This is the official statement of Indiepinoy in reaction to OPM’s Dingdong Avanzado’s statement during the press conference of Kulturang Lahi Iuuna Ko (KLIK).

Influential people in the music industry should realize the big picture before acting on how to solve the sad situation of the local music industry. In a recent interview, Dingdong Avanzado, OPM corporate secretary and a local popular singer cited the dominance of foreign music in the local media and in the music market discourages local composers to write original Filipino songs. Thus they rarely churn new materials these days.

But the facts contradict such statement. Indiepinoy, a music company involved in marketing music of independent filipino artist has listed over a thousand filipino artists actively recording, distributing and performing original compositions on their own efforts in the past year. And this number is continously growing. These artists continues to struggle to survive in the music scene, performing even with meager earnings, yet never giving up in finding means to let their music be heared to a bigger audience than the immediate community they belong.

The creativity and quality of music these artist have developed are deeply rooted in the Filipino culture as they belong to real communities among the Filipino masses. The big number of original compositions from these artists has explored various genres in music that we are now looking at big communities of pop, rock, r&b, blues, jazz, alternative, hiphop and ethnic-folk musicians. They are definitely worth listening more than foreign top40 since these are the music and lyrics Filipinos can relate to.

It may be true that our media is being dominated by foreign music, it didnt however discouraged the Filipino artist to be more creative and face the challenge. There are several new mediums to explore in delivering the music to the people especially in this age of the internet. Marketing music has entered the digital age and the artists are producing their own materials and distribute them thru mobile and thru the web.

Despite the comforts of modern age, the independent Filipino artist still needs the support from existing media and the influential people who lead major roles in the music industry. How can these leaders get the support from the Filipino artists if they do not even know the real situation and do not recognize the existence of a large number of independent Filipino artists in the music industry. These leader may have been blinded by the situation because the Filipino artists do not submit new songs to the mainstream. Perhaps the Filipino artist, disgusted by the system in the industry of favouring foriegn music over local talents, took a distance over the system and delivered the music straight to the people on their own limited efforts instead.

The major players in the music industry should regain the trust from the large community of Filipino artists. And for this to happen, they should address the real issues of providing support to the real Filipino artist, giving them venues for their songs to be heared to a broader audience via existing commercial media, providing them proven effective distribution channels and other major machineries in the music industry. Only then can they realize the participation of the Filipino artist in their programs of developing the music industry in the country.

in reference to:
http://ph.promotion.yahoo.com/entertainment/article/post/entertainmentfeat_ph/267/opm-composers-told-dont-give-up.html
Loqal.ph Feb 6
and
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/mb/20110207/tel-dingdong-avanzado-cites-reasons-the-2bf66ac.html
Manila Bulletin Feb 7