Songwriting Club – Exercise #2: The Story of Place
- Jul 24
- 1 min read
Updated: Jul 24
Due Friday, August 7 and Friday, August 14, 2026 Aloha Songwriting Club!
As we all know, our theme for 2026 is centered around place. The places we love shape who we are. To help get us in the headspace to begin songwriting about place, we first need to ground in place. All good songs start with a story so here's your second assignment, enjoy it!
EXERCISE #2: The Story of Place
Part 1: A Story Of Place (Due Friday, August 7, 2026)
Write a story about a place that is meaningful to you.
Don't worry about writing lyrics yet. Instead, focus on telling the story.
Think about questions like:
Where is this place?
Why is it meaningful to you?
What happened there?
Who was with you?
What emotions do you connect with it?
What does it look, sound, smell, or feel like?
How has this place changed you?
Write as much or as little as you need. The goal is simply to capture the story behind the place.
Part 2: Leave A Comment on at least two other posts (Due Friday, August 14, 2026)
Great feedback can include:
What imagery stood out to you?
What emotions did you connect with?
What details made the story come alive?
What would you love to hear more about in a finished song?
Happy writing!
— Kala'e
Kapena School of Music & Creative Expression
One of my favorite places is Manoa, where my great aunty and uncle live. I chose this place because this house holds a lot of memories. I've been going since I was a baby, but my earliest memories are from when I was one. They have an old piano over 100 years old that belonged to my great uncle's dad and that they shipped to Hawai'i after his dad passed. Some early memories I have are banging on the keys when I was a baby. When I was younger, my auntie bought me a pull-back toy bus that I loved to play with. I remember pulling it back and letting it go, and then it would zoom forward so fast…
It's hard to choose just one place that's meaningful to me, so I decided to give a brief description of my family’s origin story.
My dad's whole side immigrated to Hawai'i when he was in elementary school and lived in Wahiawa. Let me start off with a backstory of how they got here and made Hawai’i our home. Prior to my dad being born, his dad was living in the Philippines and at 19 years old he received a letter from his brother, who was working sugar cane fields in Maui, asking my grandpa to come join him. In 1929, my grandfather then took a ship to Japan and hopped on another ship to Hawai'i. In my grandfather's autobiography, he…
Where is this place?
Wailuanui, Maui
Why is it meaningful to you?
Visited Wailuanui when my dad passed in 2007
First time I met a lot of Makanani’s family
Named Kala’iku after this place. Kala’ikuowailuanui- The great calm of Wailuanui
First time I realized what Hawai’i was like many many years ago
Provided me with a fresh prospective on life
What happened there?
Driving
Eating foods I never ate or rarely eat(opihi, opae, poi, shellfish, fish). Food that is not bought in the store
Hanging out
BBQing
Quad riding
Jumping off the bridge
Connection with family
Storytelling
Who was with you?
Makanani, Wade, Beau, Makanani’s family
What emotions do you connect with it?
Relaxation
Re-energize
Calmness
Gratitude
Timid
Shy
Respectful
Strength and Presence - Mauna Kea can be compared to a person who is grounded, strong, and captivating enough to inspire love. My emotional connection throughout the story, I felt strength, peace, calm, unity with nature, awe, and tears of joy. When I visited Mauna Kea with the Fijian community, I saw that the people protecting it embodied the same strength, sacredness, and steadfast presence as the mountain itself. A peaceful haven is seeing and feeling the beauty around me creates a sense of peace. The vast sky seems untouchable, yet close enough to make me want to reach out and draw it nearer. A lifelong love of the stars I can see through camping has always given me this…
When i was 7 years old or 9ish i went to Kona, Hawai’i for my cousins grad party. This place is very meaningful to me because not only is half of my family from there but there is so many mo’olelo and stories of all of the wars and chiefs and heiau there so it was all very cool and different. The day of the grad party came and I was so excited. A couple of girls ended up trying to pick a fight with me so me being the little 7 year old I was I ended up talking smack back but thankfully my twin cousins were there so they ended up bringing me to my mom then…