Hele Wāwae (The Walking Song)

Ledward is a man of many talents as well as many interests. He is very fond of neighborhood walks, whether at home in Kane`ohe or when he visits other spots. When he began putting together this piece of music he noticed that he was finding a rhythm similar to his strolling pace, relaxed and comfortable but vigorous enough to be interesting. The title of the tune was obvious, "Hele Wāwae," Hawaiian for "walking."

It's been fun seeing the evolution of the piece as Led finds musical ideas that propel the song along, and of course it's a never ending process. Even while we shot videos each version would feature some new detail while never losing the structure and motion that made it the Walking Song.

This video was our second 2021 session in Led's backyard, once again dealing with the brisk winds with a combination of mic techniques and a bit of EQ applied in REAPER audio software. The mics are a pair of Shure KSM141s, these small diaphragm mics are unusual because they provide mechanical switching between cardioid direction and omni directional patterns. The omni pattern really helps reduce the level of wind noise. The Zoom F6 recorder was a big help as well, because the 32 bit float recording format meant we wouldn't experience clipping from any severe wind gusts.

We're both using Martin mahogany and spruce 000 style guitars. Led's is a 000-16, one of the short run 000-16s featuring a long scale and dovetail neck joint. Mine is an OM-18V, another model that was only produced for a few years and also features a long scale. Both guitars are tuned to taropatch open G (D G D G B D from low pitch to high).

Cameras for this clip were a Panasonic Lumix GH5, iPhone XS Max and and iPhone 11 Pro Max. Filmic Pro and Filmic Remote were a big help in getting the most out of the iPhone videos. The clip was assembled in Edius 9.