songs in A minor

I spent last Holy Week with my wife’s family in Gumaca, Quezon. They held their family reunion, and in the province if there is a reunion there has to be a slaughtered pig. One of the most enjoyable activities during reunions is the food preparation. In one area you have the women slicing and chopping the recados while talking about their good looking suitors who never made it to their hearts, how they fell in love with their ugly husbands, and all that stuffs, including sex that only married women talked about. On the other side, you have the men chopping pork and roasting the pig’s head while drinking, telling jokes, and counting how many beautiful girlfriends they’ve had before marrying their ugly wives. Of course these were all tall tales, but as long as its funny and entertaining who cares? Here and there are the nephews and nieces playing, making up for the time that they are not together, bonding. This is what I like about the Filipinos, no matter what our deficiencies are, we are a family people. .

My wife’s family reunion will not be complete without my father in law Tatay Indeng’s guitar playing. My father in law is one of the last breeds of authentic kundiman folk uwido (plays by ear) guitarist. He plays the guitar ala bandoria. I’m a guitar enthusiast myself, but his guitar playing technique is beyond me. His finger plucking style is complicated. I’m humbled, and I’m happy to play second guitar for him whenever possible. It is also amazing how he rearranges pop songs to the A minor family chord pattern, the usual kundiman chord progression, and accompany them in that provincial kundiman rumba style.
It is painful to witness the forgetting of our traditional music.