MIX BLOGS - My Column Page: Mountain Province Exponent

From Fee Music to Free Music

Music industry in the Cordilleras had circulated in the market as early as the 70s when few Igorot singers tried their luck in this venture. There were Igorot singers who pioneered Cordillera music in which its main theme depicted the typical Igorot cultures. This was one of its kind a very noble undertaking. Certainly, singers who hail from Benguet and Mountain Province like Mario Asayco, Joel Tingbaoen, Peter Tanan, Ruben Tanan, Elmer Hall and the rest made their way to music business which was followed closely by Lourdes Fangki, Jeff Abul, Bryan Aliping, Amy Guesdan, Romy Quiñones, Arthur Mosawan (child singer), Amy Galliega, Jovy Bondad and many other composers and singers. Marked by genuine Igorot identity, these singers treaded their way to music recordings that had won public interest and patronage.

The most popular and authentic composition that had knocked down the heart of the people was the song LAYAD NAN LIKATAN which was produced and sang by different Igorot singers. In Benguet alone, the song ILI AY KAIGORATAN first hit the phonograph records by Mario Asayco who lived shortly in the music production.  Same song was consistently aired in the early 90s by the Mountain Province Broadcasting Corporation, the DZWT radio station in Baguio City which was sang by Lourdes Fangki. With these, Igorot music in itself worked out growth in the music entertainment accommodating themes on people’s way of life, courtship and love, fate, defiance in the government, and many more.

Today, music of the Igorots had soared high that was enough to surface other forms of entertainment in music. In reality, there exist solo as well as band groups whose target is to keep tracks in music recordings. Many were inclined to continue the footstep that was already founded and established by the early groups along with the presence of technologies that had affected the status of the singers and composers at present.

Here comes the reality. The thing that had been hurting musicians over and over underscored the possible extinction of this music because of piracy. Igorot music cannot grow or cannot rise due to treats of closure and death brought about by this unlawful business. A single release of copy of an Igorot album hits the streets in a thousand copies within a day just because of this illegal production usually done by small entrepreneurs who take advantage over it. As one can see, the produced music is shared from fee music to free music with the presence of the digital as well as the optical media tools in stealing these intellectual properties of the original proprietors.

If pirating process is of bit complicated and tricky in the last decades, pirating today is within the click of device. Certainly, the Php 300.00 worth produced disc music cannot compete against the free downloading method done in the internet. Usually, an album is comprised of 12 to 18 songs and the one who pirates the products considers two or even one best and good song and tend to forget the rest. What life could be imagined when music industry worldwide closes because of piracy?

I for one go against piracy. While piracy does hurt musicians and the recording industry in the short term, it could have been the shot in the arm that revolutionized the sales of music. The gadgets at present somehow encouraged pirating because it’s stress-free and convenient to use as one may compare it over bulky cartridge, disc man, tapes, and many more. Just imagine how far these iPods, USB, MP3s and MP4s do when it comes to restoring and recording music items. One may realize the essence of this line, why walk if you can fly? Then you should answer it by saying, if others can, why should I? It’s merely saying, if other people can do piracy at their own advantage, why should I do the same?

I am not saying that these MP3s and other recording devices were purely disadvantage. I think that it would have taken much longer for this media to be embraced by the public when its purpose is for file sharing that can really facilitate process of data transfer from one PC unit to the other.

I do hope that we can all agree that piracy is stealing and stealing is a kind of dishonesty and immoral exploit. Piracy doesn’t have any relation to the escalating prices seen today as your mere reason of saving some of your money by availing the free music in the wire services. It’s not an excuse to do such act when laws are not yet formulated to regulate this inadequacy. (For comments, leave them in my website at www.lesiomhar.page.tl or in my cp # 09185452554).

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 6:58 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.