Songs Our Mothers Sang

Songs Our Mothers Sang: A Journey to the Inner Universe

By Charina Sanz (Newsbreak. Vol. 4 No. 7, April 12, 2004)

A hush fell upon the crowd as the lights began to dim. Here, inside a room in the Grand Men Seng Hotel in Davao City, psychology professionals and students were about to start a workshop called “Making the Unconscious Conscious.” In one corner of the room a duyan (hammock) hung from a panel; in the middle was a painting of a tribal woman lulling a child to sleep. But all eyes were riveted to a young woman sitting on a rocking chair, her eyes closed. Moments later, the first bars of Lucio San Pedro’s haunting lullaby, “Sa Ugoy ng Duyan,” filtered through the room. A voice began singing: “Sana’y di magmaliw, ang dati kong araw, nang munti pang bata, sa piling ni nanay….”

It was the voice of actress Chin-Chin Gutierrez, who sang as she walked slowly toward the woman in the middle of the room. As Gutierrez stood behind the woman, she rocked the chair gently. Her voice was lyrical, plaintive. The young woman in the chair wept. ”I never heard my mother sing me lullabies,” the young woman later told the crowd of about 80 attending the workshop, which is part of the Mindanao-wide Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino Psychology) conference held in Davao.

Winged Notes

‘Winged Notes’: Remembering My Father

On New Year’s Day, during the early afternoon siesta lull when all is silent after a night of revelry, I found myself prying open the old brown piano stool that was once my father’s. Inside, dust had gathered on yellowed sheets of piano pieces, Papa’s collection which he lovingly kept since he was a young man. I know because he scribbled on one of the sheets the date “November 27, 1960” when he was only 20 years old.

I leafed through the piano sheets which faintly smelled of mothballs and arranged them according to the songs I love. The titles I know by heart since childhood, the lyrics, too, and the melodies. “Lemon Tree”, “Tammy”, “Run Samson Run”, “You’re My Everything”, “Till Then”, “To Love Again” were among his favorites. One of the earliest memories I have of my father was him playing on the piano and singing “Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet…” I could still see him swinging his head.

This was how I came to learn music at an early age, watching my father play love songs to my mother, for it was to her, whom he would call on to sit beside him, that he dedicated his songs. My mother would pretend to be busy with housework, embarrassed by my Papa’s open display of affection. But it was his songs played on the piano, my mother would later confess, that endeared him to her and my grandparents who had a beautiful Mercedes piano in their old house at General Luna. There he would woo her and, merrily, played all the way to her heart.