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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Music and Travel By Antonio C. Abaya July 29, 2004 In this article, I would like to deviate from the weekly wailings on politics and economics and focus some attention, for a change, on two activities that, arguably, give, after sex, the greatest pleasures in life. For me, at least, classical music has been almost a lifelong passion, even though I do not play any musical instrument and do not know how to read notes. I discovered classical music when I was 14 or 15 years old (1950-1951). At that time, my main hobby was shortwave radio and I would spend hours at night combing the shortwave bands for a previously undiscovered radio station broadcasting from some remote corner of the planet. Stations like Radio Brazzaville from what was then known as French Equatorial Africa, and Radio Tashkent from Uzbekistan. Part of the hobby was accumulating QSL cards from all over the world. One would listen to a transmission, identify the transmitting station, its approximate frequency, the time (in GMT) and nature of the program, and then mail the station a reception report on the quality of its transmission. If memory serves, the strength of transmission was rated on a QRM scale, the steadiness (the degree of fading) of transmission on a QSB scale. The radio stations needed and welcomed these reception reports as they enabled their engineers to fine-tune their transmissions. In appreciation, the stations sent QSL cards to acknowledge these reports, and one�s standing in the hobby was measured by the number of QSL cards one has tacked on the world map invariably located above the shortwave receiver. My world map came from Philips and our clearing house for hobby chitchat was a program in English in Radio Nederland broadcasting from Hilversum, Holland. It was while waiting for shortwave radio stations to identify themselves, during program breaks at the top of the hour, that I was exposed to an almost nightly dose of classical music, which I gradually learned to enjoy on its own merits and for its own intrinsic worth. Culture is truly a matter of exposure. Expose people to nothing but garbage, and they will love garbage. Philippine radio is living proof of that truism. Which is a roundabout way of greeting Station DZFE (98.7 FM) on its 50th anniversary this July 31. When it started its all-classical-music programming in 1954, DZFE filled a void in the Philippine radio scene and enabled me to indulge my newly acquired passion for classical music. If I were to rummage through my accumulated memorabilia from younger days, I would probably find the DZFE monthly program schedules from the 50s and 60s, which I had avidly collected like those QSL cards. A five-year stay in the Chicago area (1956-1961), where I earned my degree in Chemistry and worked as an industrial chemist, deepened my enjoyment of classical music through the excellent programming of Station WFMT and through attendance at concerts of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the legendary conductor Fritz Reiner. And when I operated Erehwon Bookshop, which grew to a chain of five shops in Manila, Makati, Greenhills and Quezon City (1962-1988), our shop radios were permanently tuned to DZFE so that even our shop assistants, who were not initially inclined towards classical music, began to like it. As I said, culture is a matter of exposure. When you expose people to it, they begin to develop a taste for it. For many years our Makati shop was the only place in this country where one could buy classical music cassettes, before the coming of CDs. And, interestingly, easily 95% of our music customers were men. Which seems to suggest that, contrary to a common bias, music is a masculine art form. Women like classical music to the extent that it gives them an excuse to dress up and be seen in concerts. But it is men who feel serious music in the innermost recesses of their souls. How many women composers can you name between Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) and Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)? Since I bought my first CD in 1982 (Mozart�s Piano Concerti nos. 23 and 27, played by Vladimir Ashkenazy, still in excellent condition even after 22 years), I have built up a collection of more than 1,000 classical music CDs � more extensive than the selections for sale at Tower Records in Makati. So I have been independent of radio for some time now, but I gladly acknowledge a debt of gratitude to DZFE and congratulate it for being the only civilized radio station here for the past 50 years.***** If the travel bug bites you and you want to get out of Metro Manila for a few days but are not sure exactly where to, you should get a copy of the recently published guide book �100 Resorts in the Philippines: Places with a Heart� by Dominique Grele and Lily Yousry-Jouve, two French ladies whose husbands were posted in the Philippines recently. The format of the guide is straight-forward. The resorts are divided by region, and the regions by provinces with resorts. Description of the resorts is confined to the physical plant and the immediate surroundings, with little or no inputs on cultural or historical background (which would have made the book much thicker than its 348 pages). Each resort is illustrated with a stunning color photo taken by Mme. Jouve. For each resort, there is a sidebar in smaller print giving pertinent information such as telephone and fax numbers, and, where available, email addresses and websites; booking offices in Metro Manila; how-to-get-there info; description of different accommodations; indoor facilities and services; food and beverage outlets; water-sport and outdoor recreational facilities; and, of course, prices, expressed in Manunggul burial jar icons, found on the 1,000-peso note. The book, however, does not say which resorts accept which credit cards. The authors have given 29 of the100 resorts a rating of one heart or two hearts, their �coups de coeur�. The four resorts that merited two hearts are Lagen Island in El Nido (Palawan), Ravenala Beach Bungalows in Moalboal (Cebu), Isla Naburot on Guimaras Island, and Pansukian Tropical Resort in Siargao (Surigao), three of which are owned and operated by ex-pat residents.. 100 Resorts is a must-have reference book. It will give a tremendous boost to domestic tourism, which is the necessary first step towards successful international tourism. If you cannot find the book in bookstores, call the publishers at 725-6262 or email them at [email protected]. Enjoy. ***** The bulk of this article appears in the August 07, 2004 issue of the Philippines Free Press magazine. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Music and Travel� . My dear dear Tony and Marica! This column opened the floodgates of lovely memories you and I shared in the fifties when we had a relatively peaceful city. Erehwon evoked avantgarde thinking and thoughts. Yes, I spent many a time at Padre Faura right next to Cucina Italiana our favorite dinner place, browsing through unheard of periodicals that were challenging and progressive indeed. Yes, you are THE renaissance man - and many politicians today cannot even spell this much less fathom what the word renaissance means. A lot of readers who have been blessed by your column subjects thought you were a Journalist-lawyer or media specialist of sorts. Few if any know of your chemistry background and your complex personality and background. But, as I keep saying, tocayo. publish your columns aim copies for the high school youth and their teachers for theirs is the country's future. They should know how to manage it now. It is always good to pause, get away from the political projects and "smell the flowers" ...and do some deep introspection.. and listen to dynamic classical music. Keep plugging Tony. Bless you and your loved ones. What you do is being a "man for others..." and an articulate one too. remember? Tony Joaquin [email protected] Daly City, California August 02, 2004 MY REPLY. Tocayo, thank you for your kind words. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, We should have more of your young years cuentos! We who belong to the 50's and 60's generation truly find pleasure remembering. DZFE should be given a national subsidy even a token amount. I had been trying to do this but keep getting distracted with nonsensical political issues which do not address basic problems. paikut-ikot na lamang tayo. Will appreciate how we may help FE. their broadcast quality has weakened from our Alabang area end. Jun Magsaysay Philippine Senate [email protected] August 02, 2004 MY REPLY. Thank you for your reaction, Jun. It may be politically incorrect to offer official government help to DZFE as it is really a religious station that happens to broadcast classical music exclusively. The Catholic Church and the Iglesia ni Kristo may complain or demand similar aid for their stations. An alternative may be to use the prestige of your position to persuade the Ayala Foundation, or the foundations of the Gokongweis, the Yuchengcos, etc to donate equipment to DZFE to boost its power. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hey Tony, Taga-Chicago ka rin pala. My graduate school time at U of Chicago was Sep 65-Jun 68. Didnt have TV (by choice, afraid of getting addicted and not studying as a result), but got stuck on WFMT. Have nostalgic feeling for their April Fool's Day specials! � Mahar Mangahas [email protected] August 02, 2004 MY REPLY. Thank you for your email, Mahar. Next to its annotated (in their program guide) programs of classical music, what I also enjoyed from WFMT was its weekly �Saturday Night Special� folk music program. It is here that I learned to enjoy Theodore Bikel, Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Gibson, Cynthia Gooding, etc. I still have my collection of the WFMT Program Guides, bound for easier reminiscing . wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Congratulations on this column. It is a welcome respite from the normal bad news. VICTOR A. LIM Professor Asian Institute of Management [email protected] August 06, 2004 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |