The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks. Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar.Unterberger, pages 465–473 In addition, the music which began to be played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii in the early 1900s is called cachi cachi music, on the islands of Hawaii.
The traditional music of Hawaii's Native Hawaiian community is largely religious in nature, and includes chanting and dance music. Hawaiian music has had a notable impact on the music of other Polynesian islands; Peter Manuel called the influence of Hawaiian music a "unifying factor in the development of modern Pacific musics".Manuel, pages 236–241
Music festivals and venues Major music festivals in Hawaii include the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival, which brings together hula groups from across the world, as well as a number of slack-key and steel guitar festivals: Big Island Slack Key Guitar Festival, Steel Guitar Association Festival and the Gabby Pahinui/Atta Isaacs Slack Key Festival. April's Aloha Week is a popular tourist attraction, as is the Moloka'i Music Festival held around Labor Day. There was also a Hawaii International Jazz Festival, which ran from 1993 until 2007. The annual Pacific Rim Jazz Festival occurs in mid-autumn at the Hawaii Convention Center. The annual Manoa Jazz & Heritage Festival takes place in early autumn at the Andrews Amphitheatre on the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus.
Hawaii is home to numerous hotels, many of which feature music in the afternoon or evening; some of the more prominent ones include the Kahala Hilton, the Sheraton Moana Hotel, the Sheraton Waikiki, the Halekulani, Casanova's and the King Kamehameha Hotel. Large music venues in Hawaii include the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo Performing Arts Center, which has 600 seats and is the largest venue on the Big Island. A 560-seat venue and cultural exhibition center on Kauai is the Kauai Community College Performing Arts Center. In Honolulu, the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena, Concert Hall, and Exhibition Hall are three of the largest venues in the state. Other venues for Hawaiian music on Oahu include the Waikiki Shell, an establishment used primarily for concerts and entertainment purposes. Over the years many local, as well as international artists, have graced the stage there. It is a unique outdoor theater located in Kapiolani Park. This venue seats 2,400 persons, with the capacity to hold up to 6,000 more on the lawn area. Concerts, graduation ceremonies, and hula shows are very popular at this site, as well as Kennedy Theatre and Andrews Amphitheatre on the campus of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the Blaisdell Center Concert Hall, the Hawaii Theatre in downtown Honolulu, the Red Elephant (a performance space and recording studio in downtown Honolulu), Paliku Theatre on the campus of Windward Community College, and the Leeward Community College Theatre.Honolulu Theatres & Auditoriums, retrieved on November 13, 2010. The historic Lanai Theatre is a cultural landmark on Lanai, dating back to the 1930s.
Music institutions and industry Hawaii is home to a number of renowned music institutions in several fields. The Honolulu Symphony Orchestra is an important part of the state's musical history, and is the oldest orchestra in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains, founded in 1900. The Orchestra has collaborated with other local institutions, like the Hawaii Opera Theatre and the Oʻahu Choral Society, which sponsors the Honolulu Symphony Chorus and the Honolulu Chamber Choir.
Numerous businesses have been created supporting the special musical styles and instruments suited to the Hawaiian musical tradition. The Guitar and Lute Workshop was an early manufacturer and proponent of specialty slack-key guitars in the early 1970s, and the Kamaka Ukulele company was established as key manufacturer of ukuleles for Hawaiian musical acts.
Folk music
Hawaiian folk music includes several varieties of chanting (mele) and music meant for highly ritualized dance (hula). Traditional Hawaiian music and dance was functional, used to express praise, communicate genealogy and mythology, and accompany games, festivals and other secular events. The Hawaiian language has no word that translates precisely as music, but a diverse vocabulary exists to describe rhythms, instruments, styles and elements of voice production. Hawaiian folk music is simple in melody and rhythm, but is "complex and rich" in the "poetry, accompanying mimetic dance (hula), and subtleties of vocal styles... even in the attenuated forms in which they survive today".
The chant (mele) is typically accompanied by an ipu heke (a double gourd) and/or pahu (sharkskin covered drum). Some dances require dancers to utilize hula implements such as an ipu (single gourd), iliili (waterworn lava stone castanets),uliuli (feathered gourd rattles), pu`ili (split bamboo sticks), or kalaau (rhythm sticks). The older, formal kind of hula is called kahiko, while the modern version is auana. There are also religious chants called oli; when accompanied by dancing and drums, it is called mele hula pahu.
In the pre-contact Hawaiian language, the word mele referred to any kind of poetic expression, though it now translates as song. The two kinds of Hawaiian chanting were mele oli and mele hula. The first were a cappella individual songs, while the latter were accompanied dance music performed by a group. The chanters were known as haku mele and were highly trained composers and performers. Some kinds of chants express emotions like angst and affection, or request a favor from another person. Other chants are for specific purposes like naming, (mele inoa), prayer (mele pule), surfing (mele he'e nalu), and genealogical recitations (mele koihonua). Mele chants were governed by strict rules, and were performed in a number of styles include the rapid kepakepa and the enunciate koihonua.
Music history Historical documentation of Hawaiian music does not extend prior to the late 18th century, when non-Hawaiians (haoles) arrived on the island. From 1778 onward, Hawaii began a period of acculturation with the introduction of numerous styles of European music, including the hymns (himeni) introduced by Protestant missionary choirs. Spanish-speaking Mexican cowboys (paniolos), were particularly influential immigrants in the field of music, introducing string instruments such as the guitar and possibly also the technique of falsetto singing, while Portuguese immigrants brought the ukulele-like braguinha. Also immigrants from all over the world had brought their own instruments along with them to the islands.
Elizabeth Tatar divided Hawaiian music history into seven periods, beginning with the initial arrival of Europeans and their musical cultures, spanning approximately from 1820 to 1872. The subsequent period lasted to the beginning of the 20th century, and was marked by the creation of an acculturated yet characteristically Hawaiian modern style, while European instruments spread across the islands. Tatar's third period, from 1900 to about 1915, saw the integration of Hawaiian music into the broader field of American popular music, with the invention of hapa haole songs, which use the English language and only superficial elements of Hawaiian music; the beginning of the Hawaiian recording industry was in 1906, when the Victor Talking Machine Company made the first 53 recordings in the territory."Footsteps in the Dark: The Hidden Histories of Popular Music"; By George Lipsitz; page 228; Publisher: University of Minnesota Press; ; By 1912, recorded Hawaiian music had found an audience on the American mainland.Tatar, Elizabeth, in George Kanahele's Hawaiian Music and Musicians Puerto Rican immigration to Hawaii began when Puerto Rico's sugar industry was devastated by two hurricanes in 1899. The devastation caused a worldwide shortage in sugar and a huge demand for the product from Hawaii. Hawaiian sugarcane plantation owners began to recruit the jobless, but experienced, laborers in Puerto Rico. They took with them their music and in the early 1900s introduced what is known as Cachi Cachi music, on the islands of Hawaii.
From 1915 to 1930, mainstream audiences outside of Hawaii became increasingly enamored of Hawaiian music, though by this time the songs marketed as Hawaiian had only peripheral aspects of actual Hawaiian music. Tahitian and Samoan music had an influence on Hawaiian music during this period, especially in their swifter and more intricate rhythms. The following era, from about 1930 to 1960, has been called the "Golden Age of Hawaiian music". National radio host Webley Edwards, broadcasting from Honolulu, first introduced most Americans to authentic and adapted for orchestra and big band styles through his popular hour-long radio show Hawaii Calls. Hawaiian performers like Lani McIntire, John Kameaaloha Almeida and Sol Hoʻopiʻi became mainstream stars as regulars on the show and through live performances. In the 1960s, Hawaiian-style music declined in popularity amid an influx of rock, soul and pop acts from the American mainland. This trend reversed itself in the final period of Hawaiian music history, the modern period beginning with the Hawaiian Renaissance in the 1970s and continuing with the foundation of a variety of modern music scenes in fields like indie rock, Hawaiian Rap (Na mele paleoleo) and Jawaiian.
Liliʻuokalani and Henri Berger
Queen Liliʻuokalani was the last Queen of Hawaii before the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown. She was also a musician and prolific composer who wrote many musical works. She was best known for Aloha 'Oe. A compilation of her works, titled "The Queen's Songbook", was published in 1999 by The Queen Lili'uokalani Trust.
Lili'uokalani was one of many members of the Hawaiian royal family with musical inclinations. They studied under a Prussian military bandleader, Henri Berger, who was sent by the Kaiser at the request of Kamehameha V. Berger became fascinated by Hawaiian folk music, and wrote much documentation on it. However, he also brought his own musical background in German music, and heavily guided the Hawaiian musicians and composers he worked with.
King Kamehameha V also, in 1847, sent to Germany for a "band Leader" for "The Kings Own Band", now the Royal Hawaiian Band, William Mersberg, from Weimar, Germany. He is Henry Kaleialoha Allen's great grandfather. Henry Kaleialoha Allen is "one of Hawaii's Living Treasures of Hawaiian Music" and a master music educator and has been honored many times on the Senate Floor and by the Legislature for such.
Guitar innovations Guitars could have come to Hawaii from several sources: sailors, missionaries, or travelers to and from California. The most frequently told story is that it accompanied the Mexican cowboys (vaqueros) brought by King Kamehameha III in 1832 in order to teach the natives how to control an overpopulation of cattle. The Hawaiian cowboys (paniolo) used guitars in their traditional folk music. The Portuguese introduced an instrument called the braguinha, a small, four-stringed Madeira variant of the cavaquinho; this instrument was a precursor to the `ukulele.