Question

1. Which Visayan musical instrument would you want to learn how to play? Why?

2. How does the "romanticism" of Visayan songs make you feel when you listen to them?

3. Is the music of the Visayas closer in character to that of Luzon, specifically the lowland songs, or the music of Mindanao? Why do you think so? What are the factors that make it similar?

Answer 1

Answer:

gongs

.

Explanation:

Gongs were given a larger vocabulary than any other instrument. Alcina (1668a, 4:129) considered it an evidence of the elegance of the Visayan language that there were special terms “even for the cord with which they fasten and hang it, which it would be improper to apply to anything else.” Munginungan was the boss or teat. A flat gong, or one from which the boss had been worn off by long use, was panas, including the plate like Chinese ones (mangmang). The largest one in an ensemble was ganding. Hototok was to play them on the edge with a simple stick, or sarawisaw if more than one player alternated strokes. Pagdanaw or pagbasal was to strike them on the boss with a padded drumstick called basal. (A governor or chief was also called basal, presumably because of his prerogative of sounding a gong to assemble his people.) Actual bells from Spain or Asia were linganay, and little jingle bells–like those the epic hero Bantungan had on the handle of his kampilan–were golong-golong.