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| kendang, gandang, gandrang, [1] dombak, tombak, [2] kimbal and sulibao [3] | |
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The dabakan is a single-headed [4] Philippine drum, primarily used as a supportive instrument in the kulintang ensemble. Among the five main kulintang instruments, it is the only non-gong element of the Maguindanao ensemble.
The dabakan is frequently described as either hour-glass, [5] conical, [3] tubular, [1] or goblet in shape [6] Normally, the dabakan is found having a length of more than two feet and a diameter of more than a foot about the widest part of the shell. [2] The shell is carved from wood [5] either out of the trunk of a coconut tree or the wood of a jackfruit tree which is then hollowed out throughout its body and stem. The drumhead that is stretched over the shell is made out of either goatskin, [2] carabao skin, [7] deer rawhide, [8] or snake [6] /lizard skin, with the last considered by many dabakan practitioners as the best material to use. [8] The drumhead is then fastened to the shell first via small metal wire and then using two hoops of rattan [2] very tightly to allow the rattan sticks to bounce cleanly. [9] Artists, especially the Maranao, would then carve the outside of the shell with elaborate and decorative okkil patterns. [5]
The dabakan is normally played while standing [2] with the player holding two sticks made either out of rattan [5] or bamboo [6] but the player could be sitting or kneeling instead. [10] The rattan strips are held parallel to the surface of the drumhead [5] and are then pivoted between the thumb and forefinger using the wrist to activate them to strike the drumhead's surface [2] along the entire length of its diameter. [7] The sounds produced are normally quick and muted and thanks to the flexibility of the strips, one could employ dampening, roll, or open stroke patterns upon its surface. [2]
Thanks to the exposure of many artists to western culture, new styles of playing have emerged among the newer generation of players. [5] These include playing rhythmic patterns for the dabakan not on the surface of the drumhead but on the sides of the shell and even at the edges of the drum's mouth. [4] These exhibition-style pieces are used to shift focus away from the melody instrument, the kulintang, and onto the other supportive instruments such as the dabakan. [5]
The main use for the dabakan in Maguindanao and Maranao society is as a supportive instrument in the kulintang ensemble, [5] keeping the tempo of the ensemble in check [8] like the babendil. On most rhythmic modes, such as sinulog and duyog, the dabakan enters after babandil but in tidto, where the babendil is absent, the dabakan always starts the piece. The Maguindanao and the Maranao usually position the dabakan to the right of the kulintang player, near the end of its frame, during a traditional performance.
The dabakan could be used in other types of playing other than the ensemble. The dabakan could be used as the accompaniment for the kutiyapi, a type of Philippine boat-lute. [5] The dabakan plays a major role in a type of playing known as Kasorondayong. In the Maranao version, which is in recognition of their prince hero, Prince Bantogen, two dbakan players face one another, standing behind their dabakans, striking them with two slender bamboo sticks while playing an interlocking rhythm.
Traditionally, the dabakan is considered a masculine instrument by the Maranao [2] and a feminine instrument by the Maguindanao [6] [9] but as a sign of the times, one could see both men and women handling the dabakan. [5] In wooden kulintang ensembles, the takemba, a bamboo zither of the Manobo, is usually substituted for the dabakan part. [4]
During older times, the bigger, longer double-headed dabakan, [5] known as a dadabooan, [2] would be hung horizontally in the mosque (See Kendang, for smaller version of this drum). An imam (spiritual leader) would hit the drum repeatedly announcing the beginning of prayer time throughout the outlying areas. As a sign of the times, the dabakan in Mindanao have now been replaced by more modern equipment such as a speakerphone [5] but the practice still continues in places like Sulawesi, where a mesigit, equivalent to the dabakan, would be used for the same purpose. [1]
The origin of the name "dabakan," is said to have been borrowed and adapted from the Middle East. Dabakan is derived from the word, dbak meaning to "hit, strike, or beat," meaning that the dabakan is something upon which you hit. Scholars also suggest that another clue is that the dabakan may have been an adaptation and enlargement of a pan-Arabic goblet drum, the dombak/tombak.
Also called a dbakan, [2] debakan (Maguindanao), [9] dadabuan, [3] dadaboon (Maranao), [2] libbit (Tausug), tibubu (Poso) and a tiwal (Kulawi and Minahasa). [1]
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a percussion mallet, to produce sound. There is usually a resonant head on the underside of the drum. Other techniques have been used to cause drums to make sound, such as the thumb roll. Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years.
As it is a country with many different tribes and ethnic groups, the music of Indonesia itself is also very diverse, coming in hundreds of different forms and styles. Every region has its own culture and art, and as a result traditional music from area to area also uniquely differs from one another. For example, each traditional music are often accompanied by their very own dance and theatre. Contemporary music scene have also been heavily shaped by various foreign influences, such as America, Britain, Japan, Korea, and India.
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 Southern Philippines, Eastern Malaysia, Eastern Indonesia, Brunei and Timor, Kulintang evolved from a simple native signaling tradition, and developed into its present form with the incorporation of knobbed gongs from Sundanese people in Java Island, Indonesia. 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.
The suling is a musical instrument of the Sundanese people in Indonesia. It is used in the Degung ensemble. Bamboo ring flute can also be found in Southeast Asian, especially in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.
A slit drum or slit gong is a hollow percussion instrument. In spite of its often being called a drum, it is not a true drum but an idiophone, usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood, in the form of a mostly closed hollow chamber with one or more slits in it. It is played by striking near the edge of the slit. In some designs, the slit is a single straight line; in others, the slit is used to create one or more "tongues", achieved by cutting three sides of a rectangular shape and leaving the fourth side attached. Most slit drums have one slit, though two and three slits occur. Tongues of different areas or thicknesses will produce different pitches. Slit drums are used throughout Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. In Africa such drums, strategically situated for optimal acoustic transmission, have been used for long-distance communication.
The kagul is a type of Philippine bamboo scraper gong/slit drum of the Maguindanaon and Visayans with a jagged edge on one side, played with two beaters, one scraping the jagged edge and the other one making a beat. The Maguindanaon and the Banuwaen use it in the rice paddies to guard against voracious birds, using the sound it produces to scare them away. The Maguindanaon and the Bukidnon also used to use it for simple dance rhythms during social occasions. The rhythms were usually simplistic in nature, consisting of one rhythmic pattern sometimes combined with another. Use of the kagul in the former way is no longer practiced.
The agung is a set of two wide-rimmed, vertically suspended gongs used by the Maguindanao, Maranao, Sama-Bajau and Tausug people of the Philippines as a supportive instrument in kulintang ensembles. The agung is also ubiquitous among other groups found in Palawan, Panay, Mindoro, Mindanao, Sabah, Sulawesi, Sarawak and Kalimantan as an integral part of the agung orchestra.
The babandil is a single, narrow-rimmed Philippine gong used primarily as the “timekeeper” of the Maguindanao kulintang ensemble.
The gandingan is a Philippine set of four large, hanging gongs used by the Maguindanao as part of their kulintang ensemble. When integrated into the ensemble, it functions as a secondary melodic instrument after the main melodic instrument, the kulintang. When played solo, the gandingan allows fellow Maguindanao to communicate with each other, allowing them to send messages or warnings via long distances. This ability to imitate tones of the Maguindanao language using this instrument has given the gandingan connotation: the “talking gongs.”
A kendang or gendang is a two-headed drum used by people from the Indonesian Archipelago. The kendang is one of the primary instruments used in the gamelan ensembles of Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese music. It is also used in various Kulintang ensembles in Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. It is constructed in a variety of ways by different ethnic groups. It is related to the Indian double-headed mridangam drum.
The kubing is a type of Philippine jaw harp from bamboo found among the Maguindanaon and other Muslim and non-Muslim tribes in the Philippines and Indonesia. It is also called kobing (Maranao), kolibau (Tingguian), aru-ding (Tagbanwa), kuribaw, aribao (Isneg), aroding (Palawan), kulaing (Yakan), ulibaw (Kalinga), karombi (Toraja), yori (Kailinese) or Kulibaw. Ones made of sugar palm-leaf are called karinta (Munanese), ore-ore mbondu or ore Ngkale (Butonese).
The tumpong is a type of Philippine bamboo flute used by the Maguindanaon, half the size of the largest bamboo flute, the palendag. A lip-valley flute like the palendag, the tumpong makes a sound when players blow through a bamboo reed placed on top of the instrument and the air stream produced is passed over an airhole atop the instrument. This masculine instrument is usually played during family gatherings in the evening and is the most common flute played by the Maguindanaon.
The kutiyapi, or kudyapi, is a Philippine two-stringed, fretted boat-lute. 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 that from the jackfruit tree.
Singkil is a folk dance of the Philippines that has its origins in the Maranao people of Lake Lanao, a Mindanao Muslim ethnolinguistic group. The dance is widely recognized today as the royal dance of a prince and a princess weaving in and out of crisscrossed bamboo poles clapped in syncopated rhythm. While the man manipulates a sword and shield, the woman gracefully twirls a pair of fans. The dance takes its name from the belled accessory worn on the ankles of the Maranao princess. A kulintang and agung ensemble always accompanies the dance. Singkil has evolved over time, with significant reinterpretations and changes introduced by the Bayanihan folk dance group, such as the incorporation of the elements from the Darangen epic, particularly the episodes involving Prince Bantugan and Princess Gandingan.
Sagayan is a Philippine war dance performed by Maguindanao, Maranao and Iranun depicting in dramatic fashion the steps their hero, Prince Bantugan, took upon wearing his armaments, the war he fought in and his subsequent victory afterwards. Performers, depicting fierce warriors would carry shields with shell noisemakers in one hand and double-bladed sword in the other attempting rolling movements to defend their master.
Traditional Thai musical instruments are the musical instruments used in the traditional and classical music of Thailand. They comprise a wide range of wind, string, and percussion instruments played by both the Thai majority as well as the nation's ethnic minorities.
Philippine traditional musical instruments are commonly grouped into four categories: aerophones, chordophones, membranophones, and idiophones.
The Maguindanao kulintang ensemble is a musical ensemble in the kulintang tradition of the Maranao and the Maguindanao. Other forms of the kulintang ensembles are played in parts of Southeast Asia especially in the eastern parts of Maritime Southeast Asia — the Southern Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Eastern Malaysia, Brunei and Timor. There are mainly five instruments on the ensemble: Kulintang, Agung, Gandingan, Babendil and Dabakan.
Bamboo's natural hollow form makes it an obvious choice for many musical instruments. In South and South East Asia, traditional uses of bamboo the instrument include various types of woodwind instruments, such as flutes, and devices like xylophones and organs, which require resonating sections. In some traditional instruments bamboo is the primary material, while others combine bamboo with other materials such as wood and leather.
The tube zither is a stringed musical instrument in which a tube functions both as an instrument's neck and its soundbox. As the neck, it holds strings taut and allows them to vibrate. As a soundbox, it modifies the sound and transfers it to the open air. The instruments are among the oldest of chordophones, being "a very early stage" in the development of chordophones, and predate some of the oldest chordophones, such as the Chinese Se, zithers built on a tube split in half. Most tube zithers are made of bamboo, played today in Madagascar, India, Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Tube zithers made from other materials have been found in Europe and the United States, made from materials such as cornstalks and cactus.
