For as long as there have been children, there has been some form of tune hummed to put them to sleep.
MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Children’s bedtime was largely ritualistic before it turned occupational. In the city, a working mother would have time when the clock strikes 9 in the evening. She would put her child, sandwiched between bolster pillows, or accompanied by stuffed animals for softness and comfort. By the side table, a tablet is streaming CoComelon’s channel about the direction of the wheels on the bus or Baby JJ’s (the hero of every video) abject rejection to sleep. The electronic device trumps the soporific effect of a mother’s hum.
“Any song can be a lullaby,” Sol Trinidad, the ethnomusicologist and curator of the songs behind Himig Himbing, told me. The project of the Cultural Center of the Philippinesto bring indigenous lullabies to the regions took shape during the pandemic lockdown and befittingly as it was a period of prolonged homestay with the family and deliberate …