Ears in Deep Text
I'm always keeping an ear out for new music the kind that doesnʻt necessarily make the top 40 rotation, if such a thing could possibly exist in a world where people have stopped listening to the radio. This can be a daunting prospect since everything nowadays it seems, even our musical tastes, are being delivered to us in pre-packaged form. From Spotify, to music streaming services, and YouTube, seeking to scratch your musical itch is becoming more and more difficult simply because there is too much content to wade through.
I was happy to find a piece of the missing puzzle in my head via YouTube, to relate my historical practice to what many people think is an unassociated modern day method used by Hip-Hop, Rap, Electronic and Jazz musicians. Actually the ability to "sample" or "hack" has to first be based out of "ears" trained out of "deep crates." Only then can we enjoy the process and this approach which is after all customary and traditional for kānaka maoli.
I used to just browse the shelves at second hand shops or at Hungry Ear, Tower Records, Jelly's, and at the local music stores. On the prowl with friends for new sounds, we learned what we liked by the way our bodies responded on the dance floor every Friday - Saturday night the hottest clubs in Waikīkī. Sometimes I let my fingers do the choosing through KTUHʻs vinyl stacks as an early morning college DJ, a brief stint, one night a week after I helped close shop at Tower Video, ever a midnight shifter.
My ears are bored easily, because they are attuned to play----fulness, to wit and erudition. My ears have been trained on music from a very young age. I was raised with songs that I played on a piano, on a violin, music Iʻve sung or danced to, during my formative years I was attuned to pieces that had a general kind of shape, but could also at any given moment seem to bloom into a kind of improvisation. Thatʻs why itʻs so irritating that popular music today prefers the digital over the acoustic. Like overly-processed food that makes you feel good for a short time but in the end leaves you hungry, uninspired tracks, loop-di-looped music, sickly sweet and auto tuned sounds, groove pathways into my ears that leave me dull and uninspired.
In Hawaiian when you sample something word-wise we call that a kuhi. Think of inter-textuality only with words spoken and performed that never need the validation of print or writing. Composers of song prided themselves on having deep knowledge of other peopleʻs compositions, turns of phrase, word choice, place based knowledge like winds, rains, and important features of the land were committed to memory if not a sign of oneʻs commitment through experience. I learned this by having to serve as a chanter on the fly at yearly ceremonies at Puʻukohola. I also learned this from writing 365 Days of Aloha and seeing the extent to which composers, enamored of a particularly smart and eloquent turn of phrase, appropriated it to their use.
Today musicians not only kuhi, but they kind of kāʻili----they take up the actual structure of someone elseʻs production: beats, instrumental, vocal track, isolated words, a melody on repeat and then they sample it. Sampling requires a pair of exceptional ears: for melody, beats, hooks, rhythm, rhyme, chord progression and a lot of other things (which this non-expert, writer lacks!) Generally the operation requires hacking up sections from other songs and using them as the canvas upon which you create. It takes a collaborative ear to do this well, since you are basically layering your stuff on top of something else, but if you are really good at this, you are actually creating some synergy, some contrapuntal new conversation between yourself and another artist. Describing it this way makes me excited in ways that these songs rarely make me feel! One of the problems with hackage is that often the people creating have few NEW things to say, and for some reason they lack the self-awareness to know this about themselves.
Today musicians not only kuhi, but they kind of kāʻili----they take up the actual structure of someone elseʻs production: beats, instrumental, vocal track, isolated words, a melody on repeat and then they sample it. Sampling requires a pair of exceptional ears: for melody, beats, hooks, rhythm, rhyme, chord progression and a lot of other things (which this non-expert, writer lacks!) Generally the operation requires hacking up sections from other songs and using them as the canvas upon which you create. It takes a collaborative ear to do this well, since you are basically layering your stuff on top of something else, but if you are really good at this, you are actually creating some synergy, some contrapuntal new conversation between yourself and another artist. Describing it this way makes me excited in ways that these songs rarely make me feel! One of the problems with hackage is that often the people creating have few NEW things to say, and for some reason they lack the self-awareness to know this about themselves.
I was listening recently through YouTube and came across a song entitled, "Rubba - Way Star." Pinned in the comment section was this gem by the poster: Very rare that Madlib chops stuff up crazy but damn, the guy has retarded ears n deep crates. Legend.
Ears in deep crates, my punahele favoritey fave, David Goldberg was the first person to pour this sweet thought into my ear. And the above pinned comment by ar04azr was replied to by emectar1 who offered, +Agent Orange i feel like theres a degree of that like i see what youre saying but also theres something more original and talented about a producer who can chop something and make something new and talented. often original brilliant composers of songs will get no credit from hip hop fans when some producer like madlib takes a rare song like this and makes it into his own. Nujabes is a really good example where he gets heaps of praise, barely brings anything to the table besides knowledge of songs, and the original composers of most of his beats are forgotten.ʻ
The truth of the matter is that most of my writing is inspired by something in my head that was trained there through music. Colonialism has wrecked our "Ears in Deep Crates" capacity.
I suppose that I am frustrated with much writing and scholarship on Hawaiian things, the equivocators on Facebook and pretend provocateurs playing pundit on questions of national identity and sovereignty because many of the hold-forthers are not trained to sound the depths of tradition, of moʻolelo, of oli, mele and pule. If they sample, they hack up the parts already in circulation, usually in English, and they are satisfied passing on the same beats and taking and giving us the same beatings.
I suppose that I am frustrated with much writing and scholarship on Hawaiian things, the equivocators on Facebook and pretend provocateurs playing pundit on questions of national identity and sovereignty because many of the hold-forthers are not trained to sound the depths of tradition, of moʻolelo, of oli, mele and pule. If they sample, they hack up the parts already in circulation, usually in English, and they are satisfied passing on the same beats and taking and giving us the same beatings.
When colonial writers went after our knowledge systems they assumed that memorization of oral texts would relegate us to the pile of humans incapable of analytical and creative thought. The main dissonant melody of colonialism is this: natives and people of color are ungovernable, and therefore they cannot govern themsleves. Actually knowledge of our moʻolelo, mele, and oli give us "ears in deep crates" allowing us to sample tracks from which we deliberated and created for hundreds of generations.
I was happy to find a piece of the missing puzzle in my head via YouTube, to relate my historical practice to what many people think is an unassociated modern day method used by Hip-Hop, Rap, Electronic and Jazz musicians. Actually the ability to "sample" or "hack" has to first be based out of "ears" trained out of "deep crates." Only then can we enjoy the process and this approach which is after all customary and traditional for kānaka maoli.
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