Celebrating the Music of Helen Desha Beamer

Celebrating the breadth and depth of Hawaiian knowledge. Amplifying Pacific voices of resiliency and hope. Recording the wisdom of past and present to help shape our future.

How do you pass the time when youʻre on a long ride to visit a friend? If you are Helen Desha Beamer, you may decide to compose a song, complete with music and lyrics...

Her grandson, Mahi Beamer, says that part of her genius was in being able to compose songs with such speed that:

“[Sometimes] she would wake up in the middle of the night, go to the piano, and everything would come to her — all the words, and music, and everything. She would jot down the music in her number style and then the lyrics, and she would have a complete song. And she would write on anything — on the backs of envelopes or torn pieces of paper — and there would be lots of these little notepapers all over. Also she carried her ʻukulele with her a lot. She would sing as she went along. So as she was composing a piece she was playing it...”

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