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From Keola:
One of my first revelations of the world of ki ho'alu - the Hawaiian slack key guitar - occurred when I was quite young. It taught me to look at the art form not so much as a skill or technique, but rather as a sweet story of life.
Many years ago, I sat on the porch with my grandfather. In the growing afternoon shadows, we listened to me sound of the wind and watched as it moved upon the open fields. I was a young man then and I had many questions about life. My questions were not very important and to this day I have absolutely no recollection of what they concerned. Still, I chattered on incessantly, looking to my grandfather for empathy and guidance. On that day, the old man didn't feel like speaking, so I slowly ceased talking and as the shadows of the clouds tumbled across the pasture, I sat quietly with my grandfather on those old wooden steps listening to the beautiful, soft sound of the wind.
It went on like that for quite a while, neither of us speaking, until my grandfather took out the guitar. Then, from the chords shimmering and deep, a melody began to appear. Soon there was a stirring bass line, with the melody framed in a sort of halo. The music seemed to grow more radiant and more evocative as the old man played on. It was as if the individual notes of his guitar had suddenly taken on a life of their own, luminescent in the evening air.
I wondered if my grandfather was trying to tell me something. Something that I couldn't quite get. "What's really happening here?" I asked myself. So I looked into my granfather's eyes and for the first time in my life I saw him really reaching out to me.
I quieted the foolish questions in my mind. I opened my heart.
It was a beautiful story. I heard of his love for the world, for his family, for my grandmother, for me. I heard of his conquests and disappointments. As he continued to play, this singing strings beneath his hands spoke of the qualities of life that fulfilled him and the little things he yearned for still.
Today, the strings of that old guitar sing in the deepest part of me. It seems a wonderful irony that my grandfather could have revealed so much of himself to me, yet had not spoken a single word. In that brief period of time I learned a great deal about the man of whose flesh and blood I was.
When Happy Traum of Homespun Tapes first spoke to me about the project, he mentioned the series title \"Listen and Learn\". I smiled and flew back across the years. In an instant I was there on that old porch, /"listening and learning./" The series title, is for me, an appropriate distillation of that experience of so many years ago.
Hawaiians have a similar concept of learning:
Pa'a ka waha - close the mouth (remember me yapping on the porch)
Ho'olohe - listen
Nana i ke kumu - look to the source and learn.
It is important to me that you understand that this book is not about me or my life's story. It is rather about yous. I will be your kumu (source), and together we will gather the tools you will need to help you form the skills to make this wonderful journey.
Perhaps someday, I will be fortunate enough to hear you play, for I believe that in the strings, your own story will unfold. Flying like the 'iwa bird and radiant in the cool evening air.
Keola Beamer
Kamuela, Hawai'i
February 18, 1998