by Yiming Fu, a Report for America corps member
Reuben Pali lost his music school in the Lahaina fires. Standing at 900 Front Street at the Maui outlets, Pali sold ukuleles and taught guitar, piano and ukulele lessons. There was a stage outside his store where kids could practice performing live, strumming their instruments and singing together.
Pali’s organization, Maui Music Mission, aims to lower the barrier of entry to playing music by seeking grants and hosting fundraisers. After the Lahaina fires, he quickly looked to bring music back to the kids, meeting them in hotels or temporary shelters, anywhere they were. To him, the store was a material loss, which can be recovered. But music is crucial to people’s emotional and spiritual wellbeing, and Pali’s mind was set on helping kids get their instruments back.
“Music is part of healing,” Pali said. “On a long day of work, you come home and you pick up a guitar, you jump on a piano, you grab a ukulele, and you just play a few tunes. It seems to calm me down, relax, wash everything off from the day.”
Pali, who is Hawaiian Chinese, was born in Oahu but has lived in West Maui since he was three. He grew up with aunties and uncles that played music and his father would sing songs like Gypsy in a Bottle. There would always be kanikapila, or an impromptu jam session where people would eat and talk and perform for hours.
Pali started teaching himself the guitar as his first instrument. After graduating high school, he remembers bringing his ukulele with him wherever he went. Everybody in Lahaina knew him as the guy walking around with a ukulele.
In October 2023, just two months after the Lahaina fires, Pali started music classes in West Maui again. By November, he had three classes going in Kapalua. He taught classes for both kids and senior citizens. Being back in his work helped him heal as well.
“For music instructors, that’s what makes us happy,” Pali said. “That’s our zone, that’s what we do. Teaching makes us happy but what’s most important is the engagement with other people. It makes us happy to see when they’re playing and when they’re singing. The joy on their faces brings us happiness as well.”
Now, Pali has a physical location in Wailuku, Maui where he teaches after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He teaches in Lahaina on Wednesday and Friday. He’s not sure the store will return to Lahaina, since debris cleanup is only about 50% done for commercial properties, but he isn’t sure he will be able to continue renting the space anyway.
Reuben Pali splits his time between West Maui and Wailuku town, which is about a 50 minute drive. He teaches grade school students and also hosts lessons for elders. Photo by Yiming Fu 
Pali grew up in a musical family and he remembers always having casual jam sessions for hours. After graduating high school, he was known around Lahaina as the person always carrying a ukulele around. Photo by Yiming Fu 
Pali’s favorite part of his job is seeing his students’ faces light up. Photo by Yiming Fu
An out-of-the-blue beginning
Pali started Maui Mission in 2014, but he taught ukulele for kids before it was an official organization. While he always loved music, Pali joined the National Guard after high school, then worked in landscaping and construction on Maui. Pali helped out with the Salvation Army, and he would sing and play ukulele on Christmas as people came by. After hearing Pali’s songs, parents would come up to him and ask him if he would want to teach their kids.
One parent got a group of 5 boys together, and Pali started teaching them. After several months they started getting really good. And next Christmas, the kids performed at the Lahaina Cannery Mall.
“When the kids got on the stage and started performing the first song which was Hawaiian Superman, everybody just started turning around like ‘what’s going on?’” Pali said. “People were coming out of the stores and midway through the song the whole mall where the stage was packed.”
After the boys performed their three-song set, Pali said the crowd erupted into applause, and people came up to him asking for lessons. With an outpouring of support, Pali’s life shifted on a dime.
Since then, Maui Music Mission has been working to provide music lessons for all. Pali started with ukulele but expanded to guitar, piano and other instruments. He began teaching private lessons, in schools, in afterschool programs and developing summer camps.
Music as a safe haven
Ana Kalina is one of the music teachers at The Cameron Center in Wailuku. She said she joined Maui Music Mission because she believes in the goal of providing free music lessons to kids and lowering barriers to music education.
Kalina plays for the Maui Symphony Orchestra, and she sings and teaches piano, guitar and ukelele. She grew up in a Filipino household with music all around her. When she was three years old, she remembers wanting to play the piano badly, tapping out songs on a ledge at home.
Kalina said one of the fundamentals of her teaching is telling kids to laugh at their mistakes instead of punishing them.
“Mistakes are the process of learning and mistakes are valuable so that we know what not to repeat,” Kalina said. “My philosophy is to reward the good every single time I see it. And if a mistake happens, if it often does, you just laugh about it. No problem!”
That’s where the term “playing music” comes from, she said. It’s play.
Hunter is one of the students at Maui Music Mission’s Wailuku location. A 7th-grade fan of Beethoven, Pachebel and Mozart, he loves math class and listening to classical music.
“I love playing piano and I always try my best doing it. It’s a very inspiring instrument,” Hunter said. And when he sits down at the bench, he gets excited to play.
He said the people at Maui Music Mission are very welcoming and very nice, and he likes taking lessons there. He goes every Tuesday for an hour and practices every day at home for an hour or two. He wants to be a professional pianist when he grows up.
Bright futures
Pali thinks his students could grow up to be the next musical greats.
“I see the talent in these kids and what they can become if they continue music,” Pali said. “They’re like sponges, they soak it all up. It’s been amazing and their parents are blown away and they’re smiling, and I’m like what else can we do?”
Even if they don’t go into music, Pali said he’s watched his students grow so much, developing life skills. Sometimes he works with students who are angry or sad or disconnected, but he’s been able to help them channel their experiences into music. Music also teaches you how to learn, he said, like figuring out how to play a tough passage or discovering new chord combinations.
For Pali, the best part of his job is seeing his kids’ faces light up.
“All my kids are important to me,” Pali said. “We want to see them have a life that they can prosper in and not be tied up in a world where they’re always butting heads. Music is supposed to be enjoyable.”
Looking forward, Pali wants target different places of the island, taking Maui Music Mission to Kihei, Makawao and all over Maui.
Pali hopes Maui Music Mission can have its own piece of land with a music school and a community center that provides instructor lodging. He thinks the center could also have vegetable gardens, its own aquaponic farms to feed people, and the school could also house kids who need a place to stay.
“I believe God has a bigger plan for things,” Pali said, “And even if it doesn’t all flourish in that direction, things are going to get better.”
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