Kenneth Makuakāne

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Steve Jobs

I really enjoyed reading about these people. I knew some of them for obvious reasons. Steve Jobs is, of course, one of my favorites. Each personʻs story would be a great article in itself. This makes me want to do my own analysis of 10 people that I look up to for my inspiration. What a neat concept!

I was so excited today, because my dear friend came to visit me at home. She has been one of my mentors and the woman who started my career TWICE. It was so nice to sit and chat with her about old times and old friends. What was suppose to be an hour turned into over two hours of conversation. I was sad when she said that she had to be at a business luncheon. I will elaborate on our longstanding friendship in another blog post later on.

(PRESS HERE to see the Wa‘a Kaulua video.)

I had such a long day, but this performance at the end of my day made it all worthwhile. I showed up at the 2nd Annual Gabby Pahinui concert and jumped onstage with my good friend Kawika Kahiapo. Also joining us was 19 year old kī ho‘alu sensation Danny Carvalho. Speaking of Danny, I was so impressed with him, because he is so good at such a young age. By good, I mean that he can follow just about any song you throw at him, because he has such great ears to hear chord changes. He knows when to lay out and when to add.
Of course Kawika is a veteran songwriter, performer and all around good guy. I am very appreciative that he let me play with him on his set. Cyril Pahinui emailed me earlier in the week and said to come down with my guitar and jump in. I love doing that kind of thing. The spontaneous exchange of creativity is like no other feeling.
The crowd was so receptive and it was packed to the gills. The beach park was the perfect place to have this concert, because everyone was allowed to park on the grounds. Itʻs usually difficult to find a parking space on the road. This event looks to blow up into a yearly cultural event in the coming years, especially since itʻs free to the public. I can foresee it busting out to at least three times the size in the future.

I will be doing a special concert with Nashville producer/songwriter Jeff Lokomaika‘i Dayton. We will be playing our original compositions and sharing some life stories. Please join us this Thursday at Trees Lounge on the island of Kaua‘i 8:30 – 11:00pm. For those of you on the island, come on down and enjoy some great music with friends and family. Hope to see you there!

This is a blog by my friend Keola Donaghy from his blog site regarding the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts Board of Governors Elections and Email blast issue.

Keola Donaghy:
HARA members should have received their ballots for the HARA Board of Governors election last week. If you did, please mail them by Friday, October 16, 2009. If you did not receive one please contact the HARA office by calling (808) 593-9424 or (808) 548-9424.

I also have some thoughts I’d like to share on the email blasts which have been sent out from the HARA office in support of certain candidates over the past week.

HARA does offer a service to all HARA members – the use of HARA’s member postal and email list to distribute information. This is a paid service, and the cost depends on which service you use, and in the case of postal mail, what kind of mail it is (postcard, letter, CD/DVD package, etc.) The most common use of this service is during the voting process for the Nā Hōkū Hanohano awards – artists and labels can use the service to send out postcards, letters, copies of CDs or “email blasts” to inform members about their entries and nominees.

I have no problem with HARA offering this service. In the case of both Nā Hōkū and Board of Governor voting, it can help to level the playing field – artists and those seeking a seat on the Board of Governors who are less known by the membership have the opportunity to let potential voters know about their releases or candidacy.

I have some reservations about a recent email blast that went out in support of a substantial list of candidates – 11 candidates were endorsed by a group only identified as “their friends and family”, even though only five seats are open for the election. I learned from our office staff that the endorser(s) requested anonymity, which I found even more troubling. I began to wonder if the endorsement was as much an endorsement of those candidates, or against those not listed as there were far more listed on the endoresment than were not.

I have discussed this situation with some of my colleagues on the Board of Governors, and we will be addressing it at our meeting this week. I’m still not sure how I really feel about this. Regardless, members should know that no email blast that comes from the HARA office is an endoresment by HARA or its Board of Governors, and this fact is stated clearly in each email blast that goes out.

If any HARA member has a strong feeling one way or another about this service in either context – for Nā Hōkū Hanohano voting or for the Board of Governor election, please feel free to share your thoughts with me.

I have come to realize that the degree of proficiency in anything, including songwriting, guitar playing, engineering and producing is in direct correlation with usually high amounts of time spent improving the skill. Once acquired, it needs to be additional time invested to just stay in the status quo.

In my songwriting consciousness, I continually search out new musical styles in any language to study rhythmic patterns, chord structures, vocal phrasings, and arrangement nuances. I’ve noticed that the current songs don’t draw in the listener like the older song arrangements. The intros into the first verse seem more like a plastic drum fill salad. There is no musical hook, some catchy instrumental melody or just breathing space the listener can grab on to from the beginning. I’m not bashing anything, only observing society-accepted changes. Seems that in a world of fast moving information, the listener wants to get down and dirty, sans the romantic lead-in; let’s skip introductions, what do you have to say to me.

As I have stated, I put in a lot of time listening to new sounds in order to keep pace with the current happenings. I do have style preferences, but I enjoy all kinds of music because I respect all forms of self-expression.

For every style there is someone out there who can relate. It’s that sympathetic vibratory physics thing that goes on in our energy fields. I have this acquaintance that doesn’t really care for the stuff on the radio but listens anyway. She was driving down the road, heard this singer emoting this song, started crying and had to pull over to regain her composure. She had no clue who was singing, what the name of the song was or anything else, so she later sang a bit of the melody to her daughter who immediately said it was a song called 100 Years by the group 5 For Fighting. Songs resonate in people, allowing their senses to truthfully overwhelm their physical being. This is the beauty of a song, the essence of life, the power of the human spirit.

Face it, I’m in the intangible business of moving air; how nuts is that!

Free Kamaka ukulele to member with highest points over 500..

Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo, HI

I am traveling to Hilo this week to be a part of the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival. While on the Big Island, I will be performing at different locations throughout the week. You can check out my calendar for specific performance times and venues.

One of the fun things I will be doing is speaking about collaborative works in contemporary Hawaiian language and musical composition, along with UH-Hilo Hawaiian language professor Keola Donaghy at the Imiloa Astronomy Center on Thursday morning. I hope to video our conversation and post it on YouTube some time in the future.

Blue Manoa (click on the name to view the video)

Today I did an interview with Japanese DJ Sachiko Uchida Kaaihue on J-Wave radio.  She was asking me several questions about my career and my newest release entitled “The Dash” which is available online at iTunes and at Islandbeats.

During the course of the interview, I was asked to sing one of the songs from the new CD. I decided to do the song Blue Manoa, which I wrote for the communityʻs battle against the electric company who wanted to eradicate the the mountain top of Wa‘ahila ridge in order to string power lines for a new sub-station. This song talks about a person coming home to Manoa, hoping that his childhood memories are still intact. It is a resounding theme for each of us who has moved away from home, only to return to drastic changes…….