nahenahe, vs. Soft, sweet, melodious, as music or a gentle voice.
- the Hawaiian Dictionary, Revised and Enlarged Edition, Mary Kawena Puku'i & Dr. Samuel H. Elbert.
Every once in a while I get email asking "Just what is NahenaheNet about? You don't sell CDs, you don't sell advertising, so what's the hook?"
NahenaheNet started shortly after I helped my friend Keola Beamer get his web presence started. It was fun, and I thought it was a great way to promote Hawaiian music. I had become acquainted with many of the musicians who are represented on NahenaheNet over the years, a number of them before anyone outside of Maui had heard them. On more than a few occassions I asked a number of them to help out our Hawaiian immersion schools by performing at benefit concerts, and almost always they graciously agreed to do so.
Not being a very wealthy individual I offered a few of them to return the favor and do a webpage for them. Some accepted, some did not, those that did formed the basis for NahenaheNet. It seemed silly to have Hawaiian music webpages spread out all over the place, so they all found a home here. Some, like the website I started for Na Leo Pilimehana has evolved and the ladies have taken over direction of their site and gotten their own domain. Great for them, they recognized the value of having a presence on the web and getting involved with its direction.
One of my favorite sites over the years has been a page called Scripting News, maintained by Dave Winer, the author of Frontier, the program I now use to maintain NahenaheNet. Scripting News is updated daily with news and links to things that Dave finds interesting, and I tend to find interesting as well. The NahenaheNet home page is modeled somewhat after the Scripting News homepage, though with a Hawaiian music theme.
I don't do the site for profit, its for fun, for friends, and for love of the music. No hooks, no catch.
Mele Kalikimaka everyone....
Keola
12/7/98