Aloha Music Camp goes far beyond the ukulele

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This article was published 18/10/2003 (8194 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PAHOA, Hawaii — There’s the “ukers ” and the “slackers.” Throw in some hula dancers and Hawaiian language and crafts, and you have the Aloha Music Camp.

This year’s retreat attracted a hula-dancing German politician, a Japanese guitar player, and a North Carolina nurse who leads a band called the Hapa Haole Hula Cats.

The camp’s main attraction is instruction in ukulele and slack key guitar, in which the strings are loosened to produce a characteristically Hawaiian sound, then fingerpicked rather than strummed. But Aloha also provides a range of cultural activities under the palms, and most participants have this in common: they’re not Hawaiian.

Aloha Music Camp recently completed its third annual week-long run at the Kalani Oceanside Retreat, an eco-resort on the Big Island, and preparations are underway for next year’s camp June 20-26 at a beachfront eco-resort on the island of Molokai.

“We needed a place where the world would recede,” said Keola Beamer, a slack key artist who operates the camp with his mother Nona, a leading songwriter, hula teacher and one of the world’s foremost authorities on Hawaiian culture.

Beamer said he got the idea for the camp a few years ago after taking part in a mainland workshop where he “talked a little and gave them music without context.”

“I felt lousy about that,” he said.

Returning to Hawaii, he talked to his mother about the experience, and they came up with the idea of bringing people together from around the world for a range of Hawaiian cultural activities.

The week-long program is an expansion of the methods and techniques included in a slack key instructional book Beamer wrote with Mark Nelson, another slack key artist.

Nelson, of Jacksonville, Ore., is the camp administrator, along with his wife, Annie, while Beamer is the artistic director.

“The two families work together; it’s a harmonious partnership,” said Nelson.

Beamer, who teachers guitar classes, is joined by his wife, Moana, who teaches hula, and hanai (adopted) brother, Kaliko Beamer-Trapp, who shares his expertise in Hawaiian language.

Some of the most popular classes are the “talk story” sessions where mother Nona shares her knowledge of Hawaiian culture and regales students with her tales of growing up in old Hawaii.

The teaching staff also includes other guitar and ukulele instructors and an expert in weaving lauhala, the dried tree leaves commonly used in basket- and mat-making, and other Hawaiian crafts.

“This isn’t just a music camp,” said Beamer. “The cultural aspects are very important. Here we can show them the flower we sing about.”

Beamer and his wife co-ordinate their classes, with his guitar class providing live music for her hula class at the Friday night student concert.

The camp this year drew 87 students.

Lin Llewellyn, a nurse from Asheville, N.C., brought two ukuleles to camp with her.

“I usually play a mainland jazz style,” she said. “I wanted to learn a more Hawaiian style.”

She described her classes as “very, very helpful,” and said she wanted to go back to Asheville and teach her band, the Hapa Haole Hula Cats, a more Hawaiian style.

Angela Goebel, a radio station employee, and Verena Lappe, a politician, both of Hamburg, Germany, participated in the camp for the second time this year.

“I like the way of Hawaiian openness and the respect for nature and other people, especially the elderly,” said Goebel, a guitarist.

Lappe, a member of the Hamburg Parliament, took hula classes.

“It connects the body with what is around me,” she said. “You lose that in Germany. We have to regenerate here.”

Guitarist Aki Shimura and wife, Tomoko, of Tokyo, met as graduate students at the University of Hawaii. While they come back to Hawaii once a year, the main purpose of this year’s trip was to attend the camp.

“We didn’t get involved in Hawaiian culture while we were going to school,” said Tomoko Shimura, who studies hula. “We were too busy.”

“Moana’s hula makes me smile,” she said.

“Keola’s slack key makes me smile,” said her husband.

–Associated Press

Aloha Music Camp

* Instruction in ukulele and slack key guitar

* A range of cultural Hawaiian activities

* Instruction in weaving lauhala, the dried tree leaves used in basket- and mat-making.

* The camp this year drew 87 students