Student Feedback

Beginning Realm Student Feedback:

Love the course. I also have the new book and CD. My fingers have callouses but my heart is filled with aloha. Mike M, San Diego, CA

Many, many "THANK YOU's" to Keola and everyone who worked so hard to make the online course available for beginners like me. I have some other course materials by Keola, but I'm still in the very early stages (meaning still stink! Ha! Ha!)... I'll use the other materials later.

The online course, however, was extremely helpful!! Even my girlfriend has noticed a vast improvement in my playing. I still have a long journey, but the online course has kept me motivated; I can hardly wait to leave work to begin practicing again. Plus the songs are great, and it's extremely helpful to have the real time audio to hear how Keola plays them! In sum, the online course is OUTSTANDING and I recommend it to anyone beginning to play slack key.

Very thankfully yours,

Doug E
Hunnington Beach, CA

This online lesson format is wonderful! You are making excellent use of the Internet resources here. I can't believe how much I've progressed since starting these lessons. Last summer I got the "Keola Beamer teaches Hawaiian slack key guitar" from Homespun, and realized fairly soon that it was on the intermediate level and that I'm definately a beginner. So I started using Keola's "How to play the Hawaiian slack key guitar" from Oak Press, but I couldn't seem to get out of first gear. I gave up even trying the Spider exercise, my fingers just couldn't make some of the stretches, and I couldn't believe that anyone else's fingers could either. Very frustrating. Until I saw Keola do it on the little movie. I still can't make some of the stretches but, hey that's ok, I adapt and do what I can!

The audio clips of the exercises and songs are the best feature of all. I can read music but I really have to hear the tune before I really "get it." I have a pretty good collection of slack key CDs and so could find many of the songs in "How to play..." But hearing the Maile Serenaders do Kahuli Aku, or Keola do Sase, or Sonny do Pua Lililehua, and then to try to do the same tune on my guitar. Well, again very frustrating. But with your audio clips, slow, simple and played exactly as written, makes all the difference for me.

Again, you have an excellent program here. Congratulations. I will certainly be interested in any future lessons you offer. At some point when you have a large collection of printable tabulatured songs with accompanying audio clips it would be great to have it all on one CD.

James K
Eureka, Ca.

Intermediate Lessons Student Feedback:

These are wonderful! I'm just working through the first piece "Mele Kakahiaka" right now. Beautiful. As always, I especially appreciate what you have to write about cultural context, aloha, etc. Mahalo nui loa for these four beautiful treasures.

D. Walls - Hana, Maui, HI

Ka Leileiona

Mahalo nui loa! This is a beautiful piece. I find it hard to stay away from - just want to keep playing it over and over.

much aloha,

G. Wood - Saunderstown, RI

I had never heard of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar until this serendipitous encounter. I have been playing guitar since I was 5 or 6, but the sound of these songs just blew me away. I have heard people use Drop-D, DADGAD and other 'alternate' tunings, but I never really had a reason to play this way. The resonance and tone (or is it aloha?) of your music opened my eyes. My acoustic guitar has not been tuned to standard EADGBE since I first stumbled onto your site. I never thought my guitar could sound so good!

I was also very pleasantly surprised at how easy the pieces were to play. They sound so elegant, complex, beautiful and difficult. I guess the fact that I have listened to the MP3s over and over made them all 'familiar' tunes to me, so when my passwords came and I started reading the tabs the music just seemed to flow from my fingertips effortlessly.

Thanks for opening my eyes to the most beautiful way to play a guitar!

Sincerely,

K. Kikendall
Fuquay-Varina,NC