Tunings of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar

By: Bruce Lamb

If you have read one of my earlier articles on how I got started playing guitar and in particular Hawaiian Ki ho alu Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar I mentioned how us young teenagers living in Hawaii on the Island of Oahu would gather on the corner at night under a big mango tree and share our different music. I also mentioned we would play the popular music that was on the radio. Acoustic Blues was always my favorite style of music.

I liked the deep pre-war acoustic stuff that was mainly played by some of the older black community. I think the only reason you could find this music in Hawaii at that time was that the late night DJ was a black Guy. And as it turned out most of the lyrics and progressions were remade by the hot new bands at that time. Bands like the Rolling Stones were doing some of those old black songs like I can't get no satisfaction and I followed her to the station. Also Eric Burden and the animals were also redoing old blues songs. Ok I know I am showing my age now at 60 years old and it is hard to believe that those songs by these new artists are over 45 years old now.

Then I mentioned that the Hawaiian guys would always end the evening with a more traditional style of music by retuning their guitars. I could never get them to show us how or what they did but there was a silent code between them. While one guy was talking story or noodeling around with his guitar the other guy would be retuning. Before long they were both in this new tuning. I think it gave them great satisfaction in keeping this secret from us. As it turned out both guys would be in tune and would begin to play and sing Hawaiian songs. It was so enchanting and captivated me and I really wanted to try and play along but I could never figure out why my guitar was always so out of tune all of a sudden. It took me almost the entire summer to realize my old Stella guitar could be tuned in this magical type of tuning.

Finally the big secrete was revealed to me. I was working after school at the Marine Base in Aiea Hawaii as a janitor cleaning up the enlisted mens club which is a bar for the young Marines. It was strange that at that time in Hawaii the drinking age was only 18 years old. Anyway I worked with an old Hawaiian guy named Sammy. While we were on our lunch break I pulled my guitar out and Sammy said to me hey bradda Bruce try pass me the guitar already, in his style of pig English.

I handed him the guitar and he immediately began to retune the strings. Then the secret was revealed to me. Sammy began to tell me how many families in the Hawaiian communities actually had their own tunings that they played exclusively. The families would not share or teach anyone outside their immediate family this tuning because it was passed down from generations before. It was theirs for the keeping and is what made there families music different sounding from others. Its kind of like I guess how a magician will not show how a magic trick is preformed. The tuning that old Sammy showed me was the Taro Patch Tuning.

The Taro Patch tuning is the most common tuning in most of the Hawaiian songs. As it turned out I began to realize that this tuning was also used in many of the old blues songs that I heard from the old records that I had. It was also known as open G tuning that many bottleneck blues players would use. This tuning is a major tuning. The guitar is tuned to a major G chord or has a major chord within the tuning. To achieve this tuning you have to lower the tension on the standard tuning known as standard Spanish Tuning which is (E-A-D-G-B-E) on your guitar,from the lowest to the highest pitched string.

To get the Taro Patch tuning you have to change the pitch of the guitar strings to (D-G-D-G-B-D) which when you strum across all the strings it is the sound of a G major chord. I strongly suggest you use a electronic tuner to achieve this because you may break some strings until you understand the tuning.

Author Resource:-> Bruce Lamb ,Music Video Producer. Playing guitar 40 years.

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