Hard Hawaiian songs

Im looking to start playing some hawaiian songs but I would like them to be more difficult I can play a few jake songs and a James hill song so I'm wondering if there's any more hawaiian songs around that difficulties

I have seen a very beautiful arrangement of Waikiki that had a lot going on and used some fancier chords(that I couldn't even say). Don't know if its easy to find out there but I will see what I can find. Actually I think the user pekelo was da guy that had it!!

How about Troy Fernandez's On Fire? Or are you looking for traditional Hawaiian stuff?

Jumping Jim gone hawaiian has one or two challenging songs...not hard but fun...

BIGDB said:

Im looking to start playing some hawaiian songs but I would like them to be more difficult I can play a few jake songs and a James hill song so I'm wondering if there's any more hawaiian songs around that difficulties

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Try Peter Moon's stuff. Start at Kawika, work through Pandanus and after Tropical Storm you can go back and work on the ones with the chord progressions that go all over the map.

Aaron

I guess since you say Jake an James Hill guys you not talking about "traditional" Hawaiian kine musics, so maybe try check out the HIsessions show (youtube.com/hisessionsshow) for more local musicians an pick some songs

thedannywahl said:

I guess since you say Jake an James Hill guys you not talking about "traditional" Hawaiian kine musics, so maybe try check out the HIsessions show (youtube.com/hisessionsshow) for more local musicians an pick some songs

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Yeah I like the hi sessions. Lots of good people on there

Iwao has a fun version of Pandanus; the song starts about 2 minutes in; he has a really good drummer.


https://youtu.be/5R0DuJW0yiM

I find Guava Jam by the Ka'au Crater Boys to be a very satisfying song to play.
The Tabs are on Dominator's page.

Hawaiian Uke Songbook is great...love it, love it, love it. I posted a detailed overview of this book here on UU a few months ago. Quite a few songs require linear tuning.

It's not REALLY difficult, but Brad Bordessa's arrangement of E Ku'u Morning Dew (linear tuning arrangement) was the first Hawaiian tune I learned to play on uke from memory. Beautiful song.

The Brad-ster generously shares on his website just a truckload of helpful advice and resources. I probably won't ever have the chance, but he's one of several grassroots uke guys I hope to cross paths with someday to thank them in person.

Mahalo for the kind words. That arrangement is inspired a lot by Herb's version. I just put it in a tab!

So my take on this whole thing is: you can learn to play any "hard Hawaiian song" and it won't sound Hawaiian. You hear it all the time. People learn the right notes, but they make it sound like it's a folk song or a rock song or a Japanese song - anything but Hawaiian.

Just because you can play a Jake song and a James song doesn't mean you need a hard song to learn. Especially if you've never worked with this genre before, the challenge is not the amount of notes. The challenge is making it sound Hawaiian. It's a completely different touch and style. In fact, there aren't a whole lot of hard Hawaiian songs because that's not really what Hawaiian music is about. The greats are great because they can make a simple song sound so beautiful. Uncle Led plays I Kona all the time: C and G7. He's the best slack key player anywhere - why would he choose to play such an easy song?

If you don't already, I'd start listening to lots of the great Hawaiian musics: Peter Moon Band, Hui Ohana, The Lim Ohana, Dennis Pavao, Led Kaapana, Raiatea Helm, Gabby Pahinui, Sons of Hawaiian, Makaha Sons of Niihau, etc... It's going to be a lot easier to play the songs and have the feel if you've internalized as much of the music as possible.

That said, Peter Moon is your man. His stuff is out of control.

Here's da incredibly AWESOME Uncle Peter Moon!:cheers:

Here's one more:

Dis da last one:

I don't know dis bruddah personally ... but brah, gotta geeve you PROPS! You get some serious kine playing skills!!! Bruddah "mistahukulele808", if you one UU member, please chime in on dis Thread and showcase more of your playing skills! I downloaded da tab for Pandanus and gave em one good look ... den nevah even try em cause da buggah look supah hard fo someone like me!!! Maybe one day ....

slackkey007 said:

Dis da last one:

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No, dis da last one: