Sept.

5,2009
Opinion/Commentary

Grand Finals’ Winners Of Leyte Idol Should Be Tapped As Recording Artists

By Quirico M. Gorpido, Jr.

Maasin City, Southern Leyte-Tapping the winners of the Leyte Idol’s Grand Finals
in a series of four seasons now, both in band and solo categories, should be
tapped as region 8’s(Leyte ands Samar) new recording artists. Their talents should
not be gone to waste after the grueling competitions, which is aim to discover
talented singers and bands in our place.
Grand finals’ winners to be tapped as recording artists must come from the
first, second and third placers of every season in the past years. If we are fond
of listening to songs and music rendered by the English and Tagalog singers and
bands outside our region, why can’t we do the same by tapping our very own
talented and gifted singers and make them meaningfully productive?
We should also tap our composers in our region, both Waray-Waray and Cebuano-
speaking individuals. They should be given the choice to compose songs either in
Waray-Waray, Cebuano, English or Tagalog.Would it not be highly appreciable for
our local talents to also sing our original songs that are locally composed by our
talented composers? WE have been buying albums in CDs containing past and present
songs of our favorite domestic and foreign artists who are not residents of our
region. We can patronized more our very own singers and bands who have won as
winners from the past contest of “Leyte Idol’s” Grand Finals. When this suggestion
and recommendation would be adopted and considered by the concerned Tacloban high
officials led by the incumbent Governor, this could serve as the stepping stone
for them (winner singers: soloists and bands) to become recording artists who can
later earn regular royalties of every song that sells Our songs should not only be
in Waray-Waray or Cebuano, but also in English and Tagalog, if our composers can
compose songs in either of our dominant languages in the country. Every new song
should be promoted by playing it regularly in all our radio stations both AM and
FM in the region. Number of requests from listeners per song should be recorded as
basis for judging which among the new songs being promoted on the airlanes would
be the number one, number two, number three, number four etc.in the songs’ chart.
Singer and composer of each new song must also be mentioned every now and then to
make them become popular among the countless radio listeners. Their popularity
later on would help make some potential sponsors in other places of our region to
invite them for some concerts.
With the initiative of incumbent Governor Oscar Jericho “Icot” Petilla, son of
former Leyte Province Governor Remedios “Matin” Petilla, to talk and discuss these
things to our music-minded businessmen and enterpreneurs, composers, musicians and
music arrangers, we know that this can possibly be done and achieved.
The move would make meaningful and productive the existence of our local talents-
soloists or bands. When everything will be discussed and agreed upon in relation
to the realization of the objective by all the stakeholders involved, then this
also necessitates the establishment of recording studios in Tacloban City and in
Ormoc City. There would be the need to hire experienced technicians and other
music experts that will manage and supervise the operation of the recording
studios.
Now is the right time for our concerned leaders like Governor Petilla to do
the initiative just as what he did thru the sponsoring of the Leyte Idol, in
behalf of the Provincial Government of Leyte Province, to discover our very own
untapped talented singers.
With future availability of new albums/records containing our very own original
song compositions in some local stores and record bars, countless music lovers and
radio listeners here in our region will only be glad buying it. in their
respective cities and municipalities. Later on we can reproduce more and more
albums/records and distribute it to different regions of the country where music
lovers are also interested to buy new songs with joyful charming melodies and
lively pleasant tunes.
The love for songs and music among music lovers, who love to listen to a wide
variety of tunes and melodies, would then be boosted and broadened and might
become boundless and limitless. This could be the trend considering that we can
have additional songs/music in the near future which we can possess like what we
did already by buying numerous songs of various popular bands and soloists in
different cities and municipalities where we happen to visit during our tour.
To boot, the province of Leyte can also hold an open song writing contest every
year with enticingly attractive huge prizes to encourage inexperienced and
potential composers to join the event. The main objective for this is to discover
more of our dormant composers in our very own 6 provinces. Yearly winners from
first up to the fourth place composers must be tapped and persuaded to write
original songs, not only in Waray-Waray but also in Cebuano, English and Tagalog
as materials for our Grand Final winners of the Leyte Idol’s 4 seasons and the
Grand Final winners of the following seasons’ potential recording artists. It is
also of great importance for all the composers and musicians to have mutual
communications among the soloists and bands winners. Talking to each other on
light moments during socialization would make composers, musicians and the singers
develop mutuality and friendship among themselves.
If in case Governor “Icot” Petilla would no longer be the Governor of the
Province of Leyte and want to divert on other things that interest him, he should
turn it over to musically-inclined or music lovers businessmen who have the
penchant and the passion to manage and supervise a music industry for continuity
of this meaningfully productive project.(Copyright 2009 by Quirico M, Gorpido,Jr.)