Get To Know Our Song Titles and Their Meanings

From Visayan to English: Is This The Right Approach?

I’m asking you that question because me and my pal Gifter have been debating it a lot. If you’ve followed this article series I’m publishing closely enough, you should have known already that Riortrek, the alternative acoustic band in which I participate in as a keyboardist is currently working on releasing a digital album.

Gifter’s Ladder Analogy.

“Success must be organic, and we have to approach this career-building thing we’re doing like climbing a ladder.” – This was what Gifter told me while we were crafting some strategies to make our tandem and our music in general gain some momentum in the mainstream someday.

Gifter is a visionary. And as such, he is downright ambitious. Too ambitious in fact that sometimes, I see him as somewhat unrealistic with his goals for the 2 of us. Thankfully though, he listens to me at times which kinda reminds him that we have to make our goals and efforts grounded enough. “We must not forget the realities of this thing we’re doing” I told him.

“To start gaining some momentum, we need to release a Visayan song first, then a Tagalog one, then an English one.” – This was Gifter’s plan. We’re native Visayan speakers, so it only makes sense that we release a song first that truly captures our Visayan lineage.

Do I think that’s the right way to do it? At first, I’m strongly against it.

Let me explain why.

As a former call center agent and computer teacher, I’m quite capable enough of speaking English fairly well. Gifter, as a former disc jockey and also a computer teacher can speak English nicely too. Gifter has this ambition of becoming an international music artist someday. Though that might be a very far stretch, I can’t help but dream of it too.

Wouldn't it make more sense for us, considering that we’re confident of our English capabilities to release an English song first? Or maybe a Tagalog one since it’s the official language of our country?

During our first few home recording sessions, Gifter asked me to sing some of his old Tagalog and Visayan compositions and believe me friends, it caused some huge problems for us. Though Gifter told me I did it impressively enough, I really felt uncomfortable while singing in those dialects.

Call me unpatriotic or whatever, but my honesty dictates that I kinda hate seeing and listening to myself singing Visayan or Tagalog songs.

Eventually, I agreed with Gifter’s strategy.

Let’s get back to that “success ladder” analogy I mentioned earlier. Gifter said we really need to dive into success, the way we climb into a stairway. He believes that if we release our English songs first then our Visayan or Tagalog ones later on, that would seem like a “1 step forward, 2 steps back” kind of scenario.

If we truly want to have a “grounded kind of success” wouldn’t it be more sensible to start small, albeit, having a small audience in the Cebu and Davao, Mindanao regions with our Visayan songs then hopefully explore the larger audiences nationwide with Tagalog songs later?

Because of the intense hard work that he poured into all of these things we do, there is nothing that Gifter is more afraid of than failure. Seeing things from his perspective, I finally agreed that the “Visayan to Tagalog to English” strategy is the right course of action.

Deep down, there are still doubts lurking in my head as to how we should truly approach this. I’m hoping you would provide some insight if I give you our 10-song list and what they’re all about. With these, maybe you could help us decide.

Here are the titles of our 10 original songs and the messages they’re conveying:

Tagalog Songs:

• Champion Sa Ganda – A song about faithfulness in marriage

• Kumusta na JT – A spiritual/religious song about humility and heading towards the afterlife (Gifter included ‘JT’ in the title to include my initials. Sweet, right?)

• Ngiti at Pighati – A reggae-ish song about facing life’s challenges (I’ve already uploaded a sample of it here. Wanna check it out? Here’s the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y0LSwgLOv6cxy_xnQarfzKFMcWyED1sP/view?usp=sharing

• Hatid ng Iyong Mata – An Eraserheads-inspired alternative rock song about building friendships.

English Songs:

• Ditch Futility – A nostalgic song about Gifter’s frustrations and disappointments during his teenage years.

• About That Chic – Me and Gifter’s duet about visiting your friend so you can talk about your childhood crushes.

• Feels Like Dopamine – A scientific love song that Gifter hopes to sing to his future wife in their wedding.

• Leo’s Tip – Inspired by a quote from Russian playwright Leo Tolstoy.

Visayan Songs:

• Kanta Bahala – A somewhat comedic acoustic rock song about taking care of your body while being in love.

• Panagway – A hymn that discusses what real beauty is all about. We just finished shooting the music video of this and we’re thinking of making it our first single.

So readers, would you please help us decide? Are we doing the right thing in choosing a Visayan song as the first to be released? Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading.

Keep safe everyone!