Talk:Slack-key guitar

message: There are now anonymous editors who are rewriting this article. The influence of missionaries and church singing/music in Hawaii has been immense. The "imported cowboys" or "Paniolos" all were catholic by upbringing but frequented the local churches and sang the hymns and so were generation of Hawaiians taught. Missing that influence as key to the evolution of the slack key guitar and Hawaiian music is unfortunate and inaccurate. 
BTW, once again, Wahine is essentially a minor tuning as the open strings up the neck all sound a B6 minor chord if guitar was tuned with a D bass in the Taro Patch before the 3rd G string was detuned to F#. That's a D on the bass and F# B D, a simple inversion of B minor and the minor 3rd on bass....HuskyMoon 08:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Roots of Slack Key Guitar

message: I think that it is important to show how slack key is really a way to tune the guitar in a major or minor mode as opposed to the traditional guitar tuning in 4th.
This is the essence of the difference HuskyMoon 05:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What it is

message: More than once now I've removed links that do not contribute to an understanding of slack key's nature and history. As I understand Wiki culture, the External Links section is not the place for a directory of slack key players but for outside sources of authoritative information--thus the Dancing Cat and Keola Beamer sites are there for the background information they provide, not as promotions for their owners. Similarly, I've modified the Mike McClellan link to point to his page of slack key tunings (he was one of the first to codify/categorize them). See [] on Wiki propriety. RLetson 05:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: I believe that Slack tuning should be deleted, or possibly merged with Slack-key guitar.
Slack tuning is normally used as an alternate term for slack key guitar, but the article on slack tuning 
is about drop tunings used in rock and metal. It cites no sources whatsoever, and either needs sourdes or should be deleted/ merged into Slack-key Guitar.
Caoilte 3 August 2006
Slack key guitar as treated here is a Hawaiian tradition and style of playing named for the practice of retuning the guitar. I've never heard of tuning down one or more steps called "slack tuning" in the rock/pop worlds (though I'm no rocker)--the rock players I know might say "I'm tuned down a step" or some such. Blues players will refer to their tunings by their traditional names (e.g., Vestapol, open D, drop-D), but again I've never heard a bluesman call a tuning "slacked." Hawaiians, on the other hand, will refer to, say, taropatch tuning, "slacked down" to F# or F or whatever. Whatever is going on with the "Slack tunings" entry, it has nothing to do with Hawaiian slack key guitar beyond a perhaps mistaken or idiosyncratic use of the word "slack." RLetson 05:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed Deletion/ Merger

message: Re: the "Reqphoto" box above--Does anyone have public-domain photos that would work here? I'd favor one of the bust of Gabby, but the ones I know of are from the Honolulu newspapers or part of a site like Bla Pahinui's. Another possibility would be a concert photo of prominent older-generation players--the Gabby Band would be the obvious choice for me. Same problem here--I have access to all kinds of pix that belong to somebody else (record labels, newspapers, whathaveyou). RLetson 18:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pictures?

message: Huskymoon: Do you have a source for that material on tunings and church music? I've read everything I can find on the history and musicology of slack key and haven't come across that particular explanation before. If it's not source-able, I suspect it qualifies as the dreaded original research--and if it does have a source, I'd love to have the reference.
Blahedo: There's no single source for the assertion about which account most traditional Hawaiian players prefer--just read the interviews or the liner notes or listen and compare the stories offered in them with, say, Elizabeth Tatar's article on slack key in Hawaiian Music and Musicians. I take this to be one of those situations where an apparently unsourced comment is rooted in what anyone can see by looking at the field in question. RLetson 05:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we may have a difference of opinion about what constitutes original research here. The problem with the point being made is that it amounts to a conclusion based on a number of source-able facts. The fact that slack key is historically (and to some extent remains) an oral tradition makes dealing with some issues difficult--it is not a very well-researched area. As far as I can tell, though, the particular point presented in the revised lead paragraph has not been made in that form by any musicologist or other commentator--and that requirement is, frustrating as it is, one of the bases for a Wikipedia article. If Elizabeth Tatar or Amy Stillman or some other authority made this point, it would be fair game for inclusion here. But if it is a conclusion one of us has reached (however reasonably) after considering other already-established facts and ideas, then it amounts to original research. (In fact, it is exactly the kind of thing that many academics spend their careers doing.) Note the number of times the passage includes "because"--this is one sign of a line of argument being presented. In fact, I would suggest that there are other hypotheses that can account for the dominance of major and wahine tunings, but this article is not the place to put them forward--unless they are already part of a published historical/musicological discussion of the matter. I strongly suggest that we limit the contents of this paragraph to what is source-able. RLetson 18:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent edits

message: I have revised and expanded the material in the "Overview" section on how to tune to taro patch and integrated it with the "Techniques and Tunings" section lower down--this has the effect of eliminating the section but preserving some of the content. I also cut some material from there as not immediately relevant (for example, the historical roots of standard tuning) or not source-able (the proposition that slack key tunings, particularly taro patch, had a strong connection to church music). The musical-technical material really needs to be in one section and to strike a balance between too little and too much technical stuff. I also tweaked a few sentences in the History section. RLetson 06:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: More revisions

message: I removed a recent mention of Jim West, not because he does not deserve mention but because the insertion was abrupt and gives the impression of a promotional effort. Here's the edited-out section:
:Canadian  Jim "Kimo" West, perhaps better known as guitarist with "Weird Al" Yankovic, has released 3 slack-key albums, making him one of few well-known non-Hawaiian slack-key guitarists.
I suspect the intent was to show the spread of slack key outside of Hawai`i, and if that's the case, a connecting/transitional phrase would be in order, for example: "The tradition has gained followers beyond ethnic Hawaiians and residents of the Islands: for example, players X, Y, and Z have released albums." Among the players I would include in such a list would be Yuki Yamauchi (a student of Ray Kane's and big advocate of Hawaiian music in Japan). In fact, this point probably deserves its own paragraph, with some context-setting that includes the early attentions of Dave Guard (Hawaiian raised), Chet Atkins, and other players better known for their non-slack-key efforts. In such a context, the Jim West material would seem less intrusive. RLetson 16:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Other players

message: Partly in response to players being inserted in the text without enough setup, I've done a little reworking to provide a context/framework for such additions. I don't know why I didn't include the three women earlier--they're all noteworthy as musicians and in Haunani Apoliona's case also important in general cultural matters. Non-Hawaiian players are also becoming enough of a part of the story to get some attention, and while I do not think this article should turn into an endless list of everybody who plays slack key everywhere, there may be room for another representative or two to show how the tradition is spreading. A third category that might be added is the newest generation of players: George Kahumoku's 30-something son Keoki, 20-something Makana (who studied with Sonny Chillingworth); and teenaged Danny Carvalho (a student of Ozzie Kotani's) and Brittni Pavia. There are probably others I haven't thought of as well. RLetson 17:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A bit of reworking

message: Editor Phutchi12 inserted a "disputed" comment into the body of the entry after the assertion that slack key "was not even recorded until 1946-47": "DISPUTED - SEE SOL HOOPII." If this means "see the WP entry on Sol Ho`opi`i for evidence to the contrary," there is no mention of slack key there. If it means "there are sources that indicate that Sol Ho`opi`i recorded slack key earlier than 1946-47," then those sources need to be cited. Pending that, I removed the comment. RLetson (talk) 23:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Earliest recorded slack key

message: Been a while since I last visited this article, and I notice a number of problems, a couple of which I've fixed. 1) All the accounts I can find identify the cowboys imported to manage Kamehameha's cattle as Mexican or Californian (at the time not really a distinction), not Portuguese; 2) they arrived in the early 19th century; and 3) the Hawaiian music craze of the early 20th century is distinct from "Tiki culture," and I removed that Wikilink. When I have the time, I'll restore the sources for those. (They're actually already present in the references and need only update-checks and links.) RLetson (talk) 19:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Miscellaneous issues