A BOY TEACHES HIS MOM (The Musikong Kawayan of Tampa, Florida) By Pureza Ramiro Pacis

Snowbirds, that’s what we are – me and my hubby.

To flee from the polar vortex, we are currently in Tampa, Florida with our eldest son, Nick Pacis, Jr. (Nicknick for us). Arthritis has taken the better of us, and hoping their summer all year round would do us good, we may be here until Old Man Winter is gone.

I love Chicago. It’s my kind of town, but after nine years, we can just feel the impact of the years. Nobody wants to grow old, we, too, but what can we do, it is already there. Perhaps as a respite from her Mom’s early morning innuendos, “my toes, my knees, my shoulder, my head”, daughter-nurse Marie Paz in Chicago consented to our extending our Christmas holiday vacation with her Manong in Tampa until after their Philfest 2017.

We were here for their Philfest 2016, (“I came, I saw, I was Conquered” Via Times August 2016 issue) and were impressed with, among many others, their Musikong Kawayan Bamboo Ensemble. Incidentally, Nicknick is the conductor and we would like to believe that if we passed their recruitment, it was not (only) for accommodation but for the fact that in our youth, his Dad and I took solfeggio lessons under our town Vintar’s solfeggio master, Tito Bening. Besides, was I not a Grade V Music teacher sometime in a galaxy far, far away? And do I not tutor grandkids Kix & Lance before they go to their piano lessons on Friday with Mr. Kennedy in Barrington?

NOT ONLY THAT, to be a member of the ensemble, what you need are just alert eyes and ears, and, of course, a spoonful of music appreciation.

BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE, may I tell you about our Angklung Ensemble. The angklung is a musical instrument made of varying bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved to produce a resonant pitch. The base of the frame is held in one hand while the other hand shakes the instrument. This causes a particular note to sound. Each of the performers plays just one note, or more, but altogether complete melodies are produced. The angklung is popular throughout Southeast Asia, but it originated in what is now West Java.

THE MUSIKONG KAWAYAN BAMBOO ENSEMBLE is one of the activities of the Philippine Cultural Foundation, Inc. (PCFI) based at the Bayanihan Center in Eagles’ Drive, Tampa.

There is the Philippine Performing Arts Company, Inc. under the indefatigable Joey Omila, alumnus of the famed Bayanihan Dance Troupe of the Philippines; the Philippine Choral Group led by Connie Reyes Chanrasmi, formerly with the Madrigal Singers; and this Musikong Kawayan by Nicknick), a former member of the Concert Chorus, all way back in the motherland. All costumes of the three contingents were designed by Tito Joey (himself the Chief Cultural Officer, PCFI), a Fine Arts graduate in his own right.

WE ARE AROUND 20- 25 members of the Musikong Kawayan, mostly around our age with Dad, all Filipino, now including Lydia from Puerto Rico, married to Vicente, seaman from Bohol. Majority is composed of nurses – retired and still in service- as well as doctors, accountants, pilot, government employees, realtors. Volunteers all! Besides us, there are other seven couples. Six of the members say they have been with the group for the past sixteen years since Nicknick arrived in Tampa.

WE PRACTICE every Saturday as we are invited to perform utmost twice a month, sometimes twice in a week. Lately, we performed at the St. Paul’s Church for the Sto. Nino Festival, for the Veterans, for schoolchildren, for the underprivileged, to heritage shows of other nationalities, or to the various occasions at the Bayanihan, with the end in view to showcase and promote our Philippine culture. OUR PRACTICE HOURS being 10 am- 12pm, we bring our respective “baon” – coffee, fruit from their farms, cakes they have baked and dishes they have prepared, and over brunch, we share the previous week’s comings and goings, comparing notes on our medical and dental check- up’s, how to grow orchids, how to make ube-halaya, which ballroom to go to for exercise, where to get the better beads to string, kids’ breaks, family moves, empty nests, whatever. Sharing our aches and pains, as well as hopes and fears, we feel just like one big family.

EVERYTIME WE GO HOME FROM PRACTICE, Nicknick would always say, “See, Ma, each one has a tale of woe to tell, but look at Tita Adora, on remission, she’s as happy as Kansas in August, as normal as blueberry pie…!” She lives the farthest yet the first to arrive for the rehearsals. Says she, Music is her therapy. There’s more to life than the Big C! DID I NOT SAY that one instrument produces only one note? Sometimes one gets absent and we exchange places, or sometimes play two instruments to complete the scale. Playing the angklung as an orchestra does require cooperation, coordination… and, if I may add, social harmony.

WE PLAY BALLADS, pops, patriotic songs, from roadway to classics, anything and everything under the sun, but of course, duly transcribed by Nicknick which lead our groupmates to ask what we had been feeding him when he was young, to which Dad and I explain that when he was born (in good ol’ Vintar), the “comadrona” who assisted Dra. Rebecca Cabanos homedeliver him had asked us to gather all the favorable newspaper clippings on famous composers and mathematicians, together with music sheets and pencils whatever, to be wrapped together with the placenta. Afterwards we would dig a hole, deep enough, in one corner of the yard, and shoot in the bundle. Meanwhile, the good doctora likewise advised me while I was preggy to play close to my tummy 33rpm’s (Reader’s Digest promos) of Brahms and Bachs and Lizsts and Tchaikovsky’s for him to hear. (Which of these two worked, I wouldn’t know.)

“LOUDER, MA!,” Nicknick calls my attention. “Has ‘Arthritis’ already reached your fingers?,” he smiles as he lovingly demonstrates how to hold the angklung properly. “Ma, life goes on…..” TRANSFIXED. Yoo-hoo, where are you? I come to. I play better now. I would have wanted tell him, it’s the memories. The music has given wings to my mind again and flight to imagination!

Where did Time go?

AND THE ANGKLUNG, though not (yet) our national identity, in the material so common, so popular, so close to the Filipino soul, takes not only me out of myself. Even just for a little while, it transports us to a world that was – to the “salidummay” bowels of the mountains of cordillera, to “pagdiriwangs”, to the rivers wider than a mile, to those enchanted evenings, to all the things we are…….

IF ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS, the music we make makes us forget everything or remember everything. It strikes from the heart and we sigh and laugh and cry again – in peace and in joy.

Oh, what a healing! “Grow old with us, the best is yet to come!” Come join us. See you at the Tampa Philfest 2018!##

Mr. & Mrs. Nick Pacis, Sr., now members of the Musikong Kawayan Bamboo Ensemble. Their family hails from Vintar, Ilocos Norte.

The Musikong Kawayan Bamboo Ensemble during the Heritage Night of the Mitchell Elementary School in Tampa, FL

Musikong Kawayan poses with students from the Hillsborough Public School System at “It’s Fun in the Philippines”.

Musikong Kawayan performing at “Night to Shine,” a project of the Tebow Foundation.

Musikong Kawayan and Philippine Choral Group participating at the Sto. Nino Festival in Tampa.

The Musikong Kawayan giving Christmas cheer to the residents of the Amerhome Assisted Living Facility at the Barrido residence.