A Performer’s POV: Do Feelings Differ When Performed in a Different Language?

Filipinos are fond of singing whenever, and wherever. Whether at parties, wakes, or regardless of the situation, we always find a way to utter the lyrics of our favorite song—no matter the language it is encoded in.

For once, my mom exclaimed to me “Kumanta ka naman ng Tagalog, anak… puro na lang English ‘yang kinakanta mo eh!” because I sang another Lady Gaga or a Mariah Carey song again for the “nth time”.  

So after singing, I granted her request and sang a Zack Tabudlo song that time around. After I sang, she and my aunt harmoniously said to me: “’Yun oh! Mas magaling ka diyan anak! Mas ramdam namin yung feelings mo! Relate ka ba diyan?”. 

While deep inside I want to answer them that I truly relate to those OPM songs, it makes me wonder and question the concept of language because I also relate to Gaga or Mariah’s songs! But then, why do my family and my relatives very much like and listen to my singing more if I sing in the Filipino language? 

Well, I believe it is because our native language is inherently a medium for us to communicate interpersonally. In contrast, a foreign, second language is the language to use to “impress” its outside users.

Even though I first learned how to love music through American English, my earliest memory of learning music was through my family’s supervision on how to sing in Tagalog. The first song I learned was Ikaw Na Nga by Willie Revillame, and it won me fourth place back then in our school’s singing contest—but I was clueless as to why I won. 

The only reason they told me about that is that I was “cute” because “naiintindihan na Tagalog mo.” Hence, looking at it now, it makes a lot of sense, and it reflects why I also won the same contest during my senior high school years because, as mentioned, I was now able to communicate song messages in a way that is understandable and “authentic” to the audience’s experiences about the song (and of course, their preferences), through language.

Because, as I would like to recall and retell it, I only had the drive to pursue my performing and singing passion again after performing Yano’s Banal na Aso Santong Kabayo and jumped off the stage to a cemented ground. 

But what makes my performance more special is that as I jumped off and rested my body on the ground: I felt a total blackout and all I could hear afterward was the exponential rise of the crowd’s cheer, as I finally regained my consciousness, screaming “ISA PA!”.

And just like that, my whole perspective about performing a language changed because I believed that the audience appreciated it… not because of my jump! But rather because they shared a common feeling, a connection with me, as they also sang back that song to me—which tackles moral dilemmas faced by our country in our language—while I performed it in the usual Filipino rockstar flare that everybody likes to see. 

Reminiscing over that memory again also feels so ‘real’ and cathartic because I was able to take the crowd’s pain about our society and turn it into a real, shared musical experience. Where, as I performed a national allegorical song about us: they, in return, saw through my performance of “authenticity” and took it as our shared relatable truth and experience as Filipinos.

On the other hand, I only perform in the English language if I do not know the audience yet, but still want the satisfaction of an “impressed audience”. 

With English, it is more of a “conscious labor” to sing at because what matters the most, especially for us Filipinos, is if the words are pronounced correctly, the enunciation is on point, and other factors that are concerned with the English structure. 

That is why I also learned at a young age to master my English because it is culturally inculcated in us that upon mastering this language of our past colonizer: this would be our key towards “civilization”. Therefore, giving that “wow” effect if one masters its form and structure correctly. 

Thus, that is the reason why I cannot shake off the English language to my senses too. 

It is a part of my broken truth about how I want to “live” my life, which is the common myth that I share with almost every Filipino about English, which is the credit and incentives it rewards us for being “structurally correct”. 

Soon enough, I will make peace with it—because the sad fact about this language is how it compromises the “feeling(s)” of your intended message simply because… it does not know or recognize the masses. 

English does not capture the essence of our struggles in life, it only adds more to the mountainous, everyday problems of Filipino people. 

It is hard to decode, so it is obviously not for everybody. It is truly intimidating and taunting to perform, and steals a lot of time and effort from us because, in a societal sense, it should only be performed “correctly”—or otherwise you are “illiterate”. 

Even if we fool ourselves in the myth that this is the only language of greatness and excellence: does it matter when it cannot cross the minds of your fellow Filipinos properly?

It might, but I believe that the few things that will be successfully implanted in the minds of our fellows are the further “insecurity” it would give them if you “perfectly” performed the language just like how Americans do, the superficial impression of the way you used and pronounced sophisticated English words, and most especially, the spatial distance that you (as a communicator) will give to them because, after all, English is not our true language—it is the robotic language that was imperialistically programmed to us all. 

At last, the Filipino language might never be as “central” as the English language but at least our language has the most power to move us. It is the sound of our imperfect home, the first place where we learned the idea of connecting to other people through varying tones and rhythms of our language. 

In addition, the languages of Filipino and English are most especially not in opposition with each other because they have their strengths and weaknesses, and both are as complex to learn and comprehend at times. But there is one thing that we must acknowledge about them, and that is their difference in “purpose”. 

So, whatever the message might take its form (whether through songs or speeches, and so on): it is, indeed, that feelings differ when performed in a different language.