Festival to feature some of the top artists in the Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Genre performing for 6 solid hours on the beautiful grounds of the Waikiki Aquarium. Festival will also feature local arts and crafts, snacks, soft drinks and other favorite local foods. A minimum of 15 artists will perform as soloist, duos, or a complete band showcasing the many different styles of slack key guitar from the traditional to the more contemporary styles of younger artists. Slack Key Guitar is an indigenous guitar art form that is 187 years old that started in 1830 on Hawai’i Island (Big Island). It is considered by many in music to be the last great guitar tradition in the world today. It is believed that the “Mexican Vaqueros” who came to Hawaii in the early 1800s brought their guitars with them to serenade themselves after a long day of work. The Hawaiians who never saw a guitar was astonished by such a wonderful instrument. It is also believed that when the “Hired Cowboys” from California left Hawaii and head home to California (which was a part of Mexico back in the day), left their guitars for their Hawaiian counterparts. Not knowing how to tune the guitar, but very musical ears, they Hawaiians tune it to what sounded pleasant to their ears. This ultimately ended up being a major chord tuning (G Major tuned D-G-G-D-B-D).