PLAYING DRUMS FOR THE UPCS

Robin Rivera

I’ve played drums for the UP Cherubim and Seraphim for almost fifty years. In the past, the “band” for their pop songs included all acoustic instruments: an acoustic piano, upright acoustic bass, acoustic drums, and occasionally an acoustic guitar. All these were played with no sound reinforcement, which was fine since most of the venues they performed in were medium-sized recital halls and auditoria. But recent circumstances have forced a shift to electric instruments. Firstly, it’s almost impossible to find a venue on campus with a decent acoustic piano. And unless it’s the CCP or a real “classical” concert hall, off-campus venues are no better off. So we've been increasingly forced to use electronic keyboards. Second, most good young pop musicians use electric basses and guitars, and are quite adept in navigating the complexities not only the analog side of their equipment, but the digital side as well. Third, most pop music nowadays is electric/electronic anyway, so going electric/electronic has made the wider variety of sounds in pop music available to the band.

But the drums was another story. On the one hand, I could have chosen to use my recently acquired e-drum kit. It’s very easy to control the loudness of e-drums. All it takes is pressing/twisting the volume control. This is important because children’s voices are rather vulnerable without multi-mic, megawatt sound reinforcement, something the Cherubim does not use or have access to. Also, like their keyboard or guitar counterparts, e-drums also have a boatload of sounds available at the touch of a button. On the other hand, while much of RECORDED popular music uses electronic/sampled/virtual drums, acoustic drum kits are still ubiquitous for LIVE popular music. First, in unamplified situations, acoustic drums have a much wider dynamic range, greater articulation and nuance, and more timbral complexity than e-drums. Also, because a drum kit is composed of so many fascinating parts, it simply looks cool on stage and naturally attracts more curiosity.

So for this Saturday’s concert, I chose to play an un-amplified acoustic kit. While I still maintain the original Pearl Thunderking drum set acquired for playing in the Cherubim back in 1975 (albeit with countless modifications and upgrades), tonight’s “franken-kit” is composed of my newer collection of small drums and quiet cymbals. 

I’ve always had fun playing pops drums for the UPCS. Playing with the current electrified and youthful band promises to make it even more fun.

Pearl Midtown bass drum 16”, 

Pearl CMS-1410 “Competition” marching snare/floortom 14"

Pearl Decade Maple tom 10”

Pearl Omar Hakim Signature snare 13”

K Zildjian Flat Ride 20”

A Zildjian Thin Crash 16”

A Zildjian Splash 12”

Sabian AA Mini China 12”

Zildjian EFX #1 10” hihat bottom

A Zildjian Armand Splash 10” hihat top

Stagg DH Mini-China 8”

SOUNDSCAPES OF U.P. DILIMAN

In 2012, I was awarded a post-doctoral grant by the University of the Philippines Diliman Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Development to record soundscapes of the UP Diliman campus. The following are selections from those recordings. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, two batches of incoming fresh people have yet to set foot in the UP Diliman Campus. While they have seen pictures, and watched videos, they have yet to hear the sounds of both the daily and ceremonial life of the campus. I hope this collection of soundscape recordings can, in its own small way, add to their impression of what life will be like when they finally get to visit. And to alumni, I know many will have fond memories of these sounds. 

Enjoy.

Robin Daniel Z. Rivera

Click here to hear the entire album on Soundcloud

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/sets/up-diliman-soundscapes

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1. AS Lobby - Most, if not all UP Diliman students have had at least one class in the AS, a.k.a. the old College of Arts and Sciences, a.k.a. now Palma Hall. This is because many General Education subjects are held there. If the walls of the lobby could talk....

Click the link below to hear it in Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/24-january-2013-up-diliman-as?in=user-575278690/sets/up-diliman-soundscapes

2. Ikot Jeep - The Ikot Jeepney is the primary form of intra-campus public transportation. In this recording, I boarded a random jeepney, and travelled the entire loop from Vinsons Hall and back. This particular one was rickety and unattractive. But it valiantly trudged along, and was never empty during the entire trip. My wife said she would sometimes take a ride just to de-stress. 

Click the link below to hear it in Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/28-feb-2013-up-diliman-ikot?in=user-575278690/sets/up-diliman-soundscapes

3. Area 2 - This sound walk began about 11 A.M at the Corner of Valenzuela And Apacible streets, turned left on Viola St, turns left on Balagtas St, turned left into Laurel St. (home to the row of "lutong bahay" eateries), entered the old (burned down) Shopping Center, then returned to Valenzuela corner Apacible. The quiet residential area grew more active as I turned into the row of eating places, and became even more hectic in the shopping center, specially as lunchtime was just around the corner. 

Click the link below to hear it in Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/27-feb-2013-up-diliman-area-2?in=user-575278690/sets/up-diliman-soundscapes

4. Helicopter Bayan Ko - My original plan for that day was to record the Sunday carless oval. But a Huey helicopter was hovering around the area all morning. Just as I was about to pack up because it disrupted the sound of people enjoying the carefree Sunday morning, the Carillon started playing "Ang Bayan Ko". For context, to those who survived the 1970s martial law period, the sound of the helicopter was a symbol of military oppression. On the other hand, to many nationalists, “Ang Bayan Ko” is the quintessential patriotic song. It laments about the suffering from tyranny, but is hopeful for the promise of freedom. To hear these two distinct sounds simultaneously  brought back memories of the martial law dictatorship. And that the helicopter headed out of the orbit and left the carillon to finish the song signified hope. This recording still gives me chills whenever I listen to it. 

Click the link below to hear it in Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/10-feb-2013-helicopter-bayan?in=user-575278690/sets/up-diliman-soundscapes

5. UP Naming Mahal Graduation - I recorded this from my office in the 2nd floor of the old Faculty Center building facing the Lagoon, 500 meters away from the 2013 UP Diliman General Commencement at the Amphitheater. The afternoon began with the threat of a thunderstorm, but cleared up just as the students were filing in. The singing of UP Naming Mahal at the end of graduations always brings up a deluge of emotions not only for students, but to their families, the faculty, and staff as well. The collective roar at the end released all those emotions. 

Click the link below to hear it in Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/28-april-2013-up-diliman?in=user-575278690/sets/up-diliman-soundscapes

6. UP Diliman Lantern Parade - The annual lantern parade is the most festive of UP Diliman events. Students, faculty and staff let their hair down, alumni hold impromptu reunions, and residents revel in the campus’ version of a town fiesta. This 2016 recording was made from the Eng'g tennis courts overlooking the academic oval.  from the Eng'g tennis courts overlooking the academic oval. As the title suggests, four musical ensembles passed by, and a canon of some sort fired repeatedly from the West side of the campus. (Warning, the canon on the recording can be suddenly VERY LOUD). I don’t expect it will be held this year. But when it finally happens, I can expect a huge attendance from those who missed it during the pandemic years.  

Click the link below to hear it in Soundcloud

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/2016-up-diliman-lantern-parade-four-ensembles-and-a-canon?in=user-575278690/sets/up-diliman-soundscapes

YIN AND YANG

 

I finally have the yin and yang of trailblazing vintage headphones. 

Sennheiser launched the HD414 in 1968, the pioneering open-air design. Mine is the last of at least three incarnations. It’s the 50th Anniversary Edition released in 1993, and which I bought from Cardinal Audio that same year. Some reviews say it can’t keep up with more aggressive contemporary headphones. But it’s so light that I sometimes forget I’m wearing it, and it sounds like you’re listening in a cool breezy outdoor field. This makes it my favorite on hot summer days when anything on my ears induces sweat. It’s almost indestructible because of the resilient lightweight plastic headband, field-replacable cables, and sponge earpads. Although it’s been out of production since the late 90s, Sennheiser still makes the cute yellow earpads because so many of the original headphones are still in use today, it fits other headphones such as the Grado SR series, and the cables are interchangeable with the current the HD600 series and the HD25 light.

On the other hand, the Koss Pro4aa is the complete opposite. I got this pair pre-owned but in mint condition just last week. Introduced in 1970, it was touted as the first high-fidelity closed stereo headphones. It is very heavy, very hard, very tight, and very inefficient. It has its fair share of haters too, who consider it excruciatingly uncomfortable. But it is articulate, detailed, and un-hyped, like a small air-tight vocal booth where even the tiniest of sounds are audible. It’s indestructible in its own way because of solid rubberized plastic earcups and steel frame.Because they are a closed design, I can listen at lower loudness levels. This makes me more conscious of distortion in the source than in the headphones themselves. Koss still actually makes them to this day, and backs them up with a lifetime warranty. 

These two models are not just quaint relics from a bygone past. They still have virtues that appeal to me, even today.  I have to be in a specific mood to put them on, but it’s always a treat listening through them, despite what the haters say.

TEACHING THROUGH VEILS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

With NCR Covid 19 Alert Levels going down every month, Metro Manila public transport is opening to an increasing number of commuters, malls are seeing an increase in shoppers, and educational eager beavers have laid down conditions for face-to-face classes in 2022. But despite a parade of vaccines and the promise of new medications, Covid-19 is still, and will be, active and lethal throughout 2022. So beyond the givens vaccination and heightened personal hygiene, how then will teachers like me protect ourselves?

When I think about how teaching changed during the pandemic, I remembered Pythagorias’ alleged acousmatic method. The root word in ancient Greek was akousmatikoi, which refers to probationary students who were separated from their teacher by a veil so they could concentrate on the lessons. It’s like listening to a musical recording in which you do not see the actual musicians or instruments in a performance. In a sense this is what we’ve been doing online since the start of the pandemic. We have been veiled from our students by our computer screens. On Zoom, and depending on the strength and bandwidth of the internet connection, teachers and students students would see and hear either a wall of low resolution moving mugshots of eachother, and in some cases complete with fake green screen backgrounds, in a desperate attempt to feign the normalcy of in-person lectures. I took this even further in consideration for those with poor internet connections by unilaterally streaming lectures on Facebook Live. So while my students could see me, I couldn’t see them. Their only channel for feedback was the chatbox. My background in radio broadcasting and studio recording made me comfortable with talking to an invisible class. It was not until the last meeting of the semester did I hold a Zoom meeting and finally get to see them talking and moving. Some students commented that my streams were helpful in controlling their expensive and/or unstable internet connection. Others missed the real-time aural and visual interactions in their other classes that held Zoom meetings. But the bridging the digital divide was my primary priority. 

This mode was not without its pitfalls. In many cases, teachers not adept with their devices fumbled and stumbled with the technologies. Some developed various anxieties appearing online, similar to performers stage fright. Likewise, students experienced their own share of technological and/or psychological issues from being glued to their screens and limited to their tiny learning spaces. Somehow, people settled into the routines of quarantine and virtual connections, and the electronic veil that separated teachers and students became the norm. In  the second school year of online education, I observe both teachers and students are more proficient, less resistant, and more creative in online teaching and learning.  

If and when face-to-face classes resume with a still-active pandemic, it will again have to be done not with a virtual, but familiar physical veil. This is what served as the first line of personal defense throughout the pandemic, the surgical face mask. The casualty here will be oral gestures and the voice. The mouth is a very expressive part of one’s face. Covering it will limit the teacher-lecturers facial expression. For example, in daily life a smile is priceless. Whenever I go shopping, it’s been difficult to show sales people your approval and/or appreciation while wearing a mask. There are transparent/translucent masks for those who need to interact with deaf lip-readers and those with disabilities. But these do not provide as much protection as regular surgical masks. This leads to the next problem. Covering the mouth and nose will limit the dynamic range of the voice and limit the movement of the lips. Another strike against a teacher. And what about students? How will they recite? How will they ask questions? How will they discuss with each other? Again, there are technological remedies for these problems. Wireless microphones and portable PA systems can amplify teacher-lecturers voices outdoors and in medium to large classrooms. Oldskool language labs, complete with plexiglass cubicles and multi-point sound systems can be pressed back into action. In schools that never had such facilities, plexiglass dividers, like those in fastfood restaurants, can be built to isolate students from each other. If all these physical barriers become a reality, recitation and discussion will still be awkward. In the absence of multi-point sound systems, one solution will be text chats via Facebook Messenger, Viber, or other messaging platforms inside the classroom during class time. All these technological remedies will be costly, and threaten to widen to gap between the haves and the have-nots. Just thinking about it makes me wonder if just staying at home and doing a zoom meeting would be better than coming to a classroom with so many physical barriers. 

It took a year for those fortunate enough to afford the needed technological infrastructure to get comfortable with online teaching and learning. And it’s taking a little longer for the economically challenged to catch up. I foresee adapting to a new face-to-face but barrier-filled classroom will take at least the same amount of time for infrastructure to be built, routines to change, and new risks to be mitigated, and people to become adept and comfortable in using it.  

I understand Pythagorias point about putting a veil between him and his akousmatikoi. There are many cases in which we intentionally limit our senses in order to experience things in certain ways. Some listeners close their eyes when they want to listen to music critically. Some viewers seek complete silence when they want to focus on a painting. and some readers will limit their peripheral vision when they want to concentrate on a page. But these are special practices, in which imagination eventually fills in the gaps of the experience. Distance-education practitioners may disagree with me, but i feel teaching is at least both intellectual and sensory. I believe the classroom is a performance venue in which the teacher appeals to all the student’s senses, and visa versa. It is a place where spoken words and texts join non-verbal gestures, such as eye-contact, facial expressions, kinesics, etc., must all be available. Intentionally limiting even just one is counterproductive. 

I am a year and a half away from retirement, and therefore may not experience the post-pandemic teaching experience in full bloom. Whatever future teacher do, I hope this experience of teaching during the pandemic makes them realize that any veil imposed on their work must immediately be recognized and overcome. While technology can provide some solutions, presence, in all its multi sensory glory, should remain the norm. 

"TIPAR" MUSIC FROM HIGH SCHOOL 1970-1974

Popular music is a major part of everyone's adolescence. I, along with high school classmates like Roy Abarquez, Gino Domingo, Ember Fernandez, Luis Mencias, and Gene Olivar, were not only avid music lovers, but record collectors as well. So when a class tipar or dance party was held, a combination of us would be provide records and act as “spinner” for the evening. Since we all lived in Quezon City, we knew what each collection had. This playlist replicates the contents of these record collections, and is arranged in a sequence which simulates the ebbs and flows of what would have actually been played through the night in one of our tipars. I began compiling this sometime in 2010, and have been adding to it ever since. I set down three rules for inclusion. First, all the songs here must have been released between January of 1970 (when I learned of my admission) and April 1974 (when we graduated). Second, I should have remembered each song actually being played in a tipar I attended. And third, each artist/group is limited to a maximum of 3 songs for the sake of diversity. By now, the playlist runs about 9 and a half hours long, contains 141 songs, and is still a work in progress. It begins with Led Zeppelin's call to "Rock and Roll", and it ends with the immortal Pinoy Rock anthem, "Himig Natin". That's enough to cover a typical Philippine Martial Law era "stay-in" party starting at 7pm and ending past 4am. 

Some may wonder about the exclusions in this list. It may come as a surprise that many songs we associate with the 70s came either before or after our stay in high school. For example, one of my personal favorites, Chicago’s “Beginnings” was released in 1969 and was therefore axed.  “Disco” songs are also conspicuously absent because we were in college by then. Besides dates, there are other reasons for exclusions. There were songs which were either too “baduy”, (ex. anything from Tony Orlando like “Tie A Yellow Ribbon”), too “naive” (Ray Steven’s “Everything Is Beautiful” or The Hillside Singers’ “I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing”), or too “old” (meaning the stuff our elder kin’s generation liked, like The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and Tom Jones). 

In spite of these exclusions, the playlist covers a lot of stylistic ground. Much was happening in the popular music scene, and it is reflected here. There’s a lot of rock music, since the evolution of “heavy” and “metal” rock was in full swing with bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. There’s also a healthy dose of the Motown and Philly soul with veterans like Stevie Wonder and Dianna Ross mixing it up with then-newbies like Michael Jackson. There was American Folk from C,S,N &Y and James Taylor. Plain “pop” music is also represented by The Carpenters and Elton John. Then there was the dawn of “Pinoy Rock” in our senior year with Juan De La Cruz and Anakbayan taking center stage. In general though, no tipar was complete without a generous helping of slow “sweet” ballads, regardless of genre. The longest is the legendary “Sparkling In The Sand”, a nine-minute Bay Area epic which we spinners used to break up a “bakod” in which one boy was unfairly monopolizing a particularly popular girl. There was also the equally legendary “The Stylistics” album, in which the entire nine-song album of slow songs could be played non-stop late in the evening when us DJs wanted to take to the floor too. Then there was Gladys Knight's "The Way We Were" / "Try to Remember" which was released a month before graduation, and the only copy we had was on a cassette recorded on the air from a local radio station. In spite of the exclusions and possibly some biases, I can guarantee that there’s something for everyone here, and that many of these songs will bring back specific memories. 

One of the bizarre but wonderful things about these songs is that we somehow found ways of dancing to all of them. It’s clear that dancing, specially for the slow “sweet” ones, was just a convenient excuse to initiate physical contact and satisfy our raging hormones, much to the consternation of our more conservative teachers. On the other hand, the more energetically fast “rugged” songs found us moving our bodies in all sorts of strange ways like head-banging, stomping, air-guitar/air-drums, galloping, strutting, swaying, or whatever weird personal movements we invented on the spot. For example, I cannot for the life of me remember or understand how on earth we danced to Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” with all its syncopations and unexpected stops and starts. Structured dancing came very late, initially in 4th year social dance PE class, and then in the summer of 1974 just after graduation, where choreographed dances like the “12-step” and the “LA Walk” laid the foundation for the “disco” craze of our college years. In a way, we were the last of the maskipaps generation, when any body movement was possible, and everything was tried, no matter how awkward.

So you can either get up and go crazy or slow down and hold tight as we used to. Or, you can sit back, sing along, and grab a drink as we do more often now. To me, working on this playlist not only brought back mostly pleasant and a few not-so-pleasant memories, but also cataloged what our adolescence sounded, and moved like.

Enjoy, 

robin

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE ENTIRE PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY

WASH

WASH
Robin Daniel Z. Rivera
2019

Click here to hear the album in Soundcloud.

    Cymbals are popularly known as atonal, noisy, and bellicose instruments. But like many other acoustic instruments, their subtler sounds are often masked in contemporary ensemble music. Most drummers know of a cymbals’ sonic component called wash, a sustained sound which follows the initial attacking crash and ping, and lasts until its ultimate release. Wash is also accompanied by other sounds, such as ring which is in the high end of the sonic spectrum, and hum which occupies the lower end. All these sounds are delicate, complex, difficult to record, and often overlooked. The following works bring wash to the forefront, and reveals its dynamic interaction with other component cymbal sounds.

    All the music on this album was premiered in “Underbelly,” an art installation at the Calle Wright Gallery, Manila, Philippines, from 22 March to 23 June 2019.

1. BISI (3:49)
    22” A Zildjian medium ride
    20” A Zildjian crash ride
    18” A Zildjian thin crash
    16” A Zildjian thin crash
    Blasticks.

2. CURIOSITY (6:10)
    22” Paiste 2002 China
    20” Paiste Sound Creation Dark China
    18” Stagg Traditional Lion China
    16” Stagg Traditional Lion China
    Wire Brushes.

3. DARK SUITE 1st movement (5:02)
4. DARK SUITE 2nd movement (3:30)
5. DARK SUITE 3rd movement (5:53)
    20” Silken Trois crash
    20” Silken Trois thin ride
    18” Silken Trois crash
    18” Zildjian A Custom projection crash
    Yarn mallets.

6. HYMN (3:37)
    22” A Zildjian medium ride
    20” A Zildjian crash ride
    18” A Zildjian thin crash
    14” A Zildjian New Beat hi-hat bottom.
    Felt mallets.

7. PANATA (5:01)
    10” Paiste Mega Bell
    8” Stagg DH mini-China
    6” Paiste Bell Chime.
    Yarn mallets.

8. CONTIGUOUS (8:05)
    20” Paiste Sound Creation Dark China
    18” A Zildjian thin crash
    16” Stagg Traditional Lion China
    16” A Zildjian thin crash
    Yarn mallets.


Composed and Performed by Robin Daniel Z. Rivera
Recorded by Shinji Tanaka at Kodama Studio, 28 January 2019

MAKINAO: the album

MAKINAO
Robin Daniel Z. Rivera

Click here to stream the album SOUNDCLOUD.

In the early 2000s, I recorded an album of music entitled MAKINAO based on the original manifesto of this blog. and gave away CDs of it to family and friends as Christmas gifts. After sitting on it for more than a decade, I decided to release it on the internet for all to hear. Enjoy.

Bungad (2001)
After one frustrating night struggling with step-entry on my sequencer, I noticed the slow approach of dawn. I ended up erasing everything from the evening’s work and just playing extemporaneously in real time. The result is my impression of a prayer for a new day, one which mixes the melancholy from the past and the hope for the future. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/bungad?in=user-575278690/sets/makinao

Tudu 3 (2001, 2018)
I took kulintang lessons as a child, and have seen and heard virtuosos play live, on recordings, and on videos. One of the things which always struck me was the rhythmic drive of the music. This piece is my attempt to create a contemporary recording that had that same drive, with dabakan, agong, and babandil rhythms transferred to snare drums, cymbal bells, and synthesizers. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/tudu-3?in=user-575278690/sets/makinao

Sacred and Profane (2004)
In 2003, I was the sound researcher for the Batangas City Museum project. One component of my research was to do soundwalks around the city. This is my musical impression of a soundwalk around the city plaza during a fiesta, using the actual sounds from my field recordings of dueling balatakats, a drum and lyre ensemble, subli tambols, tricycles, DJs, a prosesyon, a church hymn, and church bells. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/sacred-and-profane-bc-mix?in=user-575278690/sets/makinao

‘DMT (2001)
One day, I wondered what would be the weirdest combination I could think of for one piece. I ended up recording my gabbang outdoors during a particularly windy day, a malfunctioning synthesizer, and a revolving door of polyphonic hiphop drum loops. The result was animated conversation between these contrasting voices. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-575278690/dmt?in=user-575278690/sets/makinao