Kalena Kai - Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar

Details

Description

This old song tells of beloved places and landmarks in the area surrounding Mount Ka`ala, the tallest peak on O`ahu. The text was originally a chant composed in the time of Kamehameha II, King Liholiho.

The Epiphone Masterbilt EF-500RCCE is tuned to taropatch F - same relative tuning as taropatch G but all the strings are lowered 1 whole step. So the tuning is spelled C F C F A C from low to high.

This video is also a bit of a test of the low light capabilities of the Kodak Zi8. This was shot at 10:00PM, with only about 80 watts of incandescent light available, in the form of two table lamps.

Audio was captured using a Zoom H2 as an external mic. Unfortunately my recording space is a lanai, with Kailua Beach on one side and a busy street on the other, and the breeze blowing through the trees all around, so there's a fair amount of noise in the clip.

I used Avidemux to trim the original clip, which required reformatting to MP4 from the original MOV container.