Performance of Udlot-udlot

Documentation of Dr. Jose Maceda's Udlot-udlot at the Quezon Hall of the University of the Philippines in 1975.

Excerpt from Ruben Defeo's article 'Jose Maceda's Lifelong Quest for Traditional Filipino Music', The Philippine Star, 13 May 2004:

'One of the outstanding works I remember of Maceda was Udlot-udlot premiered in 1975.

Commissioned by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the UP Prescounarts, it was presented in conjunction with the Third Asian Composers Conference Festival. The setting of the musical happening was the CCP parking lot along Roxas Blvd.

Maceda, then, was chairperson of the Asian music department of the UP College of Music. He was assisted by painter Roberto Chabet from the UP College of Fine Arts, who designed the ground lay-out for the musical components of the 40-minute production.

Some 800 UP high school students were busied in to perform Maceda’s sound produced through clapping, buzzing, pounding and blowing instruments fashioned from the lowly bamboo. Using almost every conceivable arrangement, the afternoon show brought out a carnival of sounds produced by four instruments, like the kalutang or sonorous sticks, balingbing or buzzers, tongatong or stampers, and ongiyong or flutes.

The primary consideration in Udlot-udlot was the achievement of the proper densities and thickness of sound produced by three musical components: The repeated sounds (produced by the kalutang), the mixed sounds (balingbing, tongatong and ongiyong) and the human voices.

As designed by Chabet, the mixed sounds were produced by 10 groups positioned in 10 squares within a circle 16 meters in diameter. Also within the circle was a vocal group arranged in two columns facing each other. The group that produced the repeated sounds of sonorous sticks walked clockwise the circle.'

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Online

practitioner
Publication/Creation date

1975

Creation place

Philippines

Content type

event photograph/recording

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Performance of Udlot-udlot