Iginiit na Himig sa Himpapawid: Musikang Filipino sa Radyo sa Panahon ng Kolonyalismong Amerikano

Abstract

Radio broadcasting, which the Americans introduced to the Philippines in 1922, was quite successful in its project of promoting the English language and western music during the American colonial period. Apart from playing imported music on the air, radio featured Filipino musical artists deftly performing western pieces. However, the new medium also became an opportunity to re-express Filipino music and Philippine languages, especially Tagalog, to a nationwide audience. A flowering of the kundiman and Philippine folk songs was attributed to radio, while local composers who scored movies created new kundiman pieces, even if some adopted the American idiom of jazz. In notable cases, songs that posed a radical resistance to the colonial condition were heard on the air.