Guitar | Hamakua Springs

Yesterday I took my friend Riley Smith and Nancy Alvord on a tour of our farm. We looked at bananas, and at tomatoes and sweet potatoes and the rushing water that will power our hydroelectric plant. We went to see banana ripening rooms and hydroponically grown cucumbers and sweet corn and other things.

I also took them “off road” to see what the original vegetation here looked like and told them what I hoped to do with it. Nancy commented that the ginger smelled good, and I was so surprised to notice that the yellow ginger flowers were starting to bloom everywhere. Just a week ago there was only a handful of flowers.

Later in the day, I went back to look again at what Nancy noticed. Sure enough, there were ginger blossoms everywhere and it was quite a difference from just one week ago.

It made me remember that “My Yellow Ginger Lei” was the first slack key song I learned from Pop.

I was reading the newspaper Sunday when I noticed the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo Spring 2008 schedule for its classes in the College of Continuing Education & Community Service. I don’t know why, but slack key guitar lessons came immediately to my mind.

I scanned straight down the alphabetical list to the S’s, and sure enough, there was “Slack Key Guitar” with Cyril Pahinui. Wow, Cyril Pahinui?! I have to sign up as soon as I can, I thought. I registered the next morning.

Informally, I’ve dabbled in playing slack key guitar since 8th grade. In high school my Pop gave me my great-grandma’s old Martin guitar. It was old, and the fingerboard had indentations in it from where Tutu Lady Meleana’s fingers wore out the wood. That was 47 years ago and I still have her guitar. I think it may be the possession I have had for the longest time.

I called Macario, Leslie’s husband, and told him I was going to the class. He’s a real musician, and he asked me if I wanted to use one of his guitars for the class because it will be easier to learn on than Tutu’s old Martin.

He explained that there are some really fine points regarding what kinds of strings to use. The technology has improved greatly from what I knew. It has to do with how high the strings are, how wide the neck is and how far apart the frets are spaced. He mentioned other things that I don’t know enough about to understand. I dropped by his house Monday morning and picked up the guitar.

When I have learned something about playing slack key, I look forward to putting my fingers on that worn wood where Tutu Lady’s fingers ran across the strings. And I hope I can learn to appreciate all those finer points.

But most of all, I am really looking forward to attending the class. It starts on February 12th, which seems so long from now. I’ve wanted to take slack key guitar lessons for as long as I can remember. And from Cyril Pahinui! It doesn’t get better!