music

• The instrumental music of Mindanao, a southern island in the Philippines, is a rich and diverse tradition that reflects the island's long and complex history.
• The music of Mindanao is known for its intricate rhythms and melodies, and is often used in social and religious ceremonies
• Kulintang - plays the melody of the piece. It is usually composed of 8 small embossed graduated gongs laid into a wooden frame. The gongs are made of brass and the beaters are made of lightweight wood for ease of playing fast and complicated pieces. It is also used by our neighboring countries.
• Maranaos call this intrument Kolintang while the Tausugs name it Kulintangan. This instrument has no defined pitch because what matters is the player's ability to follow the rhythm and to make improvisations
• Dabakan - goblet-shaped drum. It is carved from a single trunk of wood. This is intricately designed drum is the only non-gong instrument of the Kulintang ensemble
• Thin and long rattan sticks are used as beaters to play the steady beat of the piece. Usually, its drum head is made of goatskin. The Maranaos call this "Dbakan".
• Agung - biggest gong in the ensemble. It has a low pitch sound while kulintang has a high pitch quality of sound due to its small size
• Gandingan - called "talking gongs" because traditionally they are used to tell messages. It is composed of four hanging slim bossed gongs arranged from low to high pitch starting from the player's left hand.
• Bamboo - known for its tall and hollow stems and considered one of the fastest growing plants around the world. It has been used for everyday objects like dishes, chopsticks, furniture and musical instruments for over 4000 years.
• Suling - generic term for flute in most Indonesian language and applied to the ring flute by the Muslim Jamamapun, Maguindanao, Sama, Tausug and Yakan. This is a variety of end blown flute has six finger holes and a ring surrounding the blowing end of the tube.
• Among the Yakans, suling is used by men in courting women, This flute is also used to lull a baby to sleep, imitate sounds of birds and insects and to express different sentiments.
• Palendag - (also called Pulalu) lip valley flute regarded as the toughest bamboo flute to play as the player must shape his or her lips against its tips to make a sound. To the Maguindanaon and other vernacular, Palendag literally means mourning, groaning and crying for grief. In Islam, this flute's lamentation is a symbol of suffering soul being parted from the Divine Beloved
• Tumpong - (also called inci among the Maranao) most common flute played by the Maguindanao. It makes sound through a bamboo reed on top of the instrument and when the air stream produced is passed over an airhole atop of the instruments.
• Saunay - six holed bamboo reed flute capped by a sampung simud (mouth guard), wherein the house of the resonating chamber is made of palm leaves and the trumpet part is made of coconut leaf. Saunay music is among the the repertoire for Tausug instrumental music.
• Serongagandi - embellished guitar-like instrument which is made of bamboo tube closed by a node at both ends. A hold is cut into the bamboo under the two chords' slit loose side from the outer skin fiber of the bamboo that serves as resounding part.
• Togo or Tangkel - made from bamboo tube closed on both ends by nodes. It is approximately 50cm long with small opening for more resonance. It has strings etched out of the body attached at both ends.
• Small movable wooden frets are inserted beneath the near ends of the string (numbers vary five to eleven) to put more tensions. Tangkel or Togo is played upright with the musician's fingers plucking the string
• Kubing - (also known as barambaw among the Tagalog, Kinaban among the Mangyan, Kumbing among the Manobo and kollibaw among the Negritos.) This instrument bearing different names is famous among Muslim and Non-Muslim tribes in the Philippines and Indonesia. It is made of bamboo with either plain or more ornate designs.
• Kubing - played by both genders as communication between family and loved ones, including short distant courtship among males. For the Yakan, kulaing or the kubing is used by men in expressing love and admiration among women.
• Gabbang - important and the most popular instrument in Sulu. Used to accompany Tausug vocal music (entertainment songs), Sindil (sung verbal competition), Liangkit (long solo pieces) and folk narrative song. This instrument has 14 to 24 bamboo keys divided into seven-note scales played either solo (tahtah) by a man, a woman or a dou (gabbang tatah).
• Among the Yakan tribe, gabbang is composed of five bamboo splits arranged like a xylophone. It is played near the fields by small children to guard the crops against prying animals. The kwintangan batakan is an early form of gabbang with six to nine bamboo pieces.
• Tagutok/Kagul - garakot in Maranao, tagutok in Yakans and Bantula or taguntong in Bukidnon. This type of bamboo-scrapper gong or slit drum of the Maguindanaon and Visayans is played in the rice paddies to guard against/scare away voracious birds. In Bukidnon and Maguindanao, this instrument is used to accompany simple dance rhythm during social gatherings.
• Following the Hornbostel-Sachs classification, divide instruments into 4 categories, these are: idiophones, aerophones, chordophones, and membranophones.
• Idiophones - musical instruments that produce sound by striking, rubbing, or scraping the surface. Produce sound from the substance of the instrument itself (wood or metal).
• Aerophones - are musical instruments that produce sound by air. Usually, we blow with the air stream directed into the open end of the tube.
• Chordophones - stringed instruments, such as the guitar, harp, and lute. These are instruments that may be struck, plucked, or bowed. They include zithers, lutes, and bowed strings.
• Membranophones - single and double headed drums are found throughout the Philippines. They are variously shaped-conical, cylindrical, goblet shaped, barrel shaped. Animal skins (snake, deer, or goat) is used as head/heads of the drum. They may be beaten with sticks or by the palm portion of bare hands.