| Dr
Jonas Baes shares his paper on his 2003 work Patangis-Buwaya
at University Malaya in October 08.
 Dr
Jonas Baes comes from a distinguished, and unparalleled, lineage
of composers-ethnomusicologists-thinkers that are the trademark
of the Filipino contemporary music community that has a special
place in the contemporary scene in South East Asia.
Dr Baes was at University Malaya recently to share some of
his thoughts and ideas on music composition that has deep social
connections, through a demonstration of his piece Patangis
Buwaya (….and the crocodile weeps...), a work
for four wind instruments which can be adapted to any configuration
depending on the location, circumstance and resources of its
performance.
At University Malaya, the piece was performed by serunai, soprano
and alto saxophone and voice. It accompanies his paper which
is excerpted below with the kind permission of the commposer:
PATANGIS-BUWAYA
[....and the crocodile weeps...]
The Roots and Routes of a New Music Composition
from the Philippines
by JONAS BAES
University of the Philippines
Asian Public Intellectuals Fellow 2008/2009
Visiting Professor, Cultural Centre, Universiti Malaya
October 24, 2008
 THIS
FORUM is about the genesis and the eventual protean transformations
of a new music composition. As I deal with the subject, I intend
to cover as much ground, attempting to address the discourses
of contemporary music; of music composition and performance;
of the production of 'cultural difference;' and of marginality.
The work is entitled PATANGIS-BUWAYA, composed from January
to March 2003, and completed while doing fieldwork among indigenous
"internal refugees' in the Philippines. In the same year,
it was premiered in Japan at the Asian Music Festival of the
Asian Composer's League, and had subsequent performances from
2005 to 2008 in various cities around the world. The highlight
of today's talk will be another performance [perhaps rightfully
called a "Malaysian performance"] of this work.
I made initial sketches of music for four wind instruments
while on a long mountain trek with Kalingga artist Bennicio
Sokkong in January of 2003. However, the deeper aspects, meanings
and coherent workings on the music came about the following
month after reading in the major dailies about indigenous groups
from Mindoro Island who has left their ancestral domain, as
they were caught in the middle of military operations. When
I found out that the indigenous refugees were encamped in a
province not so far from Manila, I sought to visit them in February,
and subsequently returned a number of times to the refugee centre.
The IRAYA-MANGYAN of Mindoro Island were among those disparate
indigenous "internal" refugees. I have known many
Iraya-Mangyans since the early 1980s, having done fieldwork
and ethnomusicological research among them, and having published
a number of articles in academic journals about their music
and culture. The engagement however went further than mere academic
research. I have had deep connections with many of them; and
later had, albeit from a distance, followed through with any
news from the community, especially in the settlement of Caagutayan,
either by means of letters, verbal messages, or even news reports.
In 2002, just a year before I had learned about the refugees,
I published a Compact Disc of my recordings of Iraya-Mangyan
music from the 1980s. Reluctant as I was with this endeavour
because of doubts as to how this production will ever benefit
the people directly, I have entitled the project as NOSTALGIA
IN A DENUDED RAINFOREST. I had conceived the CD itself as a
critique of the mode of music production in relation to interstitial
cultures reified by the academe and the structures of power.
In its slipcase is a very critical statement from the late Anghel
Anias, a community leader and a dear friend who asked: WHAT
GOOD COULD YOUR STUDY OF OUR SONGS DO IN THE DISPUTES OVER OUR
ANCESTRAL DOMAIN? A year later, as I had renewed my engagement
with the Iraya-Mangyan in the refugee camp, I presented this
CD production and donated hundreds of copies to the refugees
so that they could be sold in forums or other solidarity meetings
to augment whatever dwindling monetary resources were available
for their basic needs. At a community gathering formally to
turn over the CDs to the refugees, an old and very emotional
Mangyan approached me and said: THANK YOU FOR TAKING CARE OF
OUR MEMORIES; YOU HAVE RETURNED OUR SONGS TO US! And just as
it was expressed, I felt that returning the music to them through
the CD production is like returning their ancestral land to
them.
The Iraya-Mangyan is among seven linguistic groups in Mindoro
Island [about 100 kilometres from the National Capital Region]
who have lived marginally throughout their lives. Caught in
the mainstream of development aggression, the cataclysmic changes
in their way of life have mainly to do with the encroachment
of lowland Christians, of missionaries, and of gigantic transnational
mining and logging companies which catapulted at the beginning
of the 1970s in the island of Mindoro. On the one hand, the
influx of outsiders has pushed the various communities further
inland from their traditional dwelling places at the foothills,
so that the forests no longer served as effective "zones
of escape." On the other hand, such encroachment had caused
the Iraya-Mangyan to inter-marry with some lowlanders, and settle
in towns, even outside the island, working as wage labourers.
However, for many of those left in the forests, the situation
turned worst with the militarization of the highlands.
Nine military battalions were deployed in 2002, supposedly
to conduct "clearing-up operations" in the island,
which was allegedly becoming a stronghold of communist guerrillas.
I have heard all the horrifying stories of summary execution,
illegal detention, psychological warfare, and the brutality
of soldiers as well as para-military units from the Mangyan
refugees. It was, as one elderly said, "worst than even
during the Martial Law years in the 1970s; we have been suspected
of being communist guerrillas; others from among us were forced
to guide the soldiers through the mountains; many of us were
threatened with our lives, and others have been shot, just like
that" he said. This was a strong case of "low-intensity
conflict." It was a quagmire that had forced communities
to leave behind their livelihood and ancestral domain, and with
the help of concerned non-governmental and church-based organizations,
find refuge at the National Capital Region and other provinces
in Luzon.
It was during long hours of story-sharing sessions with the
Iraya-Mangyan and other refugees that I further conceptualized
this quartet for winds, for which I have found a very powerful
title and concept from Iraya-Mangyan culture: PATANGIS-BUWAYA.
For me, just as with the Compact Disc, this was to be another
way of cultivating the "memory gifts" of
their traditional culture, which in many ways were entrusted
to me. We spoke of their despair of losing family and friends,
and fear for their lives; of their regret of leaving behind
their ancestral land; and of their anxieties of an uncertain
future. Some people were weeping as they told their stories.
Remembering the affect associated with flute music in traditional
narratives, I used the expression PATANGIS-BUWAYA, because I
found it most appropriate in describing their present condition,
which true to its nature, would make "even the crocodiles
weep."
PATANGIS-BUWAYA literally means "sound that makes even
the crocodile weep." It describes the legendary use of
flute music to express anger and anguish. In the last portion
of the Iraya-Mangyan narrative know as PAMUYBUYEN, the legendary
hero and great hunter ALITAWU sought revenge for the horrible
death of his wife DIYAGA because the evil BALEYAYASUN had kidnapped
and raped her [see parallel themes in "Ramayana"].
In retaliation, the very angry ALITAWU immediately set out with
his spear to hunt BALEYAYASUN, calling on his dog IDU with his
flute. It is said that the playing of "howling sounds,"
on the flute or the PA-ALULUNG was so full of anger and anguish,
that the sound had made "even the crocodiles weep."
As with any composer perhaps, I began work on the music by
thinking of the materials: the "sounds that make the crocodiles
weep;" But ask myself, "how does one find that?"
It was, to begin with, too abstract. It would be rather easier
to pick up a scale structure or a traditional melody and use
it as materials for a composition; but something as metaphoric
as that expression is very difficult to work with. And besides,
only a few remnants of Iraya-Mangyan bamboo flute music remained
even in the 1980's, so that today, it is most probable that
the tradition has become extinct. But moreover, I am not the
kind of composer who extracts musical materials for compositions,
as I find that too "institutional" if not "feudal;"
something associated with the 'nationalist' movements of Nordic,
Balkan and Eastern European countries from the 19th century
to about the middle of the 20th century, where musical materials
were appropriated by composers and incorporated in Western hegemonic
musical structures like the symphonic poem, the symphony, or
the concerto. For me, even as I was as well appropriating tradition,
it would do great honour for a people like the Iraya-Mangyan
if the deep concepts rather than mere musical materials were
to be used as springboard/s for a musical praxis in my context,
and possibly be used in other contexts. Commencing from the
lack of materials therefore and left with a mere metaphor, "sounds
that make the crocodiles weep," I proceeded to compose
the PATANGIS-BUWAYA.
If one were to look at the single-page
musical score of the PATANGIS-BUWAYA, one finds a set of
instructions, made manifest in graphic illustrations representing
the syntactic structure of the music.
· Maceda's single page scores: uses simple notation
to instruct a large number of people and create sound masses;
I instead attempt to employ what could be said as structure-agency
integration [Giddens/ Habermas/…?] instead of mere utilization
of sound masses;
· It is based on the pedagogic principle of "supercedence"
of the role of the [pedagogue..in this case of the composer];
Mathias Spahlinger used this concept called 'ver[ueber]flussigung'
in a 1993 piece called "Vorschlaege;"
· Structure-Agency integration incorporates the musician
to compose the music WITH me;
· The protean manifestations of the music make every
rendition TEMPORARY, perhaps as critique to the modernist notion
of "contemporary;"
· All renditions around the world are TRANSIENT ones;
they are based on AN ORIGINAL THAT NO LONGER EXISTS; AND THAT
IS ONLY IN MY IMAGINATION;
· The various renditions around the world on different
instruments from different cultures make the music more "global?"
and goes beyond the notion of "identity" and problematizes
the constructions of it and power structures that construct
it
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