Wednesday, June 10, 2015
5:51 PM |
Songs in the Measure of Tagay
The
inuman -- the informal social gathering of men (mostly men, anyway) outside of the house, in the open air, and usually near a very convenient
sari-sari store, which is dedicated to occasional camaraderie, spirited conversation, and the imbibing of alcohol (traditionally the
tubâ or palm wine) -- is a curious cultural thing. I passed by one last night on the way to dinner, and found myself shaking my head in disapproval, perhaps because it is such a macho tradition among Filipinos, and I admit to having an instinctive disapproval of anything that reeked of machismo.
But then again I can't really be sure about my attitude towards it because the
inuman itself is a very rich cultural institution, one that has poetic roots. One of its components, the
tagay or the measured drinking offered to each member of the inuman, has been argued by Merlie Alunan to be one of the roots of the Cebuano
balak, or poetry. And now, going through the six volumes of Visayan folk songs collected by Priscilla Magdamo in the early 1950s, I've also found that the
tagay was a favorite musical muse. So far, I've found four folk songs dedicated to the
tagay -- and understandably so. (Because drunken singing is generally a by-product of such things.)
One folk song is titled "Uhaw Tagay," collected and transcribed by Ms. Magdamo from a recording made with folk singers Francisco and Severina Macahis, and it goes like this:
Ay Liding, Liding, Liding
Ay Liding, Liding, Liding
Uhaw tagay
Uhaw tagay.
Kon walay sumsuman,
Ihawon ang hinuktan.
Uhaw tagay
Uhaw tagay.
I'm not sure what the
hinuktan (or the something that is tied up) here refers to. (A pig? A chicken?) But whatever it is, it will be delicious. Research is fun!
I'm doing a bit of research right now for a musical revue I'm writing, based on some of these songs, particularly the lullabies. What are in these books is a treasure trove of Visayan folk songs collected by the legendary musicologist and pioneer Priscilla Magdamo, who really should be proclaimed National Artist for Music. (Even Lucresia Kasilag believes so.)
Labels: alcohol, art and culture, ethnomusicology, literature, music, people, philippine culture, philippine literature, visayan folk songs
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Monday, December 01, 2014
1:12 PM |
Priscilla and the Visayan Folk Song
I still can't get
Priscilla Magdamo's lecture on "The Art of the Visayan Song" out of my mind.
It went beyond awesome. And such a rare talk it was. There she was, one of Silliman University's -- nay, the Philippines' -- greatest cultural treasures, talking about her passion, and doing it with gusto. The venue of her talk was quite full, but I wish more people heard her speak. In the 1950s, armed with a grant from Ford Foundation, she scoured all of Visayas and Mindanao to collect endangered Visayan folk songs -- and later arranged and recorded them, and published several books as well. "Necessity is the mother of invention," she told us this morning. "I loved these folk songs. I wanted to sing them, but I could not find anything. And so I collected and arranged them myself." When she began her lecture by singing a duet with Melody Enero culled from the forgotten Valencia folk song "Inday Kamingaw" -- a song done in echoes that demonstrates how women in the cold hills of Valencia sang and talked to each other through snippets of music, demonstrating how lonely they were -- we were hooked.
When National Artist for Music Lucrecia Kasilag celebrated one of her anniversaries here at the Luce Auditorium some years ago (I remember this, because I was there), she was given full honors in a program dedicated to her. When she spoke, she told the crowd that she owed her work in ethnomusicology to the one person who paved the way before her. "She deserves the title of National Artist for Music," Ms. Kasilag said, and then asked Ma'am Prescy -- who was in the audience -- to stand and be recognized. Alas, technicalities count in recognising cultural treasures. Ma'am Prescy, long an immigrant to Vermont, is a naturalized American citizen.
I'm suddenly thinking:
we should make this musical lecture a full-blown concert featuring the best of Visayan folk songs next cultural season!Labels: art and culture, ethnomusicology, music, negros, people, silliman, visayan folk songs
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