Calls, brought Hawaiian music into homes across America.  In the next few years, it outsold all other forms of popular music.

When it came to the guitar, most Hawaiians adopted their own open tunings of it, a style that has come to be known as slack-key.  Joseph Kekuku is often credited with inventing the steel guitar when he brushed a steel bar over the strings of a guitar in 1890.  If he wasn’t the one to invent the style, he was surely the one to master it.  In 1912 he appeared in a production of a musical called Bird of Paradise that featured Hawaiian music and costumes.  Other performers, such as Sol Hoopii, followed in his wake, introducing the steel guitar to millions.  Over time the slide style began to appear in blues and country and western music, as well.

I was introduced to the ukelele in third grade at Kaimuki Christian School when we were all taught to play it so we could perform Mele Kalikimaka at the Christmas pageant.  The most popular TV character on the islands at the time was a Japanese superhero named Kikaida, a half-android who rode a motorcycle with a sidecar.  Although I was no instrumental whiz, I still managed to pick out his theme song by ear, which got me some positive attention for a change.  All the cool kids lined up to be my friend.  I saw the rewards that the life of a musician can bring.

There are also some serious downsides.  It takes a long time to develop a craft such as learning how to play an instrument and write songs.  If no one supports you, you can find yourself in a terribly desperate spot.  Either way, you’ve got to be committed.  Beautiful music is timeless.  Even if you fail to it produce it, it is still a noble pursuit.  It’s what led to me sitting in Kapiolani Park in my mid-fifties, as broke as I’d ever been, still somehow getting a thrill about hearing a new song come into being.

When I was walking back to the hostel in the early evening, I came across another man with a ukelele strapped to his back and a wild look in his eye.  Roger told me he’d been living in the park for the past four years.  He was ready to get out of the city and go live off the land.  In the meantime, we traded songs. 

He played a song stuffed full of atonal jazz chords, at least I think that’s what they were, and hopped from foot to foot while he played.  When I played him my song, he played the same song over the top of it and continued hopping from foot to foot.  When we finished, his gangster partner flashed us both a shaka sign and we all bumped fists.  Even if you can’t keep time, you can always find a way to keep it real.