Ramon Santos’ Intriguing World of Non-Music
/
Ramon Santos, National Artist for Music
In 1978, he wrote Likas-An for bamboos, hammers and nails, flutes, steel junk, and a plastic tube for musicians and non-musicians. Likas-an “addressed human's relentless control of the environment in an attempt to effect a happy union with nature.” It combined both human and natural energies in a productive union. The piece involved newly invented instruments that would escape human control: "You could not even predict the rhythm that would result. Nature would take care of that."
Celebrating man's union with nature, the piece was designed to engage the audience with a different level of musical experience. The 20-minute-long collective sonic event can be appreciated in different ways by different kinds of people and in different surroundings. True to its community concept, the piece even involved carpenters hammering nails, harnessing the musical potential of their profession.
Santos also commissioned a basic synthesizer from the local electrician who transformed radio transistors into frequency modulating machines. He allowed the instruments and sounds to suggest ideas and generate the form of the piece, which he formalized through a simple, newly invented notation system.
Novel Beginnings
Santos exhibited a flair for innovation early. As a young man, he formed the Pasig Immaculate Conception Choir that provided music during the high mass on Sundays. He taught the choir how to sing Gregorian chants, and arranged music from the masters like Bach and Mozart. He also wrote some original hymns.
Enrolling in Indiana University, where he took his Master of Music, blew his mind. The school, one of biggest in the US, had eight orchestras. It was here that he was introduced to experimental music. Santos transferred to the State University of New York in Buffalo for his PhD in composition where he studied computer music. This post-graduate phase was from 1967 to 1972.
”At Buffalo. I spent plenty of time at the electronic music studio. This was how I appreciated more the compositions of Bela Bartok, for example, writing on unconventional modes which he culled from the different musics of the Slavic world. This was the age of experimentation, with different ideas on how to elicit sounds from different sources. There was a fellow who wrote a piece for a vacuum cleaner tuned to E-flat. And there was another composer who created a piece that could only be heard under water. I somehow contributed to this literature when I composed Toccata, a piece for a grand piano and two players; one playing on the keyboard and the other, on the strings.”
The Creative Years
Back in the Philippines, there was a dearth of computers, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He discovered a wealth of fascinating ethnic instruments and sounds such as the authentic Javanese gamelan, Chinese pipa (lute), and Kalinga music. It inspired Santos to establish a new music group that focused on experimental music with Asian influence in 1978. Subsequently, he became dean of the UP College of Music.
Santos acknowledges Jose Maceda as his great influence. Maceda opened his mind to avant garde music and indigenous Asian instruments - the reed mouth organs, Chinese gongs, as well as bamboo percussion and the kulintang from Philippine ethnic groups, fused with Western classical music.
The UP College of Music provided a rich environment for experimentation. Here, he wrote the inventive Nabasag ang banga at iba’t-iba pang pinagugpong-ugpong na pananalita sa wikang Pilipino para sa labing-anim na tinig (The jar broke and other pieced together Filipino sayings for sixteen voices). Nabasag Ang Banga was executed through the assistance of the UP-BPS music scholars who outdid each other in producing a cacophony of human sounds from among the audience, consistent with the number of cues provided by the chorister.
Santos’ zeal in promoting contemporary music resulted in “Abanggardista ’66-‘74” in February 1974 where his works and those of his students, together Jose Maceda’s music, were performed.
Taking the Next Step
Realizing that it was important for contemporary music to gain more permanence, Santos founded the UP Composers New Music Group.
“Although I studied electronic music and computer music in the United States, it hardly seemed relevant in the present state of things. Firstly, there were no machines available to us, which led to alternative directions in composition. One of these was the Gamelan ensemble. The gamelan classes became more serious; the Indonesia Sunardi was so encouraged he proposed to stage Ramayana, a dance epic.”
While busy with music that pushes boundaries, Santos still found time to delve in traditional Filipino forms. He promoted the rondalla and initiated the International Rondalla festival, with a program wrapped around indigenous knowledge. In 2004, he started a rondalla festival in Naga. It had foreign participants from Uganda, Portugal, and France before. A 50-member ensemble playing his music along with other Southeast Asian composers. The 20th year of the rondalla festival was held in Tagum, Silay, and Dumaguete City.
“There was a fellow who wrote a piece for a vacuum cleaner tuned to E-flat.”
With no plans of retiring Santos still teaches piano for non-musicians, and a post-graduate PhD course, also for non-musicians. It covers theoretical construct–theories of different musical traditions. Students listen and write compositions, creating colors instead of melody. Very interesting work.
In 1976, Santos wrote a Ritual for the UP College of Music’s 60th anniversary meant to usher in the day’s activities. It was a monumental tour de force that used five pianos and two string quartets facing each other from each wing of the College. There was also a drum set with timpani. The chanters consisted of senior students majoring in voice. Then there was the gamelan orchestra – one bungkakas, 10 takumbos, 10 sticks, 10 tongatongs, four sopranino recorders, four descant recorders, four whistle flutes, one Peking opera gong, one small Chinese gong, one tamtam, four kulintangs, two gandingan sets, two agungs, two jazz drums, one timpani, and then the UP carillon. “It was a fitting tribute to the function of music in the life of the people, which everybody seemed to have appreciated for the symbolism of the whole piece.”
Santos, as an ethnomusicologist since the 1980s, has been challenging the use of the term “music.” His works were conceived along concepts and aesthetic frameworks of Philippine and Southeast Asian artistic traditions. He has championed indigenous music through ASEAN projects, providing leadership and guidance that energized research, documentation and publications on ASEAN music. He represented the Philippines in various music festivals in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Europe.
No doubt about it. Ramon Santos is a musical genius, an iconoclast and innovator who pushes the boundaries of his craft to the fullest extent possible and comes up with works that provoke, delight, and enrich our artistic experience.
Manuel Hizon is Manila-based communications specialist
More articles from Manuel Hizon
