Reviving Our Native Philippine Songs

 Reviving Our Native Philippine Songs

Ethnic Music reduces anxiety and pain, induces relaxation, thus promoting the overall sense of well-being of the individual.

Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog
Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday

Have you ever noticed village folks singing or humming as they attend to their chores? 

Music is closely associated with everyday life among village folks more than it is to us living in the city. The natives find content and relaxation beside a waterfall, on the riverbank, under the trees, in fact there is to them music in silence under the stars, on the meadow, at sunset, at dawn. Breeze, crickets, running water, make a repetitious melody that induces sleep. 

Fernando Amorsolo's paintings such as this, provide the ideal backdrop of Philippine ethnic music. 

 Humming indicates that one likes his or her work, and can go on for hours without getting tired at it. Boat songs make rowing synchronized. Planting songs make the deities of the field happy, so they believe; and songs at harvest are thanksgiving. Seldom is there an activity without music. The sound of nature to them is music.

Typical Filipina on the countryside (Ang Dalagang Pilipina),

painting by Fernando Amorsolo

According to researcher Leonora Nacorda Collantes, of the UST graduate school, music influences the limbic system, called the “seat of emotions” and causes emotional response and mood change. Musical rhythms synchronize body rhythms, mediate within the sphere of the autonomous nervous and endocrine systems, and change the heart and respiratory rate. Music reduces anxiety and pain, induces relaxation, thus promoting the overall sense of well being of the individual.

Ethnic music has greatly influenced folk music that we know today, such as the following. These are songs about

• rowing the boat (Talindaw) 
• planting rice (Magtanim Hindi Biro); 
• a happy, simple home (Bahay Kubo), 
• wedding (Diona) 
• the butterfly (Paruparong Bukid) 
• a tiny bird (Ang Pipit) 
• lullaby (uyayi, hele, Ugoy ng Duyan) 
• love's pleading (Kundiman) 
• serenade (Harana) 
• countryside living (Sa Libis ng Nayon) 
• a light or star (O Ilaw, Aking Bituin) 
• wooden clog (Bakya Mo Neneng) 
• exulting the young Filipina (Dalagang Pilipina 
• early love, "The Love of a Girl" (Ti Ayat ti Maysa nga Ubing Ilk) 
• a broken clay pot (Nabasag ang Banga) 

Here is an example of an indigenous song, Uyayi or hele (Lullaby). Note how natural and spontaneous it is. The lyrics were invented to fit varied melodies. You can make your own, too.

Matulog ka na, bunso
Sleep now, youngest one

Ang ina mo ay malayo
Your mother is far away

at hindi ka masundo
and she can't come for you

May putik, may balaho
There's mud, there's a swamp

Among the Filipino musicologists who have contributed much to the revival and conservation of traditional Philippine music are:

1. Fr. Morice Vanoverberg made a pioneering contribution to Philippine ethnic music by creating one of the earliest documented collections of traditional indigenous song lyrics in 1919. He focused his research on the traditional music and culture of the Lepanto Igorots of Northern Luzon. 

His 1919 work successfully recorded the native words and poetry of indigenous songs, safeguarding oral literature that might otherwise have been lost. 

As noted by the University of Saint Louis, his broader work established him as an authority on northern ethnolinguistic groups like the Ilokano, Kankanay, and Isneg, providing crucial cultural context for local arts. Wikipedia

2. Emilia Cavan, for her collection of Filipino Folk Songs published in 1924.

Collected and arranged by Emilia S. Cavan, with musical harmonization by the prominent Filipino composer Francisco Santiago. It is considered one of the earliest and most vital published collections of traditional Philippine music featuring actual musical notation and tunes.  Features around 30 traditional songs, including early documented print versions of classic folk staples like "Bahay Kubo". 

Cavan's collection contains lyrics in various Philippine regional dialects alongside supplementary English translations and notes.  Norberto Romualdez , for his collection of Folk Songs in the 'Philippine Progressive Music Series' published in the late 1920s. The series became the textbook for teaching music in the Primary School. It remains to be the most important collection of traditional music from the Philippines, since a copy of it is still available in major Municipal and Provincial Libraries in the country. Wikipedia

4. Emilia Reysio-Cruz, for her collection of 'Filipino Folk Songs' that caters to the so- called 'Eight Major Languages' of the country. The collection is perhaps the best representation of the songs from these ethnolinguistic groups. 

The book features traditional folk music representing the Philippines' major ethnolinguistic groups and regional languages. Musical Arrangement: The pieces were harmonized by the notable Filipino composer Francisco Santiago, tailored for one to five voices, often with piano accompaniment. Lyrics are provided in their original regional Philippine dialects and languages, accompanied by English translations or explanatory. Internet

5. Dr. Jose Maceda (January 31, 1917 – May 5, 2004) composer, internationally renowned scholar in ethnomusicology, recorded end collected (personally, and cooperatively with his staff, as well as contributions from other scholars in the international community) traditional musics in the Philippines and in some parts of South East Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, China, ….) during the period between 1953 and 2003.

The collection reflects the traditional music of the Philippines covers sixty-eight ethnolinguistic groups, and South East Asians before many musical styles vanished, or substantially changed, as a result of the process of social change, modern civilization and cultural globalization.
For the region, the José Maceda Collection is unique in scope and size. It is a significant memorial of the orally transmitted cultural contributions to mankind from that part of the world.

6. Lucrecia Roces Kasilag (August 31, 1918- August 16, 2008) was a noted composer, educator, cultural and arts administrator, and performing artist. She was named National Artist in Music in 1989. She pioneered the fusion of Filipino ethnic and Western music. She dared to mix indigenous Filipino instruments with Western orchestra in her prize-winning "Toccata for Percussions and Winds, Divertissement and Concertante," and the scores of the Filiasiana, Misang Pilipino and De Profundis. She was fondly called "Tita King".

7. Prof. Raul Sunico, currently the dean of the Conservatory of Music of the University of Santo Tomas, published his own collection. He began with publishing a collection of lullabies, followed by love songs, then by work songs. Finally, he published a collection of songs about Filipino women, a major topic of traditional songs from all the ethnolinguistic groups. All these collections were arranged for the piano and the words are given in their original languages. A translation is also supplied, not to mention a brief backgrounder about the culture of the specific ethnic groups.

8. Raymundo Cipriano "Ryan" Pujante Cayabyab is a Filipino musician, composer and conductor of Original Pilipino Music. He was the Executive and Artistic Director for several years for the defunct San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts. He was named National Artist of the Philippines for Music in 2018. Wikipedia

As a composer and musical arranger, Cayabyab’s dedication to OPM (Original Pilipino Music) pushed the industry to historic heights, with songs such as “Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika,” the grand prize winner of the first Metro Manila Popular Music Festival in 1978; “Kailan,” “Paraiso,” and “Da Coconut Nut,” recorded and performed by the iconic 1990s group Smokey Mountain; “Tuwing Umuulan at Kapiling Ka,” “Araw Gabi,” and “Ikaw ang Tunay na Ligaya,” interpreted and popularized by a range of the country’s best and most talented balladeers; and many other classics that have remained ingrained in Filipino popular culture and collective memory to date. Internet

Also an established musical director and conductor, Cayabyab has produced musical works for film and theater, including Rama Hari, Katy!, El Filibusterismo and Noli Me Tangere: The Musical, Magnificat, Ang Larawan, Spoliarium: Juan Luna, Mariang Makiling at ang mga Nuno sa Punso, Lorenzo, and Puso ng Pasko, among others.

9. Ramón Pagayon Santos (born 25 February 1941) is a Filipino composer, ethnomusicologist, and educator known for being the Philippines' foremost living exponent of contemporary Filipino classical music for work that expounds on "the aesthetic frameworks of Philippine and Southeast Asian artistic traditions," and for finding new uses of indigenous Philippine instruments. A University Professor Emeritus of the composition and theory department at the College of Music of the University of the Philippines Diliman, he was proclaimed National Artist of the Philippines for music in 2014. He received a master in music from Indiana University in 1969 and PhD in Music Composition from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1972.

Work as ethnomusicologist. In 1976, Santos began doing fieldwork among folk religious groups in Quezon, collecting and documenting their music. He later also did similar fieldwork among the Ibaloi, Mansaka, Bontoc, Yakan and Boholano peoples. The Philippines' National Commission on Culture and the Arts notes that as a result, Santos' compositions beginning in this period in his professional life were characterized by "the translation of indigenous musical systems into modern musical discourse." Wikipedia, 

Some of Santos' compositions include:Rituwal ng Pasasalamat, Likas-An, Badiw as Kapoonan, Awit ni Pulau,

Daragang Magayon, Ta-O, Sandiwaan, Nagnit Igak G’nan Wagnwag Nila (Alingawngaw ng Kagitingan), Gong-An for 

solo piano (I. Klntang, II. About-Tanaw III, III. Pal'ok), L'bad for orchestra, Panaghoy. ~

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Acknowledgement with gratitude to the sources of information, images, Wikipedia, Internet, institutions concerned, Living ith Nature book series,

others.  This article misses other deserving great Filipino musicians, to them I convey the same respect and acknowledgement for their achievements.