I ran across an article on acousticguitar.com today about Ledward Kaapana, a legendary Hawaiian slack-key guitarist, who gave a short interview (with mp3 examples) about his playing.

Kaapana began his solo career in 1983 with Lima Wella, his first solo album. He toured widely in 1992 through 1994 with the National Council for the Traditional Arts’ “Masters of the Steel String Guitar” Tour, alongside legendary players like Wayne Henderson, Jerry Douglas, Tal Farlow, John Cephas, and Albert Lee. In 1998, he recorded Waltz of the Wind (Windham Hill) with Alison Krauss, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, and others, and he has released two albums with Bob Brozman as well as a slack-key instructional video for Homespun Tapes. He has been nominated for three Grammy awards, including a 2009 Grammy in the Best Hawaiian Music Album category for Force of Nature, a duet album with Mike Kaawa.

“Hawaiian slack-key” is a traditional style of guitar playing handed down from generation to generation without formal training. The legend goes that Mexican cowboys sailed in, gave Hawaiians guitars, taught them how to play, and then sailed home, allowing that musical seed to grow and develop into the rich tradition that is modern Hawaiian slack-key guitar. Although some argue that the story is more complicated, it isn’t hard to see how this style of music has strong similarity to what you or I might call “early cowboy music.” What’s especially interesting about this music is that it is uniquely Hawaiian, due in part to Hawaii’s geographical isolation but also because it was generally thought of as not-for-public-consumption and more of a family-oriented activity. In fact, the first recordings of it did not occur until the mid-40′s, perhaps fifty years after those Mexican cowboys had sailed home.

The “slack” in Hawaiian slack-key comes from deep open tunings that are usually major and often include a major 7th or 6th. According to Wikipedia, these are some of the common slack-key tunings, which you might want to fool around with even if you could care less about Hawaiian slack-key:

Notice all those low C’s?

According to the Slack Key Guitar Book on dancingcat.com (George Winston’s record label, founded in part to promote the Hawaiian slack-key style), the various tunings give each song it’s personality.

Gee, I feel like I’ve learned something today.