Unless given a reprieve by Congress, many independent webcasters will be run out of business soon. Many podcasters, who largely do it for love and not money, seem to be running out of gas. I’ve been struggling to even get out the farewell podcast I promised months ago, and have been debating whether or not to simply not do it. I was a bit surprised to learn that my buddy Scott is also ending his MacHelpMaui podcast, noting “this is just too much like work.” I agree. He featured a lot of Hawaiian music in it and won fans for…
N? Mele No N? Pua
Kenneth Makuak?ne and I have been collaborating on a mele for a new Hawaiian music heritage program, “N? Mele No N? Pua” (which figuratively is defined as “Music for the Generations”). It will feature two, expansive permanent exhibits highlighting Hawai‘i’s rich musical history, an ongoing monthly Hawaiian music concert series, special educational and cultural events, and interpretive displays – all free and open to the public. There is already a plaque with the song up, but it will undergo change as we’ve updated both the lyrics and the music of the song recently. I was surprised to find information on…
UH Football Warriors = “The Island Native People” In Navajo
The New Mexico State – Hawai‘i football game will be broadcast in the Navajo language, as have other NMS state games since last year. I would love to see someone broadcast those kinds of games in Hawaiian as well. But no, I’m not volunteering to do it.
“Makuak?ne” at the pad, ready for launch!
I’ve talked about my work with songwriter/producer/recording artist Kenneth Makuak?ne previously here. Well, the big day is inching closer. Kenneth picked up the master CD today, and after some final tweaks to the liner notes, the CD and graphics head off to be pressed. The entire process has been a three-pronged effort. I wrote all but one of the Hawaiian lyrics (“mele”), did all of the text layout, worked with Kenneth on the liners, developed his website and taught him how to maintain it. Kenneth wrote all of the music, two of the English songs, arranged and performed every instrument…
The Last Day Of Summer
I know the official end of summer is a month away, but to me, the Sunday before our fall semester starts is the true indicator that the summer has come to an end. This year is also the first that all schools in the state of Hawai‘i follow a unified calendar, so our daughter, along with all public school students throughout the state, started classes three weeks ago. Perhaps I’ll have to move it back yet again and reduce the summer to about seven weeks. I’m only teaching one class this semester, unless something changes and I need to take…
Great Balls of Fire!
I really need to get my act together and update this site on a more regular basis. It seems I alternate bursts of activity between here and Nahenahe.net, and Nahenahe has been receiving all of the love recently. I have also spent a lot of time helping my friend and songwriting partner Kenneth Makuak?ne get his website launched in anticipation of his upcoming CD release, which will feature anywhere from 10-15 of our joint compositions, in addition to a few that he has written himself or with others. We’ll be performing together (or more accurately, I’ll be backing him up…
The truth is out…
Last year I pointed to Kenneth Makuak?ne’s weblog and speculated who his anonymous collaborator at UH-Hilo was. Well, Kenneth’s let the cat out of the bag, and I don’t mind – it’s me. It has been an amazing process, and hard to believe we’ve been at it for over a year. Sometimes I write lyrics to his music, sometimes he sets music to my mele, but there is always a lot of give and take. I always run the mele by my colleagues at UHH, a process called paka, to make sure that there isn’t anything in there that could…
José Can You See?
A group of Latino pop stars record a Spanish ‘Star Spangled Banner’ to support immigrants. Boy, a touchy issue, for sure. Apparently many people are outraged about this, including a descendant of the author. My first impression was, why should anyone be offended by this? I’m certainly not. However, I don’t know how I’d feel if someone took “Hawai’i Pono‘?” (our state anthem) or “Hawai‘i Aloha” (held with the same reverence) and performed them in English. That being said, I am looking foward to hearing it, and it certainly is certainly going to bring even more attention to one of…
The kind of comment that can make your day.
Or year. ‘Analu is a student in our online Hawaiian language class, and I can relate to his feelings. Since returning from Ireland some 3 and a half years ago, I’ve tried to make some progress with learning Gaeilge, only to give it up after a few weeks, and then starting from scratch again months later. Here’s the best part: “I do have a cassette for studying the language, but your podcast was the first time ever that I was able to hear Hawaiian as a true living language!” I know exactly how ‘Analu feels, as An tImeall and Cumann…
Nahenahe.net Podcasts going native.
I posted an announcement and a brief podcast on Nahenahe.net announcing my decision to cease the use of English in my podcasts. I’m sure some people will be unhappy with this decision, but I spent the better part of a week pondering. English is my native language, and Hawaiian my language of choice. I couldn’t justify starting another podcast just to do one in Hawaiian, and I didn’t want to do a Hawaiian language podcast and simply talk about Hawaiian language in it. As Conn does with his An tImeall podcast, I didn’t want Hawaiian to be simply the vehicle,…