The Vocation of Music: Erwin Fajardo's Story
In face value alone, music seems to be as lucrative and glorious as it gets; with the likes of famous pop musicians earning money with digits that you’d need more than just your hands to count. People fail to see that music is an art before it is a business and that it takes more than just musical talent to live a life of luxury from a musical career. Erwin Fajardo, a local musician and composer, shows in his story that music, first and foremost, is a vocation.
A cassette tape filled with recordings of J.S. Bach’s most popular pieces given by his aunt was what started his interest in music. As a six year-old child, he would listen to the same tape repeatedly for months. It was from that moment that he found himself with a strong fascination of “classical music at first and later on, music itself in general.” He also grew up taking interest in the music of Simon and Garfunkel and Peter, Paul and Mary. This interest grew from his father playing records from them repeatedly, leading Erwin to take a liking for the artists later on.
Some years later, Erwin became an AB Communications major in the Ateneo. He remarked that during his time as a college student, that it was the closest course the institution had to the arts; something he clearly already had his heart set on. Although he expressed that he wanted to become a filmmaker, hence taking on the course (which has related electives and specializations), his desire to for music always remained there; though dormant by default would sometimes manifest itself. he said that although he thought of his compositions at the time were “horrible”, he was able to appreciate and find fulfilment in the process of creating music.
During his early twenties, Erwin delved deeper into musical compositions and would write and perform music on the side. He had been taking part in band performances and already had been experimenting with musical arrangement and composition software by then. It was in his further immersion into musical composition however that he gained understanding of his own limits. He realized that his skills and knowledge of music were lacking in comparison to what he wanted to achieve.
And so, Erwin set out to improve his musical virtuosity. Sometime after his stay in the Ateneo at the age of twenty-five, some years after finishing his bachelor’s degree, he became a full-time student of music at the University of the Philippines Conservatory of Music and graduated five years later at 2010. Ever since then, he had been doing scoring for videos and film. He ponders upon his cumulative education with a certain sense of dumbfoundedness and surprise, seeing as he had been a student longer than even a doctor typically would.
After finally becoming a full-time musician, Erwin experienced the problems of taking on a career in music firsthand; the most obvious one being about money. While there are musicians that get to make it big out in the industry, most of the musicians you don’t hear as much about find themselves living a simple, yet difficult life from choosing to commit to the life of a full-time musician unless they were born from a rich background that can grant them safety nets for their careers. Music on its own already takes time and effort to learn, as it is a skill that demands practice and understanding over the notion of it being a gift. Because music is not very lucrative, and hard to get good at, he said that in music, “it can become difficult to keep yourself motivated”. It was in this that he realized that music was a vocation.
In 2014, the late Francis Xavier Pasion, independent film director and blockmate of Erwin’s during his time in the Ateneo contacted him to become the film scorer for his newest film – Bwaya. This marked the first time Erwin had found himself working on a feature film. He was directed by Pasion to make the film’s music as close as possible to indigenous Manobo music, as this fit the cultural setting and context of the film and the vision of Pasion. Erwin later on travelled to a rather remote part of Loreto called Kasapa and learned and recorded from the few practitioners of Manobo music that remained. And just like before, he found himself dazzled by the beauty music had in its process. He couldn’t get over the fact that not only was he scoring his first ever film, he also even set out to go to he calls to be a small village in the “middle of nowhere” to work on the film’s score. Bwaya went on to win Best Film, Best Cinematography and Best Music in the 2014 Cinemalaya festival and later on; the Best Music in the Gawad Urian 2015 Awards.
Since then, Erwin has kept close contact with the Kasapa community; having taken interest in the indigenous music they had and even mentioned that he will be performing scholarly field work related to this in the future. He shows in his scholarly interest in indigenous music that his interest stretches beyond composing and listening and encompasses the entirety of music itself.
Erwin continues to find himself astonished by the beauty music constantly shows in itself regardless of form and origin and this helps keep his passion for music aflame. As an individual committed to the vocation of music and to the fulfillment and challenges alike that it brings, Erwin sets out not only to improve himself in music but also to learn and understand more about the world of music.
Photos taken from: ACL Philippines Judebgallery's Wordpress