Musical Cultures Analysis Project Step 6

To what extent did your piece match the musical and cultural trends you read about when researching your musical culture?

• The piece, Aloha 'Oe, matches the musical and cultural trends that I researched to a large extent, as the melodic content and the instrumentation are typical for traditional Hawaiian music. Although the most primitive form of Hawaiian music was either Mele Hula or Mele Oli, which involved religious chanting and drumming, melody became a significant part of Hawaiian music after the colonization of the Hawaiian islands. The last monarch of Hawaii, Queen Liliuokalani, composed Aloha 'Oe in 1878, after the Europeans visited and brought with them new concepts of melody and instruments.
• The melodies present in this piece are good examples of the type of European music that was brought to Hawaii and made a staple part of Hawaiian musical culture.
• The piece also demonstrates the popularity of the ukulele and the slack key guitar in Hawaiian music by giving both instruments crucial roles in the piece. Throughout, the ukulele provides harmonic chords that center harmony and provide a consistent rhythm for the melody to fit to. The chorus is held by the slack key guitar, which establishes the relaxed, peaceful ambience common in most Hawaiian songs.

What seems most distinct about this piece, or this genre of music to you? What should someone listen for it they really want to identify it?

• This genre of music is unique largely because of its use of very slow melodies and traditional Hawaiian instruments, including the ukulele and the slack key guitar. 
• If one wanted to identify a piece as Hawaiian, they should listen for a slow, over-arching melody, the use of a twangy, sliding guitar (slack key) and an instrument that sounds like a strummed, higher-pitched acoustic guitar (ukulele), simplistic harmonies and rhythms, and generally a very relaxed feel. 

How different is this from other music you listen to, or that we've studied in class? It must be somewhat different, because it is classified as a differently culture/genre. Yet it must in some way be similar, since we consider them to all be music.

• This music is very different from most Western classical art music because it utilizes instruments not typically used in western music, such as the ukulele, the slack key guitar, and the slide guitar. 
• The music also tends to be at much slower tempos with long drawn out melodies to produce a peaceful, almost vacation-like feeling. Usually the music fosters a mood of relaxation and reflection.
• The use of simplistic harmonies and rhythms also separates this music from the more complex pieces of Western art music. 
• Hawaiian music is also different from western classical art music because songs such as Aloha 'Oe often have lyrics in Hawaiian instead of English.