banduria? rondalla? huh?

i think i mentioned here before that i used to play for a rondalla band at don bosco makati during children's mass every sunday since i was in second year highschool until i started working....... that's 8 years total.....

i started playing the banduria and after a year they gave me the octavina....... i stopped playing in the rondalla band a couple of years after i started working....... the passion just died....... i'm not excited to go to practices anymore..... i went to join a choir instead.....

i'm starting to find my passion with playing the rondalla instruments again....... i'm just missing it...... i started searching the web for banduria or octavina but they are just ridiculously expensive........ and then a friend of mine from SFC (hi kuya ariel!) mentioned to me that he has a friend who teaches banduria and that i should contact her...... this was last fall....... then things got busy and i finally got to contacting the lady just last week.......

her name is marife....... she is part of the filipino cultural community in philadelphia and she teaches banduria and an organizer of the rondalla band in philadelphia......that's a very good way of introducing the filipino culture in the U.S! gawd i love my country, lol.....anyway.......so  i sent her an email asking her if she has an old banduria or octavina for sale and she said yes! but the catch is i have to join their practices and then she immediately wrote "i'm just kidding, you can have it"............. is she kidding me? ofcourse i'll join them! it's been a long time since i played for the rondalla and my rondalla skills are now all rusty............. i wrote her back telling her that i'll very gladly join their practices..........

rondalla practice are usually saturday afternoons but that sunday marife had to go somewhere but she emailed me sunday very early and asked me if i can come over at her place that day at 4pm for practice........ after 2 minutes i sent my reply -- "i'll be there!"....

now i have a banduria sitting on my apartment and i'm trying to pester my dad and my brother to look for my rondalla music notebook where i have compiled all the music piece i have translated, i have collected from friends and have stolen from somewhere, lol................. and i had to torture them into reading the notes of some of the songs in my music piece collection to me over the phone, LOL...... yeah, i asked them to mail that "notebook" but 1-2 weeks wait is just torture, i need to get atleast 3 songs from my notebook........