Listen but Don't Ask Question: Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar across the TransPacific
by Kevin Fellezs
Duke University Press, 2019 Paper: 978-1-4780-0671-8 | Cloth: 978-1-4780-0599-5 | eISBN: 978-1-4780-0741-8 Library of Congress Classification M142.H3F455 2019
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK Performed on an acoustic steel-string guitar with open tunings and a finger-picking technique, Hawaiian slack key guitar music emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. Though performed on a non-Hawaiian instrument, it is widely considered to be an authentic Hawaiian tradition grounded in Hawaiian aesthetics and cultural values. In Listen But Don’t Ask Question Kevin Fellezs listens to Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) and non-Hawaiian slack key guitarists in Hawai‘i, California, and Japan, attentive to the ways in which notions of Kanaka Maoli belonging and authenticity are negotiated and articulated in all three locations. In Hawai‘i, slack key guitar functions as a sign of Kanaka Maoli cultural renewal, resilience, and resistance in the face of appropriation and occupation, while in Japan it nurtures a merged Japanese-Hawaiian artistic and cultural sensibility. For diasporic Hawaiians in California, it provides a way to claim Hawaiian identity. By demonstrating how slack key guitar is a site for the articulation of Hawaiian values, Fellezs illuminates how slack key guitarists are reconfiguring notions of Hawaiian belonging, aesthetics, and politics throughout the transPacific.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Kevin Fellezs is Associate Professor in the Music and African American and African Diaspora Studies departments at Columbia University and author of Birds of Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion, also published by Duke University Press.
REVIEWS
“In addition to telling Hawaiian slack key guitar's remarkable history, Kevin Fellezs provides an excellent introduction to the political, social, and economic challenges endured by Hawaiians who live in a homeland dominated by people who have even appropriated the word ‘aloha’ to expedite material and cultural plunder. This book is a wonderful achievement and a significant intellectual feat.”
-- John W. Troutman, author of Kika Kila: How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music
“Listen but Don't Ask Question theorizes a ‘polycultural transPacific’ to highlight Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) as central participants in the cultural production of slack key guitar music while attending to the multiple lineages tradition. Kevin Fellezs illuminates the complications of cultural and material stewardship as they are bound up in the performance and perpetuation of the musical form, Hawaiian principles of reciprocity, cultural revival and the music industry, community and belonging, and aesthetics. This is bold, rich, and important work that is well researched, robustly conceptualized, and finely written.”
-- J. Kehaulani Kauanui, author of Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty
“With Listen but Don’t Ask Question, Fellezs adroitly weaves together the many cultural, political, and social crosscurrents that have shaped a beautiful and enduring musical tradition. While slack key has been carried to lands far and wide, Fellezs convincingly demonstrates that in the right hands and with the right heart, this polycultural transPacific tradition is never far from the shore of its original āina.”
-- Chad S. Hamill Native American and Indigenous Studies
“During a time when questions of cultural appropriation, authenticity, ownership, and the ongoing repercussions of settler colonialism are at the forefront of discussions within music scholarship—and academia in general—Fellezs provides a thoughtful and personal reflection on the sometime elegant, sometimes messy ways Kanaka Maoli have negotiated these issues.”
-- James Revell Carr Notes
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix A Note on the Use of Hawaiian and Japanese Terms xv Introduction: Mapping the Polycultural TransPacific 1 1. Getting the "Right Hawaiian Feeling" 37 2. Taking Kuleana 70 3. The Aloha Affect 108 4. Sounding Out the Second Hawaiian Renaissance 145 5. 'Ohana and the Longing to Belong 183 6. Pono, A Balancing Act 219 Notes 253 Glossary 269 References 273 Index 311
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Listen but Don't Ask Question: Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar across the TransPacific
by Kevin Fellezs
Duke University Press, 2019 Paper: 978-1-4780-0671-8 Cloth: 978-1-4780-0599-5 eISBN: 978-1-4780-0741-8
Performed on an acoustic steel-string guitar with open tunings and a finger-picking technique, Hawaiian slack key guitar music emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. Though performed on a non-Hawaiian instrument, it is widely considered to be an authentic Hawaiian tradition grounded in Hawaiian aesthetics and cultural values. In Listen But Don’t Ask Question Kevin Fellezs listens to Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) and non-Hawaiian slack key guitarists in Hawai‘i, California, and Japan, attentive to the ways in which notions of Kanaka Maoli belonging and authenticity are negotiated and articulated in all three locations. In Hawai‘i, slack key guitar functions as a sign of Kanaka Maoli cultural renewal, resilience, and resistance in the face of appropriation and occupation, while in Japan it nurtures a merged Japanese-Hawaiian artistic and cultural sensibility. For diasporic Hawaiians in California, it provides a way to claim Hawaiian identity. By demonstrating how slack key guitar is a site for the articulation of Hawaiian values, Fellezs illuminates how slack key guitarists are reconfiguring notions of Hawaiian belonging, aesthetics, and politics throughout the transPacific.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Kevin Fellezs is Associate Professor in the Music and African American and African Diaspora Studies departments at Columbia University and author of Birds of Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion, also published by Duke University Press.
REVIEWS
“In addition to telling Hawaiian slack key guitar's remarkable history, Kevin Fellezs provides an excellent introduction to the political, social, and economic challenges endured by Hawaiians who live in a homeland dominated by people who have even appropriated the word ‘aloha’ to expedite material and cultural plunder. This book is a wonderful achievement and a significant intellectual feat.”
-- John W. Troutman, author of Kika Kila: How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music
“Listen but Don't Ask Question theorizes a ‘polycultural transPacific’ to highlight Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) as central participants in the cultural production of slack key guitar music while attending to the multiple lineages tradition. Kevin Fellezs illuminates the complications of cultural and material stewardship as they are bound up in the performance and perpetuation of the musical form, Hawaiian principles of reciprocity, cultural revival and the music industry, community and belonging, and aesthetics. This is bold, rich, and important work that is well researched, robustly conceptualized, and finely written.”
-- J. Kehaulani Kauanui, author of Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty
“With Listen but Don’t Ask Question, Fellezs adroitly weaves together the many cultural, political, and social crosscurrents that have shaped a beautiful and enduring musical tradition. While slack key has been carried to lands far and wide, Fellezs convincingly demonstrates that in the right hands and with the right heart, this polycultural transPacific tradition is never far from the shore of its original āina.”
-- Chad S. Hamill Native American and Indigenous Studies
“During a time when questions of cultural appropriation, authenticity, ownership, and the ongoing repercussions of settler colonialism are at the forefront of discussions within music scholarship—and academia in general—Fellezs provides a thoughtful and personal reflection on the sometime elegant, sometimes messy ways Kanaka Maoli have negotiated these issues.”
-- James Revell Carr Notes
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix A Note on the Use of Hawaiian and Japanese Terms xv Introduction: Mapping the Polycultural TransPacific 1 1. Getting the "Right Hawaiian Feeling" 37 2. Taking Kuleana 70 3. The Aloha Affect 108 4. Sounding Out the Second Hawaiian Renaissance 145 5. 'Ohana and the Longing to Belong 183 6. Pono, A Balancing Act 219 Notes 253 Glossary 269 References 273 Index 311
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE