For our final blog for the semester, we were told to pick a different country than the ones we discussed in class. For my pick I wanted to do Hawaii! Surprisingly, there are a lot of different aspects in their music than what we are used to. These aspects are their religion influence, music aspects of instruments, and their dances.
The most dominant religion of Hawaii is called animism. Animism is a polytheistic religion, which means that there are many deities that the people of this religion worship. The deities are a representation of everything in nature and inanimate objects. The animism religion is meant to bring a sense of balance and order, for example the life-death or the ying-yang relationship. The most popular way that followers worship in this religion is chanting. There are trained storytellers that teach others how to chant stories about the deities. The trained storytellers teach other from the chant records book called "The Kumlipo". However today there is a mixture of religions; in 1820s missionaries brought over and taught the population about Christianity, also the Chinese and Japanese brought over the religions of Buddhism, Confucianism, Toaism, and Shintoism.
The Hawaii music culture has been split into 2 categories, ancient folk music and modern music. The ancient folk music is more focused on the religious chants and the modern music appeals more to the younger generations.
The ancient folk music purpose is to praise and god and goddesses of the animism religion, delineate genealogy, and to share myth stories. This often involves religious ceremonies with dancing, music, and chanting. The chanting is also separated into 2 styles mele oli meaning acapella songs and mele hula meaning songs with dancing. The mele chants come with strict rules, and is meant to express emotions of the story the chanter is telling. The most common emotions are anxiety, affection, or a favor. The chanting happens at events of naming a child, prayer, or surfing. There are also festivals with competition and games, similar to Native Americans powwows.
This is an example of the mele oli because he is singing with no accompaniment.
This is an example of mele hula. It contains a group that are all dancing and singing, it also contains a drum in the background
The modern Hawaiian music style appeals much to the younger generations and is more of we listen to. This contains Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Jawaiian music. The artist Gabe Baltazar, Robert Shinoda, and DeShannon Higa are the biggest jazz musicians in Hawaii. The Hip-Hop movement has been the most recent music that has reached Hawaii. It reached Hawaii and has continued to grow since the 1980s. The biggest artist for the Hip-Hop style is Kavet the Catalyst. Jawaiian is the music style in Hawaii that I have never heard of. This is described as Hawaiian reggae; sadly it ended in 1900 but while it was alive it dominated the music scene.
This video is a song from Gabe Baltazar called "Makaha Surf".
This a video of Kavet the Catalyst and his song "Mann Up".
The band Pohaku is an example of the Jawaiian music style, that is this video
The traditional instruments of Hawaii is very different than I would have thought of. Many people only think of the ukulele when someone says Hawaii, however; there are many other instruments that are used more often. Many of these instruments that are used are idiophones. The first instrument is the ipu hula, this is made with 2 gourds at different sizes- the smaller gourd is on top and the bigger gourd is put on the bottom. There is a hole at the top of the smaller gourd and the noise is made when the bigger gourd is hit. Next is the ka'eke'eke; it is made with 2 bamboo tubes, the musician is kneeling and beats the tubes against the ground, the sound comes out the top of the tubes. The 'ili'ili are stone castanets. These are mostly used by the dancers, when the dancers flex their fingers the stones hit together and make sounds. The next instrument is the kala'au, this is called concussion sticks. These are the only not natural idiophones, they are required to made from a machine from coffee wood. To play them, all you have to do is hit the sticks together. Lastly, the final idiophone is 'uli'uli, these are shakers made from gourd filled seeds and normally played in pairs.
The other instruments have a significant role for the Hawaiian music are the membranophones. The most common membranophones are pahu and puniu, these are normally played together in many of the religious chants. The pahu can be played by itself, it was also named the official traditional instrument of Hawaii in 2015. It is made from coconut and sharkskin and it is hit with fingers of the musician. The puniu is usually played by the same drummer who plays the pahu. It is, also, made from coconut but it is played with a fiber mallet.
Finally the dance aspect of the Hawaiian music culture! The dance style in Hawaii is named hula, and is all about storytelling. It can be paired with chants and contemporary, slow and sentimental music, or with fast and energetic music. Hula is suppose to animate history, genealogy, and the prophecy of ancestors. There are 2 kinds of hula, hula kahiko and hula auana. Hula Kahiko is the ancient hula. It is used in extension of a ceremony; it is put to an oli with mainly percussion instruments. The word "ancient" is a misunderstanding with this kind of hula because it continues to be present and grow in nowadays Hawaii. Hula auana is modern hula. It is less formal and usually performed without ceremony. Also, it is accompanied with song and string instruements such as, guitar, bass, steel guitar, and ukulele.
