A Unique Project
For years, the Hawai’i State Archives has preserved a remarkable array of historical materials related to Hawaiian music, including Queen Liliuʻokalani’s original handwritten draft of “Aloha Oe” and the personal papers of Henry Berger, director of the Royal Hawaiian Band from 1872 to 1915.
But at the initiative of State Archivist Dr. Adam Jansen, the Hawaiian Music Archives was launched to create a more comprehensive collection–one that documents not only the development of modern Hawaiian music in the Islands, but its rapid spread to North America, Europe, Asia and Australia during the first half of the 20th century, and its current ubiquity all around the world.
Together with the State Archives’ longstanding holdings, the Hawaiian Music Archives’ goal is to make an unprecedented array of historical materials accessible to the public, both at the Archives in Honolulu and online. With these instruments, recordings, sheet music and other items, musicians, scholars and the general public can now see, hear and even play a piece of history.
Thanks to the restoration work performed by members of the ‘Ukulele Guild of Hawai’i, the collection offers a uniquely hands-on experience: archives patrons now have the ability to “check out” a vintage ‘ukulele from the collection to play in a sound booth in the State Archives Public Research Room.
“We routinely allow people to handle one-of-a-kind historical documents written by Hawaiian royalty such as King Kalākaua and Queen Liliuʻokalani, so why wouldn’t we allow them to play these restored instruments?” says State Archivist Dr. Adam Jansen. “Really, the only way these instruments can speak is through them being played–it’s what they were built for.”
In addition to its growing collection of more than 1,000 historic ‘ukulele and guitars, the Archives is assembling a first-of-its kind reference collection of instrument forms, molds and other construction materials donated by luthiers, as well as historic strings and tuners.
The Archives is home to one of the world’s largest collections of Hawaiian music recordings. Ranging from Edison cylinders to digital files, the cylinders and 78s are now–as copyright restrictions allow–being digitized and posted online.
The Archive collections also include an impressive international collection of sheet music, songbooks, and ‘ukulele and steel guitar methods, including a rare copy of the first edition of the first ‘ukulele method ever published–Ernest Kaai’s The Ukulele: A Hawaiian Guitar and How to Play It (1906).