Kutiyapi

[citation needed] In various Philippine languages, the instrument is also called: kutyapi, kutiapi (Maguindanaon), kotyapi (Maranao), kotapi (Subanon), fegereng (Tiruray), faglong, fuglung (B'laan),[1] kudyapi (Bukidnon and Tagbanwa), hegelong (T’boli), kuglong, kadlong, kudlong or kudlung (Manobo, Mansaka, Mandaya, Bagobo and Central Mindanao),[2][3][4] and kusyapi (Palawan).

Dayunday is a performed in front of an audience using an improvisational vocal style based on both sangel sa wata (traditional lullaby) and bayok (epic chant sung in a cappella) genres, played in either binalig or dinaladay scales, that is used during weddings, election campaigns, religious celebrations such as Eid or other large gatherings.

[6] Among the T'Boli, Manobo and other Lumad groups, the instrument (known as hegelung, kudyapi or fedlung) is tuned to a major pentatonic scale.

A characteristic difference between Mindanaon Moro kutiyapi and the non-Islamized Lumad equivalents is the style and set up of vocal accompaniment.

[7] The kudyapi was a kind of small lute carved out of a single piece of wood with a belly of a half a coconut shell added for resonance, with two or three wire strings plucked with a quill plectrum, and three or four frets, often of metal.

The body was called sungar-sungar or burbuwaya; the neck, burubunkun; the strings, dulos; the fretboard, pidya; and the tuning pegs, birik-birik.

– William Henry Scott[8]While kutyapi was already a forgotten instrument among Tagalogs, with traces only remaining in folk songs like Sa Libis ng Nayon, a stringed instrument was historically used by Tagalogs as mentioned in the Jesuit friar Pedro Chirino's Relacion de las Islas Filipinas (1604) which is called kutyapi.

According to Chirino:[9] They [the Tagalogs] are punctiliously courteous and affectionate in social intercourse and are fond of writing to one another with the utmost propriety and most delicate refinement.

Similar instruments played throughout the region include the Sape of Sarawak and the Crocodile lutes of Mainland Southeast Asia.