Play Like Iz! What You Can Learn from the Unique Ukulele Stylings of Israel Kamakawiwo’le

BY STEVEN ESPANIOLA | FROM THE FALL 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE

The Hawaiian music scene in the mid-1990s was thriving. Some would argue that at its peak, the genre was having a moment and was in the midst of its third renaissance. Artists like Keali’i Reichel, The Mana’o Company, Valley Boys, John Cruz, and Pure Heart (featuring Jon Yamasato, Lopaka Colon Jr., and a young Jake Shimabukuro) were all breaking previous sales records of compact discs. However, there was one iconic figure from the rural west side town of Makaha that would go on to change the entire landscape of Hawaiian music forever, influencing generations to come. That man was the late Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, or “Iz” for short.  

In this lesson, we’ll attempt to examine what it is that makes Iz’s sound so alluring to so many people by looking at a few song examples from his album Facing Future. We’ll also take a close look at various aspects of his playing technique, equipment, upbringing, and his mindset toward playing music. 

On a Mission

When Iz’s seminal second solo album, Facing Future, was released in 1993, no one had any idea that it would be such a huge success—not even his own record label, Mountain Apple Company. The album arguably had the same generational and cultural impact that Nirvana’s Nevermind had just a few years earlier, and it would go on to become the best-selling album of all time by a Hawaiian music artist, becoming platinum certified (selling over one million copies) by 2005.

In my early 20s, I was on a mission, having transplanted from Oahu to the San Francisco Bay Area, and getting serious about the ukulele. I remember locking myself in my room for hours with the Facing Future CD on repeat, hoping to emulate the sounds that were coming from my speakers and absorbing every little nuance and intricate strumming pattern. I hadn’t heard anything like it before—not even from the group Iz came from prior to launching his solo career, the Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau. On the surface, learning his playing style seemed like an easy enough task, but I would soon realize it was much different than anything we had heard prior and definitely more complex than what I was used to learning. 

For context, Hawaiians practice the oral tradition of passing down knowledge from generation to generation through songs, chants, hula, proverbs and na mo’olelo (stories). We had no formal method of learning music like western culture’s written notation. For instance, when I was first learning to play ukulele as a kid in Aliamanu, I had to find a willing family friend, an uncle or aunty, and watch intently, listen, emulate, and absolutely ask no questions. There were no YouTube tutorials, tablature, or ukulele festivals to attend. We had to be diligent and find our way. This method of learning is actually quite common in Hawaiian culture and is beautifully illustrated in the following ‘olelo no’eau (Hawaiian proverb):

Nana ka maka, ho’olohe ka pepeiao, pa’u ka waha, hana kalima.

Observe with the eyes, listen with the ears, shut the mouth, work with the hands.

Mango and Mahogany

Contrary to popular belief, Iz’s main instrument for most of his music career was not the mahogany Martin tenor you typically see him with in photos, but instead a tenor-sized mango ukulele built by luthier K.C. Young, a boutique builder in Hawaii at the time. My musician friend Del Beazley, who wrote the song “Maui Hawaiian Sup’pa Man” on Facing Future, and a lifelong friend and collaborator of Iz’s, adds, “The mango wood was his main axe from the ‘Hank’s Place’ [a popular Hawaiian restaurant in Kaimuki, Oahu, where Iz recorded a live album with Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau that was released in 1995] days, I’d say late ’70s through the late ’80s/early ’90s.”

Mango has a naturally brighter, more treble sounding tone. The iconic late 1930s Martin he is famous for playing—and the template for the recently reissued Martin 1T IZ model—is an ukulele that had been in the Kamakawiwo’ole family for many years. Mahogany instruments have an inherently warmer, deeper tone, much like Hawaiian koa instruments. Iz would go back and forth between these two main instruments. Another thing to note is that he never played using a pickup. All his live and studio performances were amplified using a single well-placed microphone, capturing the natural acoustic beauty of the instrument.

Playing From Your Na’au

In Hawaiian culture, your na’au is literally the gut region of your body, or your “center.” It is where we draw from for inspiration and our source of intuition—sort of like the expression in English, “trust your gut instinct.” Taken even a step further, your na’au is that internal center region where we Hawaiians, or kanaka maoli, connect with our kupuna (elders) and ancestors. It is a safe place that we can instinctually always rely on and trust. This is where you should always play and sing from when performing
Hawaiian or any genre of music. 

Another example I like to use to help demonstrate na’au is that it is like playing with soul, feeling, passion, or groove. Iz undoubtedly played from his na’au. You can hear it in his voice; you can hear it in every recording or interview he’s ever given. It’s a place of sincerity and vulnerability but also a place of undeniable mana (power). When you listen to his recordings, that is the indescribable something you can’t quite put your finger on. 

Having Fun

Having fun while playing music is something that should really be obvious but is often taken for granted. Getting your technique to the level where you feel comfortable and not having to worry about the song will give you the confidence and freedom to relax, stay loose, and insert a little levity and calm to the recording session or live gig. Says Beazley, “The studio vibe [for Facing Future] was always loose and easy. Lots of banter and humor. It was ‘roll the tape’ as soon as Iz was in the vocal booth. Once he locked in, it was always fire.” 

An example of this loose, playful vibe can be found on songs like “Henehene Kou ‘Aka” and “Panini Pua Kea.” It may sound cliché, but to get to this level of musicianship and comfort level, there is no substitute for practice and hard work—consistently trying new arrangements and songs in front of an audience, failing, then trying again. Beazley adds, “Iz always picked up the ukulele and ran stuff by us as he would practice and put together his arrangements. Like most Hawaiian musicians and bands, we’d ‘ready, fire, aim’ some tunes on a gig. We’d create melodies and modulate on the spot to make it work. You always had to pay attention, that’s how the magic would happen!”

The Techniques at Play

Iz preferred playing with a low G, as opposed to re-entrant tuning. This allowed him to incorporate a driving bass pattern with his thumb to keep a consistent rhythm while freeing up his fingers for the alternating strum. 

An example of this technique can be heard on his most famous recording,  “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (Example 1), which made him a household name. On this song Iz plays a variation of an island or calypso strum, with a down-down-up-up-down-up pattern. On the first downward strum, he substitutes the index finger with a light thumb stroke to graze the low G string. In the delicate picking intro on the hauntingly beautiful “Hawai’i ’78,” as shown in Example 2, Iz demonstrates a fragile, arpeggiated picking pattern that perfectly foreshadows the mood of the song’s subject matter, a commentary on the modernization and colonization of Hawaii.

Iz used a deceptively simple sounding mix of strumming and picking. His playing was purposeful, very rhythmic and melodic. For much of Facing Future, the instrumentation consists mostly of ukulele, upright bass, and acoustic guitar. This typical sparse combination of instruments, also similarly used in bluegrass music, frees up the ukulele to alternate between picking and strumming since the guitar can pick up the rhythm responsibilities. 

In contrast to the delicate picking of “Hawai’i ’78,” let’s look at this example of a typical driving intro he plays on this peppy rendition of the John Kameaaloha classic “Panini Pua Kea” (Example 3). Pay close attention to the use of the Csus4 chord in this intro. Iz loved to use this embellishment technique often and it would become a signature part of his sound.

And So the Story is Told 

“Ha’ina mai ana ka puana” is typically the way we end most Hawaiian songs. It is the first line of the last verse on any given Hawaiian song. It loosely translates to “tell the refrain,” or “and so the story is told,” so I find it to be a fitting way to end this musical journey exploring the sound of Iz. 

Of course, it’s virtually impossible to encapsulate what made Iz’s sound so magical, but I feel the beauty is in the process of trying to find that magic. Perhaps we will never know. 

Or perhaps the answer is somewhere over the rainbow. 

Mahalo nui to Daniel Ward for his help with the music notation and Del Beazley for giving us a little glimpse into Iz’s amazing world.  —SE