The Anthem Philatelist

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 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 ensemble...

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 ...

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 ...

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...