Hawaiian Music

The music of Hawai i includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Hawai i's musical contributions to the music of the United States are out of proportion to the state's small size. Styles like slack-key guitar are well-known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks. Hawai i also made a major contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar.

Traditional Hawaiian folk music is a major part of the state's musical heritage. The Hawaiian people have inhabited the islands for centuries and have retained much of their traditional musical knowledge. Their music is largely religious in nature, and includes chanting and dance music. Hawaiian music has had an enormous impact on the music of other Polynesian islands indeed, music author Peter Manuel called the influence of Hawaiian music a "unifying factor in the development of modern Pacific musics".

Major music festivals in Hawai i include the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival, which brings together hula groups from across the world, as well as a number of slack-key and steel guitar festivals Big Island Slack Key Guitar Festival, Steel Guitar Association Festival and the Gabby Pahinui Atta Isaacs Slack Key Festival. April's Aloha Week is a popular tourist attraction, as is the Moloka'i Music Festival held around Labor Day. 1 There is also a Hawaii International Jazz Festival, which was founded in 1993, and holds festivals on O ahu, Hawai i, Maui and Kaua i.

Hawai i is home to numerous hotels, many of which feature music in the afternoon or evening some of the more prominent ones include the Kahala Hilton, the Sheraton Moana Hotel, the Sheraton Waikiki, the Halekulani, Casanova's and the King Kamehameha Hotel. 1 Large music venues in Hawaii include the University Theater, which has 600 seats and is the largest venue on the Big Island. 4 The largest venue and cultural exhibition center on Kauai is the Kauai Community College Performing Arts Center. 5 The Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena is the largest venue in Honolulu and among the largest in the state other venues for Hawaiian music on Oahu include the Waikiki Shell in Kapiolani Park in Waikiki, Kennedy Theatre and Andrews Amphitheatre on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the Blaisdell Center Concert Hall, the Hawaii Theatre in downtown Honolulu, the Red Elephant a performance space and recording studio in downtown Honolulu , Paliku Theatre on the campus of Windward Community College and the Leeward Community College Theatre. The historic Lanai Theatre is a cultural landmark on Lanai, dating back to the 1930s.

Hawai i is home to a number of renowned music institutions in several fields. The Honolulu Symphony Orchestra is an important part of the state's musical history, and is the oldest orchestra in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains, founded in 1900 . The Orchestra has collaborated with other local institutions, like the Hawai i Opera Theatre and the O ahu Choral Society's Honolulu Symphony Chorus, which operates the Hawai i International Choral Festival.

Hawaiian folk music includes several varieties of chanting mele and music meant for highly-ritualized dance hula . Traditional Hawaiian music and dance was functional, used to express praise, communicate genealogy and mythology and accompany games, festivals and other secular events. The Hawaiian language has no word that translates precisely as music, but a diverse vocabulary exists to describe rhythms, instruments, styles and elements of voice production. Hawaiian folk music is simple in melody and rhythm, but is "complex and rich" in the "poetry, accompanying mimetic dance hula , and subtleties of vocal styles... even in the attenuated forms in which they survive today".