Kulintang (, )
is a modern term for an ancient instrumental form of music composed on a row of small, horizontally laid gongs that function melodically, accompanied by larger, suspended gongs and drums.
As part of the larger gong-chime culture of Southeast Asia, kulintang music ensembles have been playing for many centuries in regions of the Southern Philippines, Eastern Malaysia, Eastern Indonesia, Brunei and Timor, Kulintang evolved from a simple native signaling tradition, and developed into its present form with the incorporation of knobbed gongs from Sundanese people in Java Island, Indonesia. It is played by striking the bosses of the gongs with two wooden beaters. Due to its use across a wide variety groups and languages, the kulintang is also called kolintang by the people of Maranao and Sulawesi, kulintango by Mongondow, totobuang by those in central Maluku, kulintangan and gulintangan by those in Brunei, Sabah, North Kalimantan and the Sulu Archipelago. Gulintangan or gulingtangan literally means rolling hands in Brunei, Sabah and Sulu.
By the twentieth century, the term kulintang had a come to denote an entire Maguindanao ensemble of five or six instruments. Traditionally the Maguindanao term for the entire ensemble is basalen or palabunibunyan, the latter term meaning “an ensemble of loud instruments” or “music-making” or in this case “music-making using a kulintang.”
Geographic extent
thumb|left|275px|Map of kulintang music in [[Southeast Asia.]]
Kulintang belongs to the larger unit/stratum of “knobbed gong-chime culture” prevalent in Southeast Asia. It is considered one of the region's three major gong ensembles, alongside the gamelan of western Indonesia and piphat of Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Laos, which use gongs and not wind or string instruments to carry the melodic part of the ensemble. Like the other two, kulintang music is primarily orchestral with several rhythmic parts orderly stacked one upon another. It is also based upon the pentatonic scale. However, kulintang music differs in many aspects from gamelan music, primarily in the way the latter constructs melodies within a framework of skeletal tones and prescribed time interval of entry for each instruments. The framework of kulintang music is more flexible and time intervals are nonexistent, allowing for such things as improvisations to be more prevalent. kwintangan, k’lintang, gong sembilan, gong duablas, momo, totobuang, nekara, engkromong, kromong/enkromong and recently kakula/kakula nuada. Kulintang-like instruments are played by the Maguindanaon; the Maranao, Iranun, Kalagan, Kalibugan, Tboli, Blaan, Subanon, and other Lumad tribes of Mindanao, the Tausug, Sama-Bajau, Yakan and the Sangir/Sangil of the Sulu archipelago; the Ambon, Banda, Seram, Ternate, Tidore, and Kei of Maluku; and the Bajau, Suluk, Murut, Kadazan-Dusun, Kadayah and Paitanic Peoples of Sabah, the Malays of Brunei, the Bidayuh and Iban/Sea Dayak of Sarawak, the Bolaang Mongondow and Kailinese/Toli-Toli of Sulawesi and other groups in Banjarmasin and Tanjung in Kalimantan and Timor.
History
thumb|left|280px|A group of men from the Ngada tribe with drums and gongs (Kulintang) in [[Ngada Regency|Ngada, Flores, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). in 1913]]
thumb|A [[Lumad people|Lumad kulintang ensemble from Bukidnon with the traditional carvings]]
thumb|[[Maranao people|Maranao agong]]
Kulintang music is considered an ancient tradition that predates the influences of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and the West. In the Philippines, it represents the highest form of gong music attained by Filipinos
Because of limited data concerning gong music prior to European exploration, theories abound as to when the prototypes of what is now the kulintang came to be. One theory suggest that the bronze gong had an ancient history in Southeast Asia, arriving in the Indonesian archipelago two or even three thousand years ago, making its way to the Philippines from China in the third century AD. Another theory lays doubt to the former claim, suggesting the kulintang could not have existed prior to the 15th century due to the belief that Javanese (Indonesian) gong tradition, which is what the kulintang was believed to be derived from, developed only by the 15th century.
In Borneo, the kulintang was originally played during the harvest festival and the Bruneian court. With the expansion of Bruneian empire which at some point encompassed the island of Borneo and southern Philippines, the tradition of kulintang was adopted by the inland Dayak tribes. With that, the tradition of kulintang was expanded to include various tribe ceremonies such as before and after head-hunting expeditions and silat. The gongs are laid in the instrument face side up atop two cords/strings running parallel to the entire length of the frame, with bamboo/wooden sticks/bars resting perpendicular across the frame, creating an entire kulintang set called a "pasangan".
thumb|right|The different sized brass kulintang gongs.
thumb|right|The light beaters used to strike the gong bosses.
The gongs weigh roughly from two pounds to three pounds each, and have dimensions of 6 to 10 inches for their diameters and 3 to 5 inches for their height. but due to the disruption and loss of trade routes between the islands of Borneo and Mindanao during World War II, resulting in loss of access to necessary metal ores, and the subsequent post-war use of scrap metal, brass gongs with shorter decaying tones are now commonplace.
The kulintang frame is known as an "antangan" by the Maguindanao (which means to “arrange”) and "langkonga" by the Maranao. The frame can be crude, made from simple bamboo/wooden poles, or it can be highly decorated and rich with traditional okil/okir motifs or arabesque designs. The frame is a necessary part of the instrument, and functions as a resonator.
It is considered taboo to step or cross over the antangan while the kulintang gongs are placed on it.
thumb|left|200px|Individual names for each kulintang gong
thumb|right|Those in the Sulu Archipelago play the kulintang on the floor.
Technique
The kulintang is played by striking the bosses of the gongs with two wooden beaters. When playing the kulintang, the Maguindanao and Maranao would always sit on chairs while for the Tausug/Suluk and other groups that who play the kulintangan, they would commonly sit on the floor. Modern techniques include twirling the beaters, juggling them in midair, changing the arrangement of the gongs either before or while playing, crossings hands during play or adding very rapid fire strokes all in an effort to show off a player's grace and virtuosity. The first phase is the creation of wax molds of the gongs. In the past, before the availability of standardized wax sheets made specifically for foundry use, the molds were made out of either beeswax (talo) or candle wax (kandilà).
Tuning
Unlike westernized instrumentation, there is no set tuning for kulintang sets throughout the Philippines. Great variation exist between each set due to differences in make, size and shape, alloy used giving each kulintang set a unique pitch level, intervals and timbre. Though the tuning varies greatly, there does exist some uniformity to contour when same melody heard on different kulintang sets. This tuning system, not based upon equal temperament or upon a system of standard pitches but on a similar/certain pattern of large and small intervals, could also be found among the gamelan orchestras of western Indonesia. Recent attempts have been made to transcribe the music using cipher notation, with gongs indicated by a numbering system for example, starting from 1 to 8 with the lowest gong starting at number 1 for an eight gong kulintang set. Traditionally, the playing of the kulintang was associated with graceful, slow, frail and relaxed movements that showed elegance and decorum common among females.
Performance
thumb|left|A kulintang ensemble performance in [[Daly City, California]]
thumb|A traditional kulintang ensemble being played by the [[Matigsalug people during the 2007 Kaamulan Festival of Bukidnon, Philippines]]
The main purpose for kulintang music in the community is to function as social entertainment at a professional, folk level.
thumb|right|The [[gandingan is normally chosen for playing apad renditions]]
Other uses
Kulintang instrument has uses other than public performances. It also is used to accompany healing ceremonies/rituals (pagipat)/animistic religious ceremonies. Though this practice has died out among the Maranao due to its non-Islamic nature, some areas in Mindanao, Sabah and Maluku still practice this ancient tradition. However, apad is falling into disuse because times have changed, and the necessity of its use for long-distance communication purposes has faded away. Anun as a music without a message, is used instead to express sentiments and feelings, and has come more and more into use due to its compatibility with the musical elaborations and idiosyncratic styles of the times. due to the very nature of Islamic custom, which did not allow for unmarried men and women to intermingle.
This emphasis on improvisation was essential due traditional role of the music as entertainment for the entire community. Listeners in the audience expected players to surprise and astound them by playing in their own unique style, and by incorporating improvisation to make newer versions of the piece. This also explains why set performance pieces for musical productions are different in some respect—young men/women would be practicing before an event, therefore rarely relying on improvisations. the repertoire itself is considered something always in a state of flux due to two primary reasons. First, standardized titles weren't considered a priority. Though to the musicians themselves the melodies would sound similar, the labels they would place on a particular rhythmic mode or style could vary even from household to household within that same village. For the musicians, the emphasis is on the excitement and pleasure of playing the music without much regard to what the piece was referred to as. Secondly, because musicians improvised their pieces regularly, modes and styles were continually revised and changed as they were passed on to a newer generation of musicians, making the pieces and therefore the labels attached to them relevant only during a certain frame of time.
Such issues made attempts to codify the compositions in a uniform manner impossible. Another example concerns the discrepancy among “old” and “new” genres. With “new pieces” continuously proliferating even up till now, pieces only created decades ago are now considered “old” even though this is considered a tradition spanning many centuries.
It was these similarities that lead theorists to conclude that the kulintang was originally imported to the Philippines during the migration of the kolenang through the Indonesian Archipelago. Based on the etymology, two routes have been proposed as the route for the kulintang to Mindanao: one from Sunda through Banjermasin, Brunei and the Sulu Archipelago, a route where the word “kulintangan” is commonly used for the horizontal row of gongs; the other from Sunda through Timor, Sulawesi, Moluccas and Mindanao where the word kolintang/kulintang is commonly seen. The fact that there are areas which were able to keep kulintang tradition alive during European colonization has caused some observers to aptly term this music “the music of resistance.”
In 1968, at the University of the Philippines, eminent ethnomusicologist Professor José Maceda ushered in a new interest in kulintang music with the kulintang Master, Aga Mayo Butocan. The latter devised a notation system and wrote Palabunibunyan, a collection of kulintang music pieces from Maguindanao—which made its study more accessible. Further, she emphasized the improvisational aspect of performing on the kulintang. This enhanced its popularity among students from all over the country.
Today, the existence of kulintang music is threatened by the influence of globalization, and the introduction of Western and foreign ideals into the region.
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em auto; text-align:center;"
|- bgcolor=#cccccc
! colspan=2 | Group and their ensemble name!! Horizontal gongs !!Suspended gongs!! Drums !! Other gong or drum !! Other gong or drum
|-
|
| 85px
| 50px
| 50px
| 50px
|
| 50px
|-
| Maguindanaon
| Basalen /
Palabunibuniyan
| Kulintang
| Agung
| Dabakan
| Babandil (gong)
| Gandingan (gong)
|-
| Maranao
| Kolintang Ensemble
| Kolintang
| Agong
| Dbakan, Gandang (*archaic)
| Babndir (gong)
|
|-
| Tausug/Suluk
| Kulintangan Ensemble
|-
| Yakan
| Kwintangan Ensemble
| Kwintangan
| Agung