Hawaiian music has changed the world. This nonprofit is cataloguing how

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Behind the sounds of Hawaiian music stand a rich history that’s being explored by a Hawaii nonprofit.

Kealakai Center for Pacific Strings celebrates the role and the influence Hawaiian music and musicians have played in the evolution of popular music.

“There’s really nowhere that Hawaiian music hasn’t touched,” KCPS founder Kilin Reece said.

This year, the organization launches two groundbreaking virtual platforms with the help of a hui that includes major manufacturers of stringed instruments.

“The Martin and Fender guitar companies have joined our work to tell this story, this local string story, that the world is just waiting to hear,” Reece said.

The center is building an online exhibit called the Pacific String Museum that will showcase stringed instruments that belonged to Hawaiian royalty and recording artists, and other instruments that local families have handed down through generations.

Viewers will be treated to an immersive experience with photographs of the stringed instruments and video recordings so you can hear how they sound today.

“What they really have the potential to do is to connect us, sort of like telegraph cables, with the many visionary artists, musicians, composers who have come before,” Reece said.

A companion project is the creation of the Pumanamana Mele Index which will include a vast collection of recordings dating back to the early 1900s, plus sheet music, liner notes and the writings of composers who tell the stories behind their music.

“We’re looking as far and wide as possible and pulling as much as we can to preserve as much of this narrative and history that we can,” said KCPS president Noah Ha’alilio Solomon.

Through the groundbreaking work, KCPS hopes to show the world Hawaiian music’s vast influence.

“We feel pretty confident in saying that all of these traditions and genres that we know around the world today – blues, blue grass, Western swing, country, jazz – we can trace an origin story to this place and show how the world has borrowed from Hawaii,” Reece said.

KCPS plans to have the virtual platforms ready to go by late January or early February.

To find out more and how you can help support the work, click here.

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