In 2006, I went to Honolulu to build a ukulele by hand.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

One Down, 49 To Go


Last night I went to the Tropics Bar and Beach Cafe at the Hilton Hawaiian Village to see a performance by Herb Ohta, Jr. and David Kamakahi. Both of them are accomplished ukulele players, and both have excellent Hawaiian music pedigrees. David's father, Dennis Kamakahi, is renowned on the slack-key guitar, a uniquely Hawaiian guitar-playing style. Herb's father, Herb Sr., is better known as Ohta San, and is nothing short of a ukulele legend.

When I was talking to Cal at The Hawaiian Ukulele Company the other day, he said that what he thinks makes these guys so great is that if you watch them play, you say "I could do that." He was right. When I watched them play, I didn't feel like they did anything that I couldn't do, but the truth is that I'll never be able to do what they do. It's only that they do it so well that they make it look easy.

Few of the people at the beachside bar knew who was playing. Most of them had just crawled out of the ocean for pina coladas and mai tais, and I was able to get the table nearest to the stage even having shown up nearly an hour into the three-hour set. Both Herb and David were generous enough to talk to me and let me take pictures with them. Kazuo from my class saw them play at the same bar on Wednesday and was blown away by the fact that he was able to sit so close and talk to these guys. I mentioned before that the ukulele is wildly popular in Japan, and Kazuo says that in Japan you can't be in the same room with Herb Ohta, Jr. for less than $60 (or whatever the equivalent is in yen). I can't decide if that makes me wish I were Japanese or makes me glad I'm not, but it certainly makes me even more excited for my trip to Japan in October.

After they finished their set, I walked down Kalakaua Avenue to see my virtuoso classmate, Taimane, play in front of the Pacific Beach Hotel, where she plays every Friday at 9:00 pm. There are lots of buskers on Kalakaua, Honolulu's main drag, mostly of the guy-painted-silver-who-moves-like-a-robot-if-you-put-money-in-his-bucket type. Most had a handful of onlookers, but the crowd surrounding Tai essentially blocked pedestrian traffic for a city block. Although I saw a snippet of her repertoire at the Don Ho show last week--and she's played tidbits here and there during our uke-building class this week--this was the first time I was able to see her play her heart out. She really shreds. She played my uke yesterday after I put the strings on and I was afraid she'd demolish it before I got it into the case I bought for it, but she went easy on it. Good thing, because I'm not sure I built it well enough to withstand the intensity of her playing.

One more thing: I said yesterday that I was finished with my uke. I lied. True, I finished building it, but it isn't done yet. Remember that I put a coat of Tru-Oil on it? Mike says I need to put 10 coats on before I sand it again. After that, I need to put a few more coats on, sanding between each coat. How many more? Only about forty. Since each coat needs to dry thoroughly before the next is applied, it will take me at least a month before I'm really done.

But at least I can play it between coats.

[view today's photos]

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Congratulations on finishing you're ukulele! It looks nice! All the ukes from the class look nice in fact.
I've been enjoying reading about the experience. Thanks for the link to KINE 105, now I can listen to real Hawaiian music on a real Hawaiian station.
Have fun with the rest of the trip!

Jul 23, 2006, 5:10:00 AM

 

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