Philippine Folk Music - Classification

Classification

Traditional Philippine music is reflective of the country's history as a melting pot of different cultures. Among the dominant cultural strains noticeable today are Hispano-Mexican, American and to some extent Chinese, Indian and Islamic. It is thus difficult to strictly classify the whole corpus of Philippine music as either Western or Eastern.

A frequently used system is to classify it according to ethno-linguistic or cultural divisions: for example, traditional Tagalog music, which is somewhat more Hispanic in flavour, differs from Ifugao music & Maranao kulintang music.