MY ROOMMATE IN AUSTRALIA ALSO PLAYS FLUTE
Australia's top Grandmaster (GM) Zhong-Yuan Zhao, right, plays the real flute as hobby. He's the roommate of Roberto Hernandez during the 2009 Oceania Zonal Chess Championship in Australia where Palau was represented for the first time.
(Photo by Joselito Marcos)
MY STORY OF THE BAMBOO FLUTE
By Roberto Hernandez
It was in the early 1970’s that my third cousin Loving Dionisio asked me and my father (who passed away in 2009 at 92 years old) to make a bamboo flute out of a very thin variety of bamboo of about 22 inches long.
My father did the heating of an iron bar and we started making holes in that thin bamboo called “buho”. Eight holes were made for left and right hand fingers (small (pinky), ring, middle and forefinger). There’s a need for extra hole near the end of the bamboo to balance the key pitch. A bigger hole for the mouth to blow and to produce a marvelous and soft sound especially if the one using it had experiences with blowing instruments like Loving, a music teacher and a Bb clarinet player in a marching band. He teaches “rondalla” to school kids (elementary and high school).
His father, Marcelino ‘Ninoy’ Dionisio, was a music professor and teaches kids from rich family in Forbes Parkand Magallanes Village. He can play with two saxophones in his mouth at a time! His eight kids all learned to play musical instruments or singers. That’s why they reach the finals of ABS-CBN “The Family That Sings Together, Stays Together” with Pepe Pimentel.
Loving and his dad won numerous awards and trophies in playing instrumental music (sax, guitar, clarinet, ocarina, pan flute and our invention – bamboo flute.)
My vast improvement in guitar playing was because of Loving, who taught me the chords while he’s playing the bamboo flute, a very rare and harder to play because there are some sharp and flat notes that need to be played with one of the hole covered only half-way.
We became popular in our town as the “Matt and Jess” of Hagonoy, Bulacan in Philippines because of our size similarity to those two popular characters. Loving is short and chubby while I’m tall and skinny.
We were invited to perform in Fort Bonifacio in front of military personnel and to other provinces even without pay just to gain experience and promoting the bamboo flute. Free transport and food is good enough for us.
When we attended a town feast in Paombong, Bulacan, we ride in tandem on a bicycle with me pedaling it to save on bus fare so that we can play on stage on that night.
My cousin Willy Hernandez also taught me some pointers in playing guitar. He plays the French horn in a marching band, mostly on funerals and feasts.
When I’m working at The Plaza Restaurant in Makatiin 1972, I go home only once a week. In that period, Loving formed “Musikong Bungbong”, a bamboo musical group. He was able to get the interest of neighboring kids and they joined the rare group. Bigger kids will play the biggest bamboo instrument as bass. The bigger “buho” alternating sounds with bass. He asked for my help to build a marimba out of fully grown and old “ipil-ipil”tree. Lots of experiments and drilling holes in the hard wood resulted in a very original marimba, to replace xylophone which is usually metal.
I didn’t realize it then that by learning to play bamboo flute, guitar and marimba will make me be myself today.
The“Musikong Bungbong” had its first hurdle when Loving met Paul Toledo in 1974. Mr. Toledo is the founder of “Pangkat Kawayan”, who became popular worldwide because of the rare kind of music that bamboo can produce. He threatened to sue Loving if he will continue with his “Musikong Bungbong”, that didn’t use“angklung” in the group. It is another percussion bamboo instrument that produces a sound by shaking it. In fact, it is used in every cultural show that the Polynesian Dancers are doing at The Plaza Restaurant. Before the end of the show, they will invite 8 guests to play 8 “angklung” (in Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti and Do tunes). The host will point to the person to shake it and they can play “Do-Re-Mi” with those to the delight of other guests.
The meeting with Mr. Toledo somehow diminished Loving’s interest to pursue the promotion of bamboo flute. And when I worked in Palau in February 04, 1992 till now, I went home to Philippines only seven times, in 1993, 1995, 1997, 2004, 2009, (6 days only and 11 days in Australia) 2010, (6 days only and 16 days in Russia), and 2011.
Loving suffered a stroke due to high blood pressure in mid 90’s and affected his hands. He can not play the clarinet and bamboo flute anymore. He also had hearing problem and he can’t afford expensive hearing aid.
When I talked to him during my vacation in 2004, I have to shout so he can hear me.
He passed away in 2009 and with a new development that’s going on, I might continue the legacy of “Musikong Bungbong” even in other country that can support its rare existence. Even to the extent of importing “buho” and other materials from Philippines if the other country doesn’t have that kind of bamboo grown locally especially that bamboo being use in making that flute because it is very easy to break.
I would like also to keep its name “Musikong Bungbong” as a tribute to Loving Dionisio, a friend, a teacher, a father, a musician, an innovator and the biggest influence to my musical career.
Source: Music and Me
By Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Volume 21
Issue 18
April 05, 2012
