Meet Two Slack Key Guitar Legends

Kaua`i slack key guitar legends Paul Togioka and Hal Kinnaman will perform together in a musical talk story session from 11 am to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7 in the courtyard of the Kaua`i Museum.

It’s a rare opportunity to get to know two talented musicians and to hear them play in an intimate setting. This program is free for Kaua`i residents and normal museum admissions are being discounted for visitors to our island.

Slack key, or ki hoalu, is Hawai`i’s distinctive form of guitar music in which the musician’s thumb plays the bass line and the rest of his fingers play the melody, making one guitar sound like several instruments.

“When I perform slack key, I am able to connect with people from all over the world,” Togioka says. “It’s a wonderful thing. Music shares aloha.”

Togioka grew up as a shy boy in Kekaha and is now one of Hawai`i’s most popular slack key guitar artists. He has won multiple Hawaiian music awards and two compilation CDs on which he performs were nominated for the national Grammy Awards. He is a regular in the statewide Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival.

Kinnaman, who taught Togioka for a couple years until the younger man had a solid slack key foundation, was a classically trained guitarist and teacher when he moved to Kaua`i, eventually becoming Kaua`i’s most prolific author of slack key guitar instructional books, each beginning with the promise:

“This easy-to-understand instructional booklet will have you playing in less time than you could imagine.” Kinnaman has gravitated to ukulele now, playing Flamenco, Bach and slack key on the smaller instrument.

Pam Brown will facilitate this musical talk story, followed by a question and answer session with the two men.