# Mary Talusan Lacanlale ## expand\_more ## Sounding the Gong: Breathing New Life into the Agung Sort ![brass gong with domed knob on top.](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/peabody/files/phillancalale99580047.jpg?itok=riXwjYwL) ![inside of hollow brass gong with domed knob on top.](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/peabody/files/phillancalale99580048.jpg?itok=UiuXnjin) This *agung*, or large brass gong, collected in the southern Philippines during U.S. colonization and donated to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, has been silent for over a century. It belongs to a larger musical ensemble of various sized gongs and a drum known as *kulintang*. Because of my journey as a child of immigrants from the Philippines who settled in Massachusetts, and, as an adult balikbayan, or returnee to the Philippines, I hope that my knowledge of indigenous music can breathe life into it again. As part of my scholarly research, I learned to play kulintang music, and in doing so, began to understand the beauty and resilience of Muslim Filipino cultures and traditions that existed long before colonization by Spain and the United States. The photograph below shows a group of Maguindanao people, Muslim Filipinos from the island of Mindanao, with brass and bronze instruments. The young woman posed on the ground behind a wooden rack with eight small gongs at the front center of the photo is playing the kulintang, the main melodic instrument of the ensemble. The boy in the far back left can be seen standing next to a large agung, which is hung from the house post above. Gongs are cast by pouring molten metal into clay molds and hammered into shape after cooling. Two holes are drilled into the rim of the large gongs so that they may be hung from stands or the rafters of a house or branch of a tree. Children learn kulintang music from an early age, often by listening to their elders play. ![filipinos with instruments, two hold a dangling gong, one kneels behind six gongs in a flat holder, others hold umbrellas.](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/peabody/files/phillancalale161300027.jpg?itok=-KadwmOM) Gong and drum ensembles are found all over Southeast Asia and are unique for the raised knob center that facilitates precise tuning of the gongs. A gong is tuned by hammering around the knob on top of the gong to lower the pitch or underneath the top to raise the pitch. The melodic scale of each kulintang varies from set to set, village to village, and region to region. The earliest knobbed bronze gongs were likely cast in Java centuries before the Common Era and spread to the rest of Southeast Asia. In fact, the unique sound and form has spread globally in a sense; the word for similar types of instruments across many languages, including English, is “gong,” derived directly from the Southeast Asian term. In this way, the musical traditions of the southern Philippines are connected to other gong cultures of Southeast Asia, and even beyond. When I play these gongs, I feel a deep connection to cultural traditions that stretch back millennia. ![detail of the group photo of filipinos with instruments. the detail is a young filipino with a single gong worn over the shoulde](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/peabody/files/phillancalale161300027_detail.jpg?itok=qKJZazQv) Once collectively referred to, and somewhat derogatorily, as the “Moro people,” Muslim Filipinos are actually several distinct ethnolinguistic groups that follow Islam, having been converted sometime in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Their musical traditions including kulintang, however, existed long before the arrival of Islam and, as such, are neither “Muslim music” nor religious in nature. Kulintang refers to the whole ensemble of vari­ous-sized gongs and a drum. It is also the name of the ensemble’s main melodic instrument of eight knobbed gongs laid in a row on a decorated wooden rack. Each cultural group of the southern Philippines has a slightly different way of spelling and pronouncing the instrument: for instance, *kulintang* among the Magindanao (the Spanish spelling of Maguindanao), *kolintang* among the Maranao, and *kulintangan* among the Tausug, Yakan, and Sama of the Sulu Archipelago. Besides the main kulintang instrument, most kulintang ensembles of various ethnolinguistic groups include a *babandil* (small timekeeper gong), agung, and a dabakan. The timekeeper, tapping the rim of the babandil or the rim of the agung, sets the tempo with a distinct, repeated rhythmic pattern to indicate the type of piece being played, and the dabakan provides the rhythmic drive for the ensemble. The agung play interlocking rhythmic parts that punctuate and ornament the rhythmic cycle of a piece. In Magindanao kulin­tang, one person plays both agung, whereas in Ma­ranao tradition, two players play one agung each. The Magindanao kulintang ensemble is unique because it also includes *gandingan*, a set of four knobbed hanging gongs with a narrow rim, which provides a secondary, contrasting melody to the main theme played by the kulintang. The gandingan is also unique for its ability to relay messages such as declarations of love.[\[1\]](#_edn1) For centuries, women were the primary performers on the kulintang instrument of Maguindanaon ensembles. Until the 1950s, men played only the supporting agung and the dabakan, a wooden drum with goatskin, but not the main instrument for which the ensemble is named. When men began to play the kulintang instrument, they added the interlocking, percussive rhythms of the drum and larger gongs to traditionally unadorned melodies. This shift gave rise to *kangungudan* (new) style, which is faster and more rhythmic than *kamamatuan* (old) style. Today, kulintang music is enjoyed by all genders and ages as part of everyday life, especially during celebrations such as weddings and festivals. Some kulintang players are singled out as master musicians. One such performer, Danongan Sibay Kalanduyan, immigrated to the United States in 1976 under a Rockefeller Foundation grant with the assistance of Dr. Robert Garfias, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Washington, Seattle. Kalanduyan served as an artist-in-residence at UW, where he graduated with a MA in ethnomusicology in 1984. In 1995, Kalanduyan became the first Filipino American to be awarded the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, recognizing his exceptional talent and contribution to the traditional arts heritage of the United States. He taught and inspired dozens of Filipino Americans like me to value the traditions of Muslim Filipinos. After his death in 2016, Kalanduyan’s students and admirers referred to him as the “father of American kulintang” and continue to educate audiences about this vital tradition. > #### [Listen to Mary T. Lacanlale play music (1:30)](/file_url/3878) In the audio clip, I play a piece called *sinulog a kamamatuan* on the kulintang accompanied by Marlo Campos on the dabakan or drum and pair of agung. "Sinulog" refers to a group of melodies that are inspired by the waves of the sea, and “a kamamatuan” means “in the old style.” We are both members of the Pakaraguian Kulintang Ensemble of southern California and influenced by the teaching of Master Danongan Kalanduyan. The audio begins with a musical message on the gandingan, a set of four large gongs with a shallow rim. Most messages express flirtation or declarations of love, such as this phrase, “Last night, I dreamt of you.” This piece demonstrates how the kulintang cannot be reduced to a single gong but exists as part of a larger ensemble in order to play a complete melody. It is curious, therefore, that the kulintang instruments at Harvard’s Peabody Museum only includes one agung and one gandingan, and none of the kulintang gongs for which the ensemble is named. Dr. Daniel F. Maguire acquired them sometime between 1913 and 1915 while serving as a medical officer in the US Army at Mindanao. They were not given to the museum until nearly five decades later, so it is unclear if there are more instruments somewhere remaining with his family, or if he could only carry home with him these two similar-looking gongs with different roles in the ensemble. Either way, this project has allowed me to bring these instruments to life once more and to expose audiences to the rich heritage of the Philippines. ![filipina plays four gongs aligned on a special holder on the floor and a smiling person plays two gongs hanging from a large painted support with a view of utility poles out the window.](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/peabody/files/phillancalalemary_marlo_3.jpg?itok=HmVW6lJZ) Kulintang music has spread from its traditional home in Mindanao among indigenous groups to the Filipino diaspora in the United States and beyond. Today, hundreds of videos from Mindanao and across the globe are shared on YouTube and other platforms, creating a virtual space for kulintang performance and circulation, and allowing those far from the homeland to connect to this music. Inspired artists incorporate kulintang into their own expressions from jazz to hip hop to electronica and modern music, ensuring kulintang music’s survival and continuation into the future. Just as the kulintang predates Islamic adoption centuries ago in Mindanao, it continues to carry on and transform amidst subsequent waves of change and expansion. ## About the Contributor ![smiling portrait of Mary Talusan Lacanlale.](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/peabody/files/phillancalalemarylacanlale_276_copy.jpg?itok=Nq7cHhN5) Mary Talusan Lacanlale is associate professor and chair of Asian-Pacific Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills. She was awarded a PhD in ethnomusicology by the University of California, Los Angeles. Talusan is the author of *Instruments of Empire: Filipino Musicians, Black Soldiers, and Military Band Music during U.S. Colonization of the Philippines* (University Press of Mississippi), *Filipinos in Greater Boston* (Arcadia Press), and co-editor of *Our Culture Resounds, Our Future Reveals: A History of Filipino American Performance in California* (Ube Arte). She performs Philippine gong music with the Pakaraguian Kulintang Ensemble. *Photo courtesy of California State University Dominguez Hills* ### Credits Figures 1 and 2. Gift of Dr. Daniel Maguire, Harvard 1903, M.D. 1906, [63-40-70/4161](http://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/84716). Figures 3 and 4. Gift of William Cameron Forbes, [12-61-70/10861.1.2214](http://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/558817). Figure 5. Photograph by Janet Asuncion. Courtesy of Mary T. Lacanlale. ### Notes [\[1\]](#_ednref1) This paragraph comes direct from the liner notes written by Mary Lacanlale for a recent CD of kulintang music: Kalanduyan, D. S., & Palabuniyan Kulintang Ensemble performer. (2021). *Kulintang kultura : Danongan Kalanduyan and gong music of the Philippine diaspora*. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.