Sheng on Stamps

The mouth organ Sheng was designed in China about 3000 years ago. The pipes are stopped with the fingers. When the piped are not stopped, the air causes the free metal reeds to vibrate. In more modern instruments, the reeds are made of brass and tuned with wax. The sheng's elegant shape reminds of the mythical phoenix. It consists of a mouthpiece, which may vary in shape, a wind-chest, and pipes.

In China, four of the seventeen pipes serve only as decoration; in Japan only two serve this purpose. In modern shengs, all pipes are functional, encompassing the chromatic octave a1-a2 and four higher diatonic notes. The sheng became popular in the 11th century B.C.. In Europe it attracted attention in the 18th century, when the free reed principle was used in a number of Western instruments, such as the harmonium and the accordion. In the East, the sheng is used as a solo instrument and in ensembles.

The stamp was issued by Macao in 1986

Kulintang on Stamps

Kulintang is a modern term for an ancient instrumental form of music composed on a row of small, horizontally-laid gongs that function melodically, accompanied by larger, suspended gongs and drums. As part of the larger gong-chime culture of Southeast Asia, kulintang music ensembles have been playing for many centuries in regions of the Eastern Malay Archipelago — the Southern Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Eastern Malaysia, Brunei and Timor, although this article has a focus on the Philippine Kulintang traditions of the Maranao and Maguindanao peoples in particular. Kulintang evolved from a simple native signaling tradition, and developed into its present form with the incorporation of knobbed gongs from Sunda. Its importance stems from its association with the indigenous cultures that inhabited these islands prior to the influences of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity or the West, making Kulintang the most developed tradition of Southeast Asian archaic gong-chime ensembles.

Technically, kulintang is the Maguindanao, Ternate and Timor term for the idiophone of metal gong kettles which are laid horizontally upon a rack to create an entire kulintang set. It is played by striking the bosses of the gongs with two wooden beaters. Due to its use across a wide variety groups and languages, the kulintang is also called kolintang by the Maranao and those in Sulawesi, kulintangan, gulintangan by those in Sabah and the Sulu Archipelago and totobuang by those in central Maluku.

By the twentieth century, the term kulintang had also come to denote an entire Maguindanao ensemble of five to six instruments. Traditionally the Maguindanao term for the entire ensemble is basalen or palabunibunyan, the latter term meaning “an ensemble of loud instruments” or “music-making” or in this case “music-making using a kulintang.”

The stamp was issued on February 16, 2009. "Ani sa Sining", a set of four, depicting Philippine arts and culture.

Kulintang- Philippine Bossed Gong and Subing- Philippine Jaw Harp

Instruments that produce sound from the substance of the instrument itself (wood or metal) are classified as idiophones. They are further divided into those that are struck, scraped, plucked, shaken, or rubbed. In the Philippines, there are metal and wooden (principally bamboo) idiophones.

Metal idiophones are of two categories: flat gongs and bossed gongs,. Flat gongs made of bronze, brass, or iron are found principally in the north among the Isneg, Tingguian, Kalinga, Bontok, Ibaloi, Gaddang, Ifugao, and Ilonggot. They are commonly referred to as gangsa. The gongs vary in size, the average are struck with wooden sticks, padded wooden sticks, or slapped with the palm of the hand. Gong playing among the Cordillera highlanders is an integral part of peace pact gatherings, marriages, prestige ceremonies, feasts or rituals.

In Southern Philippines, gongs have a central profusion or knot, hence the term bossed gongs. They are of three types: 1) sets of graduated gongs laid in a row, called kulintang or kulintangan 2) larger, deep-rimmed gongs with sides that are turned in called agong, 3) gongs with narrower rims and less prominent bosses called gandingan. These gongs maybe played alone but are often combined with other instruments to form various types of ensemble.

Bamboo idiophones abound in the Philippines- xylophones. drums, quill-shaped tubes, stamping tube, scrappers, buzzers and clappers. The bamboo xylophone gabbang is found in the Southern Philippines among the Yakan, Sama, Tausug, and Palawan. It consist of bamboo keys of graduated lengths mounted on a trapezoidal box. The number of keys varies among the different tribes, ranging from 3 to 22 cm. In Northern Luzon among the Kalinga, individual xylophone-like blades called patatag are struck with bamboo sticks. The bamboo slit drums such as the Bukidnon bantula is fashioned out of a bamboo tube closed at both ends with anode with a slit cut out of the tube. Found among the different groups of people, its main use is to announce important events.

The struck quilt-shape bamboo tubes with notches etched on the tube, are found only in the southern Philippines such as the Maranao tagutok and the Maguindanao kagul. The player scrapes the notches with a bamboo stick.

Among the Cordillera highlanders, bamboo buzzers are widespread. They are made from a length of bamboo closed with a node at the bottom with its top half shaped so that two tongues face each other. The top half is struck against the palm of the hand. They are known by different names such as, balingbing, pew-pew, pakkung, bilbil, bungkaka by the various groups.

The Ifugao have a bamboo clapper, hanger, fashioned from a tubular section of bamboo, split from one end to approximately half of the tube. Each half of the split portion is shaped to make it narrower in the middle, thus making it more flexible when the halves are made to flap against each other.

Wooden idiophones include sticks, suspended logs and log drums. The Hanunuo kalutang, consist of pair of sticks cut from forest trees. These are struck against each other and played while hiking through forest and mountain trails.

The Ifugao pattung, is a percussion yoke bar made from a tapered piece of wood and struck with a stick. It is used for ceremonies for the sick, at rites which entail the offering of sacrificial pigs, or at death rituals.

Suspended logs are widespread in the Southern Philippines where they are known by different tribes. The Maguindanao luntang, consists of logs of varying lengths hung in order from longest to shortest. The pointed playing ends of each log is struck by one performer creating a melody against which another performer beats drone rhythm on one of the logs.

The Tagakaolo edel is a sounding board with a resonator played during wedding celebrations together with a drum or gong to accompany dancers. The Bagobo and Bilaan have similar drums.

Jaw harp are abound all over the Philippines. They are principally made from bamboo although in the Philippines, some are made of metal. It is a type of mouth resonated instrument consisting of a flexible tongue fixed at one end to a surrounding frame. The player places the free end of the instrument with the hand, or in some other types by pulling a string attached to the blade. The instruments have different names among the various tribes . In the south the most common term is kubing; in Palawan, western Philippines it is called subing, in the north ulibaw.

Above, stamps of kulintagan and subing issued in 1968

Ludag- The Ifugao Drum

Single and double headed drums (membranophones) are found throughout the Philippines. The are variously shaped- conical, cylindrical, goblet-shaped, barrel-shaped. Animal skins (snake, deer or goat) are used as drum heads. They maybe beaten with sticks or by the palm portion of bare hands. Drums are seldom used alone except to announce tidings over long distances. Usually they are played with other instruments particularly gongs, to form different kinds of ensemble.

The Ifugao libbit, ludag (the stamp above), is a conical drum with a deer or goat skin drum head. It is played with a gong during harvest time under the rice granary.

The sulibao and kimbal of the Bontok and Ibaloi are longitudinal slightly barrel-shaped hallowed outlogs with deer skin on one end. The taller drum(80 cm) is called the kimbal, the shorter(75 cm) is called the sulibao. The drumhead is small measuring about 6 cm in diameter. They are played with palms of two hands.

The dabakan is a large goblet-shaped drum used by the Maranao and Maguidanao in their kulintang/kulintangan ensemble.

The Kudyapi- The Philippine Two-Stringed Lute

The kutiyapi or kudyapi, is a Philippine two-stringed, fretted boat-lute. It is the only stringed instrument among the Maguindanao people, and one of several among other groups such as the Maranao and Manobo. It is four to six feet long with nine frets made of hardened beeswax. The instrument is carved out of solid soft wood such as from the jackfruit tree.

Common to all kutiyapi instruments, a constant drone is played with one string while the other, an octave above the drone, plays the melody with a kebit or rattan pluck (commonly made from plastic nowadays). This feature, which is also common to other related Southeast Asian "boat lutes", which were influenced by varying degrees by Indian concepts of melody and scale via the Malay archipelago.

Among the T'Boli, Manobo and other Lumad groups, the instrument (known as Hegelung, Kudyapi or Fedlung) is tuned to a major pentatonic scale. Among groups like the Bagobo, the Kutiyapi (Kudlung) is also used as a bowed instrument and is generally played to accompany improvised songs.

A characteristic difference between Mindanaon Moro Kutiyapi and the non-Islamized Lumad equivalents is the style and set up of vocal accompaniment. Among the Lumad groups, the kudyapi player and vocalist are separate performers, and vocalists use a free-flowing method of singing on top of the rhythm of the instrument, whereas among the Maguindanao and Maranao, there are set rhythms are phrases connected with the melody of the kutiyapi, with the player doubling as the vocalist (bayoka), if need be.

Also called: Kutyapi, Kutiapi (Maguindanaon), Kotyapi (Maranao), Kotapi (Subanon), Fegereng (Tiruray), Faglong, Fuglung (B'laan), Kudyapi (Bukidnon and Tagbanua), Hegelong (T’boli) and Kuglong, Kadlong, Kudlong or Kudlung (Manobo, Mansaka, Mandaya, Bagobo and Central Mindanao), Kusyapi (Palawan). Similar instruments played throughout the region include the Sape of Sarawak and the Crocodile lutes of Mainland Southeast Asia. Although they share a similar name, the Kacapi of Sunda on Java is a zither, and not a lute.