There is a mystique surrounding slack key guitar music – it is very personal, and can be very magical in feeling. Slack key guitar music is sweet and soulful, and it is said that slack key is drawn from the heart and soul out through the fingers of each player. These currents run deep in slack key guitar playing, as accompaniment to vocals, as instrumental compositions or as interpretations of vocal pieces. But it is the tropical surroundings of Hawai’i, with its oceans, volcanoes and mountains, waterfalls, forests, plants and animals, that provide the deepest source of inspiration for Hawaiian music.

Many Hawaiian songs and slack key guitar pieces reflect themes like stories of the past and present and people’s lives. Each tuning produces a lingering sound behind the melody and has a characteristic resonance and fingering. In this tradition, the strings (or “keys”) are “slacked” to produce many different tunings, which usually contain a major chord, or a chord with a major 7th note, or sometimes one with a 6th note in it. Kī hōʻalu, which literally means “loosen the key,” is the Hawaiian language name for the solo fingerpicked style unique to Hawai’i. Hawaiian slack key guitar ( kī hōʻalu) is truly one of the great acoustic guitar traditions in the world. Artwork of Keola & ʻOhana (Family) by Maui Artist Ken Kennel