Means of Preservation and Diffusion of Traditional Music: The Philippine Situation

Author(s): José Maceda

Source: Asian Music , 1971, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1971), pp. 14-17
Published by: University of Texas Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/833808

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Asian Music

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 MEANS OF PRESERVATION AND DIFFUSION OF TRADITIONAL

MUSIC

THE PHILIPPINE SITUATION*

Jose Maceda

L Traditional Music in the Philippines

Pre-Hispanic or Malaysian-type music

A rich variety of pre-Hispanic music in the Philippines is practised by a small

group Qf the country's population living in isolated regions - in the mountains of
northern Luzon, and in the coastal and inner areas of the islands of Mindanao, Sulu
and other islands in the South and West. These people, who number approximately
eight per cent of the Philippine population of more than thirty millions, have had
little or no contact with Western civilization. Although they speak different lan-
guages, which are a part of more than a hundred major and minor languages of
the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in the Philippines, they have a common
culture.

Village festivities are important occasions for the playing of gong ensembles
which usually accompany dances, while recreations and activities of daily life
provide opportunities for performing solo instrumental and vocal music of
different kinds. A particular situation for ritualistic solo chanting occurs during
an illness when a medium intercedes on behalf of the sick person; and through
the vehicle of dance and instrumental music, he succeeds in persuading with
entreaties the mischievous spirit to depart from the body of the person.

The pre-Hispanic music in the Philippines is largely a Malaysian-type music

whose musical character is to a certain extent associated with or related to
village feasts, individual and family activities, a belief in spirits (anit
influenced by the syntax of a Malaysian language.

In group activities involving the participation of several gong ensembles, as

in northern Luzon, the music is loud and strong. Gongs must sound against the
revelry of general noise, such as talking, laughing, dancing, cooking preparations

*This paper was presented at a Conference held in Berlin, June 12-17, 1967,
by the International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation
in cooperation with the International Music Council, and is published here by
the kind permission of Alain Daniblou, Director of the Institute.

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and entertainment of visitors. A faint melody of four consecutive and adjacent
tones in the flat-gong ensemble, the gangsa, provides a subtle sound to the delight
of some listeners, but the general ostinato effect of this same melody, together
with the stronger clangor of all the gangsa intoxicate the whole village into a sense
of continuous enjoyment - a "fiesta" atmosphere.

Under the more subduced surroundings of the home or houses for the exclusive
use of boys or girls, descending melodies on the nose flute, twangs on the jew's
harp and pluckings on the tube zither are thin and soft. A dialogue on the mouth
harp between two people is possible only in an intimate setting such as this one.
The delicate strummings on the bamboo zither and the two-stringed boat lute
would not be heard in large concentrations of people.

In anito seances among the Negrito, it happens that a spirit would ask its
medium to sing a specific melody which it prefers, or it would choose the voice
of another medium. The extended playing of repeated rhythmic patterns on the
guitar is a part of the conditioning necessary for the medium to go into a trance,
when the spirits can enter his body and communicate with him for the sake of
the sick man. Sometimes a spirit would not agree to stop maligning a sick person;
then, music and dance must continue far into the night and possibly be repeated
on the following nights.

In malaysian languages, an alternate consonant and vowel structure serves

as a natural means for a syllabic recitation of psalm-like-melodies, one of the
principal musical forms on which much of Philippine-Malaysian singing is based.
In songs where long melismata are employed at the beginning as well as in the
middle of lines or sentences, the melodies are much akin to an Islamic style of
singing which is practised mostly in Islamic communities in the Southern Philippines.

Most Malaysian musical instruments in the Philippines are made of bamboo

which can produce a variety of sounds, by stamping tubes on the ground, buzzes,
concussions between two tubes, hollow sound of the xylophone box, pinched sound
of zithers, scrapes on notched surfaces, resonances in the mouth of a jew's harp,
blown sounds on panpipes, reedy sounds, down-scale of flute runs, drum attacks,
shrill whistle, etc. Sounds from other materials - bronze, brass, iron,palm,
wood, shell, vine, hair, bean-pod as rattle, tree-trunk - depict a large palette
of colours.

Hispanic-type music

The Spanish cultural heritage in the Philippines left principally one type of
music among the greater majority of the population. This is the Mediterrane
type melody with guitar accompaniment which flourished about the latter part o
the nineteenth century, probably in a few centers of Spanish culture, and spread
to other islands where it still is being practised today. There are probably
thousands of songs of this kind with a general musical structure of major or
minor tonalities, 3/4 and 4/4 meters and a simple harmonic permutation betw
the principal degrees of the scale. The plucked-string orchestra (rondalla),
guitar, harp, piano, brass band and symphony orchestra play these "folk" or
love songs (kundiman) or provide accompaniment for them.

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 An interesting phenomenon about the style or musical features of these songs
is that of variety. Within the general limitations of musical structure described
above, and with the exception of songs sung in common in different regions, each
song is quite distinct from the other in melodic contour, character and partly
in rhythm. Almost anybody who has a good musical sense can compose a song.
Traditional songs by unknown authors, and those "poorly" composed, as well as
known songs and "classics" written by prominent composers belong to this family
of songs. Theoretically, the number of songs in this general style of writing
can be increased to many thousands more, for mathematically, the number of
permutations in notes, rhythm and other features are probably infinite.

The traditional setting - a suitor serenading under the window of a loved one -
and themes of love and devotion, which hark back to ideals of European knight-
hood and chivalry rather than to advantures of the heroes of native tradition,
evoke deep feelings among the old and the young. In different parts of the
Philippines, since the emotional connotations of this type of song-melody are
quite strong, this song-type may be taken as a symbol of Filipinism or a bond
which unites the whole country.

II. Preservation and diffusion of these two types of music above

Through the medium of the schools, radio and television, the kundiman-type
music is now spread in different parts of the Philippines. Children in the remotest
barrios with a traditional pre-Hispanic social setting are starting to sing these
songs. Some of them have been transformed into jazz rhythms and modern
harmonies, arranged as a medley, and more recently treated by serious com-
posers as atonal compositions. A few investigators are undertaking research
in regions without any Western influence. Tape-recordings, films, movies
of singing and instrumental playing as well as musical instruments are being
collected at the University of the Philippines, Philippine Women's University
and Silliman University. Several dance groups have brought native music and
dance to the concert and dance stage.

This transfer of a musical practice from one culture into another is not always
a preservation of the original. Rather, it tends in certain instances to admit a
certain amount of dilution. For example, in some cases, thirds are used
indiscriminately throughout the melody'of a kundiman-type song, and harmonic
accompaniments on the guitar employ unorthodox chordal arrangements. In a
number of dance renditions, gong rhythms and melodic patterns do not conform
with the original practice and gong strokes do not produce the authentic colour.

At the University of the Philippines we have presented excellent players of

the gong (kulintang) and the kudyapi, the two-.stringed lute, together with music
by Ravel, Varese, and Xenakis, especially to show certain affinities betwee
this ancient music and that of today.

Besides the interest of the intelligentsia, who studied abroad, for different
kinds of Western music only a few enlightened people are interested in Asian
music especially gamelan music of Indonesia. At the University of the Philippines

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Chinese music and Mindanao gong music are being taught as minor subjects.
Audiences in Asian music festivals, and participants in jam sessions or
performances of avantgarde music, are generally young people. The musical
forces - at work in the Philippines are thus divided between the societies which
support these musics. The oldest musical tradition, the Malaysian, has the
strongest resistance to change among the smallest number of people, while the
newest musical influences from the West are affecting a Westernized youth.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE ART MUSIC OF INDIA

A bibliography on the art music of India, compiled by Professor Elise B.

Barnett, was published in Ethnomusicology, Vol. XIV, No. 2, May 1970, pp. 278-
312. The bibliography (Part I) lists 741 books and articles published since 1959,
as well as a few that appeared in 1957 and 1958. Only works or translations in
European languages have been cited. The subject classification lists works on
the following subjects: Acculturation, Acoustics, Aesthetics, Bibliographies,
Dictionaries and Glossaries, Choral Music (see Vocal Music), Cance and
Dance-Drama, Drone, Education, Emotion and Ethos (see Rasa), Folk Music
(see Sociology), Form, musical, Gamakas (see Ornamentation), Gharanas (see
Education), History and Theory, A. General, B. Historical Periods, Vedic, 2.
Classical, 3. Modern, Iconography, Improvisation, Instruments, A General
Studies, B. Specific Studies, 1. Aerophones, 2. Chordophones, 3. Idiophones,
4. Membranophones, 5. Keyboard instruments. Intervals (see Srutis), Intro-
ductory Studies, Legends and Myths (see Historical Periods), Melody Types
(see Ragas), Microtones and Notes (see Srutis and Svaras), Musical Examples,
Musicians and Musicologists, Musicology, Notation (see Musical examples),
Orchestral Music, Ornamentation, Philosophy (see Aesthetics), Psychology,
Ragas, Rasa, Regional Music and Dance, Religion and Music, Research Methods
(see Musicology), Rhythm and Tempo (see Tala and Laya), Scale Systems,
Sculptural Representation (see Iconography), Sociology, Srutis and Swaras,
Talas and Layas, Texts (see Vocal Music), Theory (see History and Theory),
Time Theory (see Ragas), Vocal Music.

- ed. ]

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