The Music Hour (1929) Hawaiian Edition Book 4 Tiki pages

Aloha,

As you know, I am fond of collecting paper and old books. I occasionally find something that I wouldn't normally look at...

The Music Hour - Hawaiian Edition Book 4 (1929)

From the Hawaiian Songbooks Bibliography webpage...
*
McCONATHY et al 4 1929
McConathy, Osbourne, W. Otto Miessner, Edward Bailey Birge and Mabel E. Bray. The Music Hour: Fourth Book (Hawaiian edition compiled by the Sub-committee of the Elementary Curriculum Committee, Dorothy M. Kahananui, exec. ed.). New York: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1929. *

This particular edition was withdrawn June 20, 1944 from "Thomas Jefferson school" here in the islands.

Most of the songs are the standards that you might expect in any songbook of the time... The Star Spangled Banner, Christmas songs, Hail Columbia, etc... The illustrations range from old photos of personalities, color woodblocks and drawings of famous composers, etc. Pretty boring, really, BUT... The additional pages inserted in the beginning book (and I am going to assume in Volumes 1-3 & 5) are pretty heady stuff that I wouldn't have expected... Pre-hapa haole and very simple tunes... I do not know the artist. Here's a list...

"Water of Life"

"Be a Menehune"
"The Taro"
"Only One Mouth" (Korean folk song)
"Shower Trees"
"Pound the Tapa"

"The Sampan"
"Hawaiian Pearls"
"Kimigayo""Kukui Trees"
"The Caveman's Drum"
"The Birds of Kane"

"Kauiki""Cup of Gold"
"Ginger Blossoms"
"The Coconut"
Nice image!
"The Glass-bottomed Boat"
"Mele Kalikimaka"
"The Ginaca" (Creative work for a pineapple project at the Waihee School. The ginaca is a peeling and coring machine used in the cannery.)
and "New Year's Day in Hawaii."

Released as a textbook, I found it interesting in it's portrayal of Tiki in the Pre-Tiki age as used in Hawaiian classrooms. I really didn't know where to put this (Music, collecting, etc...) so I put it in the General forum so more people could see it. I'd be curious to see other volumes.

Comments?

Waikiki Tiki; Art, History, and Photographs.
Available now from Bess Press Hawaii.

[ Edited by: Phillip Roberts 2010-11-16 20:04 ]

WOW, amazing find phillip!

surprised to see something so naturalistic from the 20s! hard to imagine a mainland haole rendering those flowers, palms, water gourd, tapa hammer, the iwa bird and diamond head that faithfully.

let alone the people with Polynesian gestures...so would have been a local illustrator?

seems like the tiki colors reference the feathered assets from the Bishop Museum.

i dig the tikis BEHIND the waterfall!!!

On 2010-11-17 22:13, BigToe wrote:
WOW, amazing find phillip!

so would have been a local illustrator?

i dig the tikis BEHIND the waterfall!!!

I seem to also think that it must be a local illustrator. Perhaps some one that Dorothy Kahananui knew? I have found a scholarship in her name at the University of Hawaii in 2008.

http://manoa.hawaii.edu/hshk/kawaihuelani/resources_kahananui.html

A building at UH was named for her...

Music Building 1.

"She was "a brilliant, dedicated music educator.. .a scholar of Hawaiian music and chant.. . [and] a tireless and outstanding teacher of the Hawaiian language." From 1923 through the war years, she was the major influenceon music education in the state. It was her leadership that helped bring the UHM Music Department to its present level of excellence. She served on the UHM faculty from 1931 until her retirement in 1960. Initially she taught all ten music courses offered in the Teacher's College; her commitment to the cause of music education became legendary. Besides teaching courses for prospective and in-service teachers and supervising student teaching of music, she also taught music history, conducted a non-credit glee club for 20 years, and presented weekly music lessons via radio for Hawai'i's public schools. She was also co-founder and president of the Hawai'i Music Educators Association.

Oh, here she is...

Perhaps a faculty member did those for her... I guess I'm off to UH tomorrow. I have to go there anyway for a related lead I'm following up on... More later...

Aloha,

Found a copy of Volume 2 this morning at a garage sale and spent a quarter...

Amazing find! Great illustrations, big notes. Good on you and thank you for sharing.