HONOLULU — According to longtime Hawaiian entertainer Robert Cazimero, one of the nicest and easiest ways to carry on the Hawaiian culture is by singing Hawaiian music. With a new book called “He Mele Aloha: A Hawaiian Songbook,” compiled and
HONOLULU — According to longtime Hawaiian entertainer Robert Cazimero, one of the nicest and easiest ways to carry on the Hawaiian culture is by singing Hawaiian music. With a new book called “He Mele Aloha: A Hawaiian Songbook,” compiled and edited largely by part-time Kauai resident Carol Wilcox, even musical novices can help carry on traditions.
“You don’t have to be Hawaiian,” said Cazimero from Mountain Apple’s offices on O‘ahu. “(With this book) you can be in Zimbabwe and sing “Pane Mai,” because that’s what this offers you.”
A collection of 267 popular Hawaiian songs arranged alphabetically, 40 of which are “hapa-haole,” the book presents Hawaiian lyrics, English translations and ukulele chording at the top of each page. What isn’t provided is the melody and phrasing – you have to know each song to sing it.
“I saw a need for the book through my kids and their friends,” Wilcox said. “They know all these songs but they don’t really know the words or the chords.”
What she hadn’t counted on was the enthusiastic reception by professional musicians who have found it to be a handy tool. “It’s a lot of songs. It’s a lot to remember,” even for a professional, she said.
Often passed between generations by oral tradition, some Hawaiian songs have been lost to the ages when the last person who knew all the words has died, Wilcox said. When one of the early songbook planners, Dixon Stroup, died, the small group had to remove songs from the book list because Stroup was the only one who knew them.
“When he died it was a real dramatic example of how easily songs are lost when they’re left to the oral tradition,” Wilcox said.
Composers, or their descendants, were asked to contribute selected songs to the book “hana manawale’a,” with free will, generosity and good wishes – and without financial compensation.
“Colleen Aiu, whose mother wrote “Aloha Kauai,” was one of the first people I asked,” Wilcox said. “She said ‘If we don’t do this, the song will be forgotten. The compensation is having these songs live on.’ “
Featuring large, easy-to-read type and sturdy wire binding, “He Mele Aloha” was designed to be used, not to simply sit on a bookshelf, Wilcox explained.
It can also serve as somewhat of a Hawaiian history lesson. Featuring songs from as early as the 1830s, through the present, a cover-to-cover reading of the lyrics translations paints a picture of the state.
“When I did that, it told me an enormous amount about the Hawaiian culture, the Hawaiian people, through their own voice over many generations that reached back into chants and the ancient oral traditions,” Wilcox said.
Even though she was born and raised in Hawaii and has lived on all the islands at one point or another, Wilcox said this cultural knowledge had never been fully available to her because she doesn’t speak the Hawaiian language.
“It was astounding to me,” Wilcox said. “There are almost 200 different voices in this book. They’re composing songs about things that are important to them. So taken as a body, it’s the voice of the people. It’s very powerful.”
Brief notes at the bottom of each page let the reader in on the mindset of the composer or give a snapshot of the song’s history. On “Aloha ‘Oe,” we learn that although Lili‘uokalani intended this as a love song, it was immediately embraced as a song of farewell.
On “Pa‘an‘uau Waltz,” composed in the early 1900s by John U. Iosepa, we learn that when harvesting for pearls, one needs to approach the oysters very quietly so as not to warn them, or else they might clam up!
Wilcox noted that most of the songs in the book are Hawaiian, but there are 40 “hapa-haole” songs, which she defines as any song that’s all or partially in English. A typical example is “My Hawaiian Souvenirs,” which includes the lines:
“A photograph, a calabash, a paper lei Are my Hawaiian souvenirs.”
Then there’s the silly “Malahini Mele,” composed in 1934 by R. Alex Anderson, in which he throws in nonsensical Hawaiian words:
“As I strolled along the shore In a muumuu made of koa While I played a tune on my sweet ‘okolehau”
Okolehau is a homebrewed alcoholic drink.
Profits from the sale of the book are going to Lunalilo Home, a care facility for ambulatory, elderly Hawaiians in Hawaii Kai on O‘ahu. “It houses people from which this music came,” Wilcox said.
Lunalilo Home resident Eleanor Peltier, 78, loves her new songbook, especially the ukulele fingerholds, “which are fantastic,” she said. “We’re getting old and we kind of forget, you know.”
“He Mele Aloha: A Hawaiian Songbook” is available on Kaua‘i at Borders and Larry’s Music in Kapaa and online at http://www.booklines.com.
