A Second Try to Post: The Ukulele and How To Play It, by Ernest Ka'ai

So sorry about the formatting error!

Update- I tried to write the following post earlier in the week, but was defeated with formatting issues with the long PDF file. Sorry if you were trying to download the book before I deleted the message. It is below as a series of JPEG images, but I can email you the PDF, info@thebeansprout.com.

Thanks!

I just got an email from Kilin Reece from the Pacific Strings Museum. He is a luthier and historian whose work I follow closely. He sent over a good PDF scan of Ernest Ka’ai’s 1906 book The Ukulele and How To Play It. Ka’ai was a fascinating musician, teacher and entrepreneur. Kilin and the Pacific Strings Museum have done research into his life and work, which you can start with here. The main thing I find interesting about Ka’ai was that he was at the crossroads of classical, Hawaiian and popular music just as the Madeiran luthiers showed up in Hawaii.

This 1906 book must be the earliest Ukulele book published, but I am waiting for morning in Hawaii before I message Kilin to confirm. You can see that Ka’ai uses a different way of talking about chords and keys than we do now. Instead of the Nashville numbering system, he uses 1st, 2nd and 3rd chords in a Key, meaning the three most common chords, the I, IV and V7. Also, he uses two different kinds of tablature and even open tunings, including on page 31, Spanish Fandango. Here is John King playing that arrangement: