Upon my return to Maui, I got introduced to “kanikapila” — a Hawaiian term describing a spontaneous, impromptu music making with others, usually outdoors.
The pandemic made us cautious about indoor activity. Portable instruments such as the ukulele and guitar made it possible to go outside. Most of all, the tropical weather during winter and beautiful locations on Oahu and Maui lured us to kanikapila.
As soon as I booked my flight to Maui, I scheduled a “Hawaiian theme” for the first thematic song session in 2022. Below are the highlights from that session. Click on “SHOW MORE” below the video screen to see the index / transcript. Click on 30:38 for an explanation of kanikapila.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I started a weekly thematic song session in Zoom. There I met various ukulele enthusiasts whom I wanted to meet in person one day. There were four in Hawai’i. So I reached out to them for a possible in-person get together.
What do you call meeting someone you’ve met in Zoom for the first time in-person? Not just meet that person, doing the Wuhan shake or knuckle greeting, but actually making music together. There must be a name for that phenomenon, for it’s like a blind date, except you’ve seen them before (in Zoom or in a video recording). The first thing you notice is their height.
On Oahu, I met Paul at the Foster Botanical Gardens near Chinatown and zoomed into the Isle of Wight Monday Open Mic session with our smart phones. We weren’t sure how we sounded doing “Big Yellow Taxi” but the location of the “tree museum” was fitting. We then played “When the Saints Go Marching In,” a song we had spontaneously tagged in the 3 Chord Thursday Stand Up & Perform theme session. That afternoon we visited Queen Lil’s park and recorded a Hawaiian song for Christmas.
The next day, Liane picked me up and drove us to Nu’uanu Valley Park for an afternoon session with Paul. We each brought song sheets we wanted to use and snacks to share. We did songs from my forthcoming book “Fun with the Ukulele”, Christmas tunes, and Hawaiian songs. The three hours flew.
Then there were unrecorded sessions, such as with Mark who introduced me to songs of Hawaiian renaissance, contemporary Christian, the Beatles, Eric Clapton, and others.
Making music in Waikiki at night entered my bucket list as “busking in Waikiki”.
The final jam didn’t get recorded at all — minutes before my flight from Honolulu back to Maui. I did take pictures and videos, which was useful.
Exactly a week after meeting in Foster Gardens, Paul and I tag-teamed “Big Yellow Taxi” in the Isle of Wight Monday Open Mic. This time, he recorded and edited it into a video.
In part 2, I will write about visiting George Kahumoku, Jr’s farm in Kahakuloa, Maui.
In part 3, I will write about meeting Errol in Kihei, Maui to acknowledge and celebrate the last full moon in 2022 and kanikapila with local residents in Kahului.