The traditional vocal repertoire of Central Visayas in the Philippines is a rich tapestry that encompasses diverse linguistic traditions and subdialects, including Visayan, Bisayan, and Cebuano. This oral heritage provides a unique opportunity for comparative analysis. This research focuses on a portion of the repertoire collected by Priscilla Magdamo; materials collected under the auspices of Silliman and Indiana University. Magdamo transcribed traditional folk songs of the Philippines into six volumes, four of which are used in this study. The overall purpose of this research is to present a preliminary baseline of the repertoire. In addition, preliminary pedagogical merits of the songs will be identified for potential use in Aural Skills curriculum as examples used in classrooms are primarily taken from the Western classical tradition, limiting students’ experience with different types of music. Drawing from the music pedagogy of Zoltan Kodály's pitch maps and post-tonal quantitative methodologies, scholars can discern normative patterns and outlier variations in pitch collections as well as scalar patterns across different song repertoires. By employing techniques such as tonic-centered successive-interval arrays and composite pitch collection mappings, researchers can delve deeper into the structural nuances and tonalities inherent in the Central Visayan vocal traditions. Analysis showed that there are patterns within the song collections used, such as almost every song containing pitch classes two and five. This means that most songs contain a supertonic and subdominant, implying that there may also be some form of predominant function within them. Having form that can be viewed through this lens also implies that the songs contain material that aligns with concepts taught in Aural Skills classes. As such, it is expected that the repertoire contains other normative patterns, and that students will be able to understand and find use in the addition of Philippine folk songs to their curriculum.
Analysis of Visayan/Bisayan/Cebuano Philippine Traditional Vocal Repertoire
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