PAHM

Once again, every October, the Pilipino American Collegiate Endeavor at SFSU commemorates the start of Pilipino American History Month at Malcolm X Plaza. The group I'm in, Ating Tao Drum Circle, started off the festivities with 4 songs from our kulintang/drum repertoire. I got to play a Maranao song, Kapagonor, with the background beat of "Wild Thing".

It was a good performance, but most importantly a great turnout for the rally. As I was playing [yeah, yeah, I should have been concentrating more] I saw a lot of people who weren't Filipino stop and try and see where that gong-ish sound was coming from. Most were looks of surprise and then recognition, a recognition of a new sound they've never heard yet are enjoying and feeling.

Yeah, my ancestors' music is pretty sick. Too bad that, according to the legends, the kulintang and gong music was suppressed throughout Luzon and the Visayas by the Spanish. Now all we have as a testimonial to those islands practicing gong music are a bunch of oral legends. Some of the University of Philippines campuses have kulintang music classes, so they're trying to keep it alive. It's just hard when pop music is the 'cool' thing and traditional isn't.