While I enjoy playing jazz on the clarinet one of the things that I have been wanting to have is a lead sheet to play music from the Philippines. I’ve learned from my research on the Philippines that jazz and swing dancing did exist there during the swing era, but my search to find any sheet music or arrangements has mainly resulted in ragtime music.

In the mean time though I took the classic kundiman genre song, “Dahil Sa Iyo” written in 1938 by Mike Velarde, Jr. for the movie, Bituing Marikit and had it transcribed by Danny Fratina for a jazz combo to play as a birthday gift to myself. I provided him with the Nat King Cole version of the song shown above and a copy of the the sheet music to create the lead sheets.

Here’s a brief description of the Kundiman genre from Wikipedia if you are unfamiliar with it,

Kundiman is a genre of traditional Filipino love songs. The lyrics of the Kundiman are written in Tagalog. The melody is characterized by a smooth, flowing and gentle rhythm with dramatic intervals. Kundiman was the traditional means of serenade in the Philippines.

Danny was kind enough to grant me permission to share his work for educational purposes so if you have any interest in playing the song or want to hire a band to play it for you please feel use the resources below.

Dahil Sa Iyo Lead Sheets:

• Dahil Sa Iyo – C
• Dahil Sa Iyo – Bb
• Dahil Sa Iyo – Eb
• Dahil Sa Iyo – Bass