Last summer I had the opportunity to go to New York for the summer. It was an amazing experience. It is probably as far away from “Hawaiian Culture” as one can get in the United States (in my opinion anyways). It is super fast-paced, people are very into what THEY’RE doing at the moment (not in a bad way though, more of in an advancement way), and there is more concrete on one block in midtown than all of Maui (okay, athat might be an exaggeration).
It was hard at times to not adjust to that pace in my everyday life. I will admit that I walked quite a bit faster, but that was more out of self-defense and avoidance of being caught in a stampede. For the most part however, I think I did pretty well.
My key…my iPod shuffle full of Hawaiian music. Due to my upbringing, I was a very big fan of the Makaha Sons, Brother’s Caz, and Ho’okena style of Hawaiian music. When I needed to wind down, and I was up close and personal with the armpits of the people next to me on the subway, I could simply put on my head phones, close my eyes, and I would be on a white sandy beach, or the windward side, or in Ulupalakua, or Hana, or whatever part of the islands that was being painted through song.
Not only were the songs soothing, but the memories they invoked were so poignant. I would remember car rides and kanikapila sessions with my dad. I could see my sister and cousins dancing Hula to the many songs on my playlist. I could picture the areas that were spoken of, and I was reminded of home.
Ask my wife…anytime I’m in a bad mood, she’s knows what kind of music to put on to cheer me up.
The other thing I find amazing, is how unique our local music scene is. Where I currently live in Utah, there are choke (many) local bands. They’re all very talented, but mostly only seen on the local music scenes at concerts and through the minimal promotion of their CDs. I’m used to FM 100, and 93.5 KPOA promoting local artists such as Derek Sebastian, Desmond Yap, 3 Plus, Ekolu, Ikaika Brown, and 10 Feet (just to name a few). Local bands were more celebrities than many national artists were to me. I hope to be able to teach my son an appreciation of Hawaiian music just as my father did for me.
It was funny, I could name dozens of local bands and the songs they sang when I came to Utah in 2001. That year I was sitting in a freshmen english class and the teacher was going to play a song from some band called U2. My first thought, “Oh, they must be a local band.” Little did I know.
I know Derek Sebastian – he’s a very talented ukulele player – it was nice to see his name mentioned in your post
Derek and I went to high school, and yes he is very talented. I love his music. I actually got to back him up on the keyboard once at his graduation…it was quite the honor!