Music and Cultural Nationalism (yeah geog!)

Philippine Music has always been a rich interwoven narrative of historical, societal changes. The idea of the society is represented by the prevailing music at a given time and is always reflective of the characteristics of the people. As the brief discussions with Prof. Pat Silvestre and Prof. Jonas Baes imply, the role of Music now as how it was before is laden with changes in response to the need of the time and the context of their creation.

Similar to the German Lied or the French Melodie, the Philippines has a recognized art song form which is the Kundiman. The Kundiman is from the phrase “Kung Hindi Man”, typically about love but not necessarily romantic. Some of the Kundimans, prevalent during the 19th century, were about one’s love for country like Constancio de Guzman’s “Bayan Ko” and Pedro Gatmaitan Santos’ “Sa Magandang Silangan”—a musical setting of Rizal’s poem of the same title. These Kundimans were resurfaced though remastered or remade in a different genre especially in the 80’s during Marcos’ regime. Some of the other Kundimans with romantic or filial love as topics are remade by artists to fit the contemporary context of the generation. These Kundimans are typically arranged for Pop, Chorale, or Orchestra by contemporary musicians like Ryan Cayabyab. Examples would include Lucio San Pedro’s “Sa Uggoy ng Duyan”, Constancio de Guzman’s “Maalaala Mo Kaya” and Restie Umali’s “Saan Ka Man Naroroon”.

Folk Traditional Songs were present even during the pre-colonial period. And these folk songs were originally functional songs reflective of a person’s life cycle. There are songs for harvest, for a person’s life and death, for courtship, for the healing of the sick, and songs for rites of passages. Folk songs were often communal, thus orally transmitted. Even the instruments were functional as they mostly originated from hunting weapons. Gongs were used as heirlooms, boons and payments for transaction of land. Kubing, the jew’s harp, is used as a knife. Nose flutes and panpipes have onomatopoeic characteristics used for attracting animals to be hunted. But due to the change in dynamics, the occurrence of colonization and other historical aspects influencing change in tradition, there is a decline in the functionality of Folk Songs. Instruments belonged to museums and there is a fear of the folk songs themselves being museum music as well. The performance, therefore, of folk songs nowadays are outside the context of their functionality. They are now being redressed for exposure to people as performance pieces through chorale arrangements, remastering and also shift in genre. These changes result to a widening of music genre which now includes progressive folk, folk rock, and classical folk among others.

Novelty Songs recently seem to dominate the airwaves and the people’s interests. These songs can be treated as modern substitute to folk songs, with their formulaic and strophic melodies which are all very easy to comprehend, interpret and most importantly remember and reproduce anytime. They are characteristic of Filipinos, with their jolly tunes and infectious dance steps and reflective of society, especially of the society’s present state which makes these songs relatable and attractive to a bigger audience. The downside to these novelty songs are their appeal to young audiences despite the sexual connotations of the lyrics and accompanying dance steps.

A major effort of the Music Industry against the effect of globalization is categorizing its own music to Original Pilipino Music or OPM. However, the parameters of OPM are very vague to the point of it being only Pilipino because of the performer’s nationality (as were the case for revivals). Tagalized Western music are categorized as OPM despite these songs being exactly melodically similar to their western counterparts, lacking originality of thought and music. The audience is very appreciative of these attempts to allow a greater population of the Filipinos to understand the music which were originally in English even to the point of commending the utilization of our language. But the less critical audience fail to note that this is at the expense of the utilization of the Filipino talent to produce one’s own music. These music are what constitute the mainstream, which are almost always patterned to Western formula and quality and with corresponding Western genre. And with the vicious cycle of degenerating class in music because of less critical audiences, the very few skilled musicians still opt to not apply their skills to the fullest to meet the demands of the audience for music which require less critical thinking. This results to the emergence of independent music, with less audience and lesser profit but with greater cause and social relevance. Skilled musicians usually find themselves earning less and being more marginalized because of their attempt to topple the cycle and performing music which the audience find harder to comprehend or relate to.

---

Ayan ang nasusulat ng bangag 'pag dinatnan ng alas-singko ng madaling araw sa paggawa ng report.