as with financial markets, the value of ateneo cheers goes up and down with the years. there are seasons when people can't even seem do 'halikinu' properly; there are highly creative stretches (such as the present day) where the cheerleaders seem to be inventing a new routine with every game. the list of perennial favorites is short - blue eagle spelling, halikinu, ateneo go fight.

but in the heat of battle, many cheers get lost, neglected, changed, or even, dare we say, forgotten. 'blue eagle the king' in full cry after a won game, anyone? anyone? guys?

the purpose of this thread is to discuss the great cheers and fight songs of the present and past and plead their case, in the hope of starting small arguments about why they should stay, why they should go, or why they should come back. the number and intensity of responses should serve as an informal referendum for the blue babble battalion to consider.

ready? here's entry number one:

ARTILLERY YELL

WHAT IT HAS GOING FOR IT: done properly, with a mostly male crowd, it's a great simulation of an actual artillery duel against the "enemy". the "ready on the left" and "ready on the right" portion is patterned after actual safety practices on the firing range. i've heard the "boom chicka boom" part done so crisply it sounds like rapid fire. it ends with a great, hurried rolling barrage of "'NEO 'TENEO ATENEO!" like shells falling in quick succession on target. all in all, your classic choral recitation piece in the best ateneo traditions, EXCEPT it's chanted in the heat of battle by a whole bleachers section.

WHY IT'S OUT OF FASHION: it's old. it was written when ateneo was a serious ROTC school. militarism was part of the school culture. (we sent a cadet battalion to bataan, lest anyone forget. AND, we still call our school newspaper 'the guidon.') artillery duels against the other crowd probably aren't the kind of thing a coed school can relate to.

WHY IT PROBABLY WON'T COME BACK: the timing is tricky. the school is much bigger now; it's really hard to get everyone together to assemble for cheering practice. there are no jesuits of sufficiently intimidating reputation (a la father ampil) to bang everyone's heads together until we get it right.

I have very vague recollections of the Artillery Yell, especially the Boom-Chika-Boom. Jong Castaneda taught us that when we were still just High School freshmen in the rainy July of 1986. Unfortunately nowadays it might wind up like a William Hung "Shake ya bahm-bahm!" rendition.

And how come the babble doesn't do that brass windup tune anymore? I don't recall its actual title but its the one Knorr used for their Sinigang Sampaloc mix more then a decade ago. I think some of the 87/88 championship alumni know what I'm talking about. There even used to be a regular sax guy who always pulled a Chuck Mangione routine. THOSE always got a rise out of the crowd because it meant that it was nearing game time, nearing the time when the poor sucker on the other side was about to get palstered all Blue and White!

Interesting. The Ateneo had a military slant?

I wasn't much of a UAAP fan before, but I always thought the Blue Babble was better when it was traditionally all male.

No offense to the ladies, but really. It had more prestige that way. It was always amazing how the Babble started the drums after every class (pagkatapos ng bell) in the Assoc or sa Quad 1 and yell, "BLUE EAGLE SPELLING!"

The BBB taught us the Artillery Yell when I was a freshman, too, but I don't remember anything about it other than "Target? [insert name of opponent school here] Beat? [insert name of opponent school here]." And then nabaon na siya sa limot dahil hindi ginagamit sa games.

I'd have to agree with Tejan. Again with due respect to our very dyed-in-the-blue wool cheering ladies, some of these new "cheer dancing" routines are so Sex Bomb or Gee Girls. I don't really get what purpose throwing a girl high up in the air is supposed to accomplish by way of pumping up the Ateneo crowd through cheering, and its downright dangerous. Earthbound routines are quite alright. After all, its the Ateneo Spirit that counts.

heh heh. the all-male cheering angle, as predicted, has unleashed a few un-PC thoughts on this thread. no offense meant i guess. today's kids just want to see little girls (and i do mean little) thrown 20 feet in the air.

tejan - just so you know that i'm not kidding about the ateneo ROTC-militarist tradition, here's another old battle song from the distant past from the ateneo high school website:


The Ateneo Cadet Corps March
(Tune: United States Field Artillery March
Words modified from Boston College High School March)

With a shout, with a song
We will help the boys along,
Under banners of White and fair Blue.
While we do, while we dare,
Proudly waving everywhere
Are the banners of White and fair Blue...

For it's go go...
Ateneo go,
Hearts always loyal and true
With the right our trust,
Strive and fight we must
Under banners of White and fair Blue...
Under banners of White and fair Blue...


my theory is we probably had military instructors from the US Army run our ROTC program during the prewar days, and they made us sing their fight songs. you can see why this sort of song won't cut it anymore.

for the reference of everyone new to these cheers here's the artillery yell reproduced in full. its formal name is actually "the rifle range yell" but don't ask me why they changed the name. apparently the babble does this all the time:

Rifle Range Yell

Ready on the right?
*Yeah!
Ready on the left?
*Yeah!
Range
*(name of opponent)
Target
*(name of opponent)
Ready-- Aim-- Fire!

**Boom chika boom
Boom chika boom
Boom chika boom chika boom chika boom
Boom chika boom -- rah rah rah
Boom chika boom -- sis boom bah
Boom chika boom -- rah rah rah
Boom chika boom -- sis boom bah
(whistle and blare of drums)
BOOM 'Teneo... 'Teneo Teneo!

oh and by the way, does anyone actually remember elocution and choral recitation in grade school and high school? i'm convinced they're two of the more important foundations for the school's cheering traditions. the way pagsi used to make you say the line 'do you believe in GHOSTS' over and over again until you could hear the S slither up to the slightest of stops with the T, and then hissing the final S forcefully. if there's overwhelming atenean superiority in anything, it's probably diction. and while it might sound elitist to think so, just imagine any other UAAP school trying to cheer the way we do. close your eyes. imagine. tell me you're not hearing "GET DAT BOL! GET DAT BOL!"

okay, convinced? open your eyes now. next entry:


Hail! Ateneo Hail!
(Words [modified] and music from the "Fordham Ram,"
Fordham University, N.Y. City)

Oh, Hail Ateneo Hail!
On to the fray,
Once more our foes assail
In strong array
Once more the Blue and White
Wave on high
And sing our battle song,
We do or die!

March on, march on, march on to victory
March on, march on, march on with loyalty
To the fight! To the fight!
To win our laurels bright!
(repeat first verse)


WHAT IT HAS GOING FOR IT: a terrific opening trumpet note. i can't describe it but it sounds to me like horses being called to the starting gate. it's that rousing. sung in a big crowd, it really sounds like a war song. and unlike that other famous "hail" song, la salle's alma mater hymn, "hail ateneo hail" actually has more than a handful of multisyllabic words.

WHY IT'S OUT OF FASHION: no band. or, specifically, no brass instruments. did i mention how essential the opening trumpet note was? it was a piercing signal above the roar of the crowd that called people's attention and clued them in that "hail ateneo hail" was up next. also, lines like "win our laurels bright" don't really ring true anymore. just too old-school i guess.

WHY IT MIGHT COME BACK: you never know, someone might actually put together a brass band someday.

Joe, the "sinigang song" was actually "X." The sax man was my friend Joe Avila.

Peking Man, remember Mr. Jorge Sarabia? He was our English Teacher in Grade School who won all the choral recitation contests. Come to think of it, he could be a good consultant for the BBB. He transforms the pieces into goo jazzy beat type of recitation. Remember "The Highwayman," "Isang Dipang Langit," and "Ang Payaso?"

the song known internally in the babble as "X" is a good example of how ateneo used to slow down big-band standards to a crawl, ending up with a really raunchy number that cheerleaders could ledge-dance to. the other is "cherry pink and apple blossom white." the latter was also performed straight-up by the professional bands NU or UP used to send to the UAAP. then the ateneo band would play a highly improvised version and the difference would be night and day. ateneo would play it loud, quiet, slow, fast, but the one thing that was always the same was that the first four notes were prolonged as much as possible while the crowd let out a roar and the drums were banged like mad. unforgettable.

There is one cheer that will always be there and remain the same:
"BLUE EAGLE Spelling."

Kahit ilang henerasyon pa ang magdaan, pareho pa rin ang spelling!

. . . . and the text version does not count!

actually cackler an old alumnus once scolded a group of us ateneans about the "modern" cheering of the "blue eagle spelling" which is quite fast. he claimed the proper way to cheer it was slowly, deliberately, like you wanted to pound it into the other side's head that that was the proper way to actually spell it. (so you see, ateneans were patronizing even then.)


i cannot confirm this, but the old version supposedly went something like:

"B" (pause) "L" (pause) "U" (pause) "E" (pause)
"E-A-G-L-E" (slighter pause between each letter)
"Blue" (pause) "eagle" (pause), "blue" (pause) "eagle" (pause)
"Blue-eagle-the-king!" (slighter pause between each word)


words stay the same but rhythms definitely change.

One more thing i miss, although it's played once in a while, is the GO-GO's. I remeber that this used to be played a lot, because we had a bigger horns section, or maybe it was because games were always played in smaller venues like Rizal, or the band was still allowed in the Upper A section.

But the Go-go's is also a strong intro leading up to the chanting of our famous ONE BIG FIGHT!

Just wnated to share!

go-gos is mostly a horn and drums routine with the three "one big fight" yells in the middle. there have long been rumors of lyrics to accompany it, but they have not been sung in years. here is an approximation:

go - go - go - go
go ateneo go
go - go - go - go
fight fight blue and white

(repeat)

one big fight! (three times)



WHAT IT HAS GOING FOR IT: simple, easy to remember, and in the no-lyrics version, gives the crowd a lot of gaps in between yells so the "one big fight" chants actually come as a surprise to the opposing crowd, who are suddenly faced with an ateneo gallery waving fists at them and belting out a cheer in the middle of what they thought was strictly a musical number. the drums are a sort of african tom-tom beat and the horns, in the traditional version, make a pretty good case for bringing back brass bands. big and booming. used to be played with lots of trombone and sousaphone, which are pretty rare these days. when was the last time you ever saw a slide trombone?

WHY IT'S OUT OF FASHION: in the 80s, the influence of pop music meant everyone wanted to be the sax player. it was the age of the sax solo (think "your greatest trick" by dire straits or - horrors! - "careless whispers" by george michael, ha ha). sax also happens to be one of the weaker instruments for playing this number, next only perhaps to the clarinet. (and i'm only kidding about the clarinet). so, jo avila - this is where you come in. while you were nobly belting this number out solo in one of those meaningless 80s ballgames played in an empty loyola center, you were wrong to tinker with the melody just to suit the sax - and i specifically mean the rising tone in the "fight, fight blue and white!" which you inexplicably ended on a down note. just a little historical grievance i have that must be pointed out. :-) okay, rant over. the reason it's out of fashion is the same reason the sax is out of fashion. sax is kind of cheesy. it also happens to be one of the few horn instruments people can actually play these days, but it aint loud.

WHY IT MIGHT COME BACK: the drums are hypnotic. maybe with the lyrics and without the brass band? but it's a stretch.

Great thread Peking Man. My observation is we hardly cheer the halikinus, fabliohs and the 3 fights. Alot of times we do rythmic clapping. I miss x. During my time that was a staple cheer. Now, because of lack of horn players or for whatever reason, we hardly cheer it.

We should cheer the classics more: halikinus, fabliohs, 3 fights and Blue eagle spelling.

Actually, the "sinigang song" is "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" a 1950s rhumba standard popularized by Perez Prado and his band. The brass section of the Ateneo band has played this tune in various jazzy and even sexy rhythms (as Peking Man described earlier) all through the years proving they were accomplished jazz musicians during their time. The more senior alumni can bear this out. Usually, you can hear this tune during the cha-cha interlude of ballroom dancing sessions.

"X" is the jazzy tune which is punctuated by the tree One Big Fights as a vocal refrain. The band also played improvisations to this tune all through the years then. A tune similar to this that could be heard nowadays in NBA/PBA games is the organ tune being played while the pointguard dribbles the ball down to the front court.

I am glad that our present brass band is gradually reviving these tunes.

i like the newer cheers and drumbeats better. parang more apt to the tempo of the game, the taste of the crowd, and are at least comprehensible.
it becomes pointless for an opposing team to incomprehend what your screaming about. they certainly wont get provoked by it.case in point, a friend of mine once said that the 'one big fight' sounded like voltes 5. im sure he was trying to taunt me but i saw a point there.
i remember once there was a lasalle cheer which really touched a nerve: beat ateneo, animo lasalle! (ala kolehiya accent) that was getting the message across and was really irritating.
new ones i like are the:
1. boom, boom boom, boom boom, boom boom, boom boom, boom, GO ATENEO! (or whatever thats called) makes you want to jump around.
2. A-rah rah rah, T-rah rah rah, etc
classics are:
1. one big fight (kahit tunog voltes 5)
2. blue eagle spelling.

Sana kantahin ang "Fundador" sa mga laro.

The Go-Go that leads to the 3 One Big Fights was also used during track and field meets. I remember that in the 4x100 relay, the drum beat intro was perfectly in cadence with the strides of the runners, and when the horns came in, you could feel the adrelanin of our tracksters flowing!

riddler - "A rah-rah-rah" is known, more formally, as the locomotive yell.



Locomotive Yell (Traditional)

**A! -- rah rah rah
**T! -- rah rah rah
**E! -- rah rah rah
**N! -- rah rah rah
**E! -- rah rah rah
**O! -- rah rah rah

**Aaaaaaaaateneo!



WHAT IT HAS GOING FOR IT: the "modern" adaptations given to what was, quite frankly, a tedious old cheer. the main departure from the original is the speeding up of the E-N-E part of the spelling to 'E-rah N-rah E-rah rah rah.' and then some genius in the babble or the band gave it a beautiful, inspired spin by prolonging the 'OOOOOOOOO' and then adding lots of drums to give it buildup. and then repeating the whole thing a number of times, stretching the cheer out so it could be sustained for a long series of possessions. tradition was altered, but the changes were tastefully done.

WHY IT'S IN FASHION: apparently it suits ateneo's strengths, in drums, mostly, and an audience that catches on quickly to rhythm changes. okay, so it's really a football cheer probably swiped from some whitebread american campus. but still. it's fuuuuuuun. and who cares if no one's been near a locomotive in years?

WHY IT'S HERE TO STAY: along with "go, ateneo!" this is one of those cheers that will probably stick in the minds of every young basketball fan who ever lived through the fonacier-tenorio-bugia-intal years. get used to it. a cheer associated with a particularly good season will last a long time.

forgive me but i still prefer the BBB when it was an all-male squad. mas malakas ang dating. mas intimidating. it actually annoys me when these perky kolehiyalas come in with all smiles and do their little dance number. i never did understand why these PC freaks never understood the sheer purity and forcefulness, not to mention the traditional value of an all-male batallion.

in the recent years, i've found myself looking forward to that juncture during the season when the pep dancers (sorry, for me the BBB refers only to the boys) would practice for their nestle non-stop competition so the real BBB can take centerstage all by themselves... all male--- like it was intended to be.

leilani franco was hot though. jail-bait nga lang. syet, para akong DOM nito.

sing "fundador" and "fly high" during time-outs!

thanks for refreshing my memory

i agree with the seasonal changes in the cheer. it will adapt to pop culture. like that go-go-ateneo cheer. kinda like hip-hop for me with all the hopping that goes along and fists thrown into the air.

Boy, lots of ground to cover.

1) Blue Eagle Spelling - Peking Boy, I confirm that certain alumni from the old school (e.g., Doc Hofilena and Mr. Paredes to those who were around in the eighties) insisted on spelling it really slowly. They insisted on a regal cadence ("You don't rush the king!"). Listen to the Blue Eagle Spelling on the Animo Ateneo cd. It's like that but a quarter step to a half step slower. And, by their reckoning, it's not even Blue Eagle Spelling. It's "Blue Eagle. Spell it!"

2) Halikinus and Fabiliohs - Alberto Aguilera, the Fabilioh is the traditional first volley and should be cheered as soon as the team enters the court. The problem with Halikinus and Fabiliohs, though, is that they can't be cheered unless there's a break in the action. While the ball is moving up and down the court, the crowd should get into the rallying cheers (e.g., One Big Fight/ Get that ball/ Shoot that ball/ Fight/ Ateneo Go and Fight). When there is a dead ball situation, the Babble can launch into a Fabilioh, Halikinu, Rhumba Yell or 3 Fights. Think of the latter three cheers like set-piece plays in football. To get the cheers started, you necessarily have to break the crowd's momentum, then prep them (Babble coordinates the cheer among themselves, hushes and settles the crowd then informs the crowd). That's a momentum shift and results in dead air from our stands for at least 5 to 10 seconds. Also, another problem is that the length of the cheers sometimes do not fit the action. The cheers may be getting to a crescendo when there's a change in the action (turnover or shot made) (e.g., "Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah rah! Ateneo! Ateneo! [naagaw 'yung bola]...Get that ball!")

I agree, though, that we should always cheer the old standards and never forget them. They ooze with Ateneo identity. They have a "sindak" value in the sense that they are complicated to learn, difficult to cheer, and when done well by a predominantly male stand, sounds like "thunder rolling from Loyola Heights to the Marikina Valley below."

3) One Big Fight - riddler, forget about the comparisons that other students make regarding the One Big Fight cheer. The proper response to a taunt like that from a non-Atenean is not to repeat the charge on these boards but to give the said student the same treatment that the Indians gave to those great Jesuits, St. John de Brebeuf and St. Isaac Jogues. That cheer is damn near sacred to some people on these boards and some have gone to battle in years past simply because a student from another school was foolhardy enough to mock it.

Anyway, enough of the negative vibes. Just yell One Big Fight from the top of the mountain. From the opposing stands, nothing looks more intimidating than an Ateneo gallery chanting One Big Fight in unison with matching arm and hand movements, eyes bulging, spittle flying. To other schools, it looks like we're going to war. And we are. Think the Scotish army facing the English pansies in Braveheart.

4) Cheers that went out of fashion - Great thing about the Ateneo cheering tradition is that we have such a huge surplus of cheers that we can actually forget some -- then remember them when the spirit of Raul Manglapus moves us.

Foremost on my list is "Cheer, Cheer and Go." This comes across as campy and gets my vote for most non-aggresive Ateneo cheer with lines like -- "Onward and smile." Onward and smile? Bet the La Sallites are quaking in their booties when they hear that. Here's the whole song, which was written by Lamberto Avellana in the thirties, for the curious:

Cheer, cheer and go!
With heart in hand our loyal band
Will battle through.
Team forward team.
We'll lift our cry up to the sky
And we will thunder.
Rah! Rah!
Onward and smile.
We'll sing the while
We're marching on...on...on.
Ateneo go!
We'll fight for victory.
We'll cheer 'til battle's done.
Rah (12x)
(Repeat)

Not to say that thirties cheering was soft. Doc Hofilena used to regale us with this yarn about an Ateneo-San Beda "sagutan" in the thirties:

Ateneo crowd: FIGHT!
Beda crowd: WHEN?
A: NOW!
B: WHERE?
A: OUTSIDE!

Then they would engage in "fisticuffs" in their long-sleeved shirts and ties.

I promised Peking Boy not to discuss all the discarded Ateneo cheers so I'll stop here. More next time.


5) X - X or Mr. X is "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White," a.k.a., the Sinigang Song. Cherry Pink is a cha-cha/rhumba tune that a lot of NCAA bands used to play in days gone by. It was actually the signature dance number of Jose Rizal College and they used to have a whole army of dancers on the floor cha-chaing to this song at half-time (Aside: While they were dancing, the opposite school would keep shouting "Hopia," JRC's unofficial nickname in the NCAA.)

The Ateneo version had the long drawn out first four notes where the band's drums and cymbals would make a loud racket and the Babble would try to whip up the crowd to a frenzy. Then pause. Then the band would go into the rest of the song -- sometime slowly (with the tempo of a strip tease) or quickly (like a big train going through a small town). The tempo would rise and fall depending on what the band smoked that afternoon.

Highlight of all this was watching the great Mhel G. do a simulated striptease/ Eat Bulaga dance number. Even the La Sallites would stop cheering just to watch his act. There was great fun in the Ateneo stands. There was always a hint of naughtiness about the Babble then that was so much fun. The most infamous Babble escapade was the lining up at halftime in an, uhm, phallic formation. They rocked back and forth between two strategically placed circle formations during the Halikinu. According to a Babbler then (who shall remain nameless), they were supposed to hurl confetti at the end of the cheer but thought the better of it. High-jinks indeed!

6) Ateneo go go's - Peking Boy, those are the lyrics all right. This was fun to hear in the galleries. I can still drum that African tom-tom bit in the middle. Very catchy! Get the stands rocking all the time.

Someone please locate Jo Avila. He used to skulk around campus with an empty ammo box to store his photo equipment. He's a bigtime pornographer, er, photographer now and the last time I saw him was at a wedding (not mine). For all his tinkering with the Ateneo go-go's, for which Peking Boy has been upset since the mid-80's, Jo represents the link in the great Ateneo brass tradition. Please try and include him in any plans to revive the band. He can teach the young 'uns a thing or two. I think the Ateneo band used to be the CMT band. If we still have a CMT band, they can do double duty as the game time band.

The Go-go's was a feel-good cheer. Usually we played it at the end of a great scoring run when the opposite team was reeling from an Ateneo onslaught and was suing for peace. The stands would be rocking then and the go-go's would keep 'em rocking.

7) Fr. Ampil - Peking Boy, thank for mentioning my favorite Jesuit. A Babbler from the 40's, he kept Ateneo cheering alive in the hearts of terrified high school boys. God bless his gray hairs! Someone told me that Fr. Ampil was at the last Ateneo-FEU game -- dressed in his old vintage 1940's style Babble jacket. What a guy! Talk about crossing the generations.

8) All male Babble - I am a stickler for tradition so you know where my vote goes on this. If I had my way, though, we'd probably still have an all-male cheering section and an all male college. Ha Ha Ha. Anyway, plus ce change. The trick in managing the Ateneo cheering tradition is to provide a happy transition from an all male Babble to a coed Babble/cheering squad. Perhaps, the cheerdancing and all that can be done by the women and the more traditional routines by the men. The Babble, however, should always remain true to its original mission, the spearhead of an Ateneo war-party and not a bunch of pretty boys trying to look good on TV.

With the taming effect of the women, I guess we won't be seeing too many of the "disreputable" formations of the Babble or stunts like Babble in Barong.


As a final word, the thing that keeps the Ateneo cheering tradition alive is the combined involvement of the alumni and the students. The alumni represent the old guard and keep the traditional cheers alive while the students innovate and try to make their own contribution to the Ateneo cheering tradition. As long as we don't bastardize any of the old favorites and keep them alive, I think we'll do just fine. It's this seamless cooperation across the generations that makes Ateneo unique and a great place to go to school.

My generation's best contribution was to revive the old Ateneo cheering tradition which was in danger of becoming irrelevant in the mid-80's. We were the only school then in the UAAP with any sort of cheering and the only one with a cheering squad. Now, every school in the UAAP and his grandmother has a set of cheers and has a cheering squad/dance troupe. Ateneo got the ball rolling in this department and, as part of the old Ateneo arrogance, we don't let anyone forget it.

ATENEO!
ONE BIG FIGHT!

re "voltes five:" there's actually a great tradition of spoofing the other team's cheers or making fun of their cheerleaders. the UP band used to be very good at this. back in the day, the rest of the UAAP hadn't the slightest clue exactly what the babble were doing down on the court during halftime except that it vaguely looked like calisthenics. the UP brass section would play yoyoy villame's "mag-exercise tayo tuwing umaga" just to annoy them. it got a lot of laughs.

some schools and some cheering traditions are just begging to be mocked. san beda's practice of sending in fat shirtless kids in red-indian outfits used to get a lot of grief. and go-go/bo-bo la salle is merely exhibit A in that unfortunate school's long list of vulnerabilities to the cheering spoof. the prime target for la salle nowadays tends to be the archer-drawing-his-bow shit they pull at halftime, which la sallites Take Very Seriously, apparently. it makes ateneo's efforts to subvert the archer act all the more amusing. one year, the babble brought down the house with their "matrix" routine - a long line of cheerleaders bending over backwards in slow motion and flailing their arms a la keanu reeves to evade an arrow passing through their line.

there is also the tradition of bastos cheers which unfortunately cannot be reproduced in a fine family website such as this. let's just say that the babble once reinterpreted la salle's "haydee three times" cheer (haydee, haydee, kala wala waydee etc) as an extended argument for Why Size Matters. and "halikinu" is mocked even by ateneans themselves. the spoof version begins with "halikan mo" and the object of this kiss is, well, really best left to the imagination.

the babble's trademark style seems to be the stealth insult. they throw stuff at the opposing crowd that barely registers with them, flies in under their radar undetected, while ateneans giggle at the private joke. in the case of the "phallic" formation (in which the babble form a dirty finger pointed at the other crowd, with the shaft moving up and down) the insult sometimes sails entirely over their heads. these days it's more along the lines of mocking the FEU tamaraws with the "FX" formation.

so ""one big fight" being misheard as "voltes five" is the least of our problems. cheers get mocked all the time. this isn't even a particularly clever takedown of one of our standard cheers. it's not worth worrying about at all.

I like all this talk about blending tradition and innovative cheeers of this generation. But 2 staples of the tradition such as X and Go-go rely on the revival of the brass band. I've been clamoring for a serious program for the revival, one that is not just a stop gap measure in one year, and then forgotten the next. Take for example the fact that last year we had a good number of volunteers from the alumni horn players and students playing in the stands; now, we don't even see the alumni because as one of them said, they weren't being invited anymore.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no one championing this revival project. I may be wrong, but I don't even sense any interest from the current BBB to do something about this in the other thread. Maybe your friend Jo Avila could lead this effort? Ideally, it should be someone who is or once was a band player, can access alumni players to start the ball rolling, has knowledge of the original arrangements and proper mix of players needed. I can help out in looking for money!

hey, i have an idea. why not revive the X and have our cheer dancers dance to this tune? hehehehe..... perhaps i might change my mind about them.

one of my favorite stunts by the BBB happened many years ago. this was during the dark years. noong laging talunan ang ateneo. siguro due to the fact na lagi nga tayong talo, tapos puro lalaki pa lahat ang babble noon, naisipan nilang mangulit na lang pag half-time.

i can't remember who we were playing la salle yata. anyway, we were slated to go second during halftime. the first school had a really well-prepared number. todo routine at full force silang (mga pepsquad nila) lahat. eto yung kwela: isa lang yung lumabas para sa babble. talon pa nang talon. naka-maong pa. hehehe. kwela kasi parang binale-wala yung preparasyon nung kabila. biruin mo, sobrang seryoso yung halftime show nila, sabay tayo nagpadala lang tayo ng isang mang-uunggoy doon. hehehe.

i can't remeber kung sino panalo. pero noong halftime, mas malakas ang cheering ng gallery natin.

yeah it was that fat dude who cheered solo, wasn't it? i think i remember that game.

about "fundador" - there was a suggestion on the old atenista site (pre-overhaul) to revive that song. no, the song is not about brandy - "fundador" means "founder," as in the founder of the jesuit order. it's sort of an internal jesuit anthem honoring saint ignatius. but it DOES sound like it might be a great drinking song, more so if you can somehow convince a crazed basketball crowd to sing it.

pity no one has been able to locate the lyrics as disseminated by the society in the philippines. if you search for the spanish lyrics on google you'll get a slightly different version than the one i remember.

the best bet is that someone look through old textbooks and try to locate it in the old papuri songbooks. then someone should get the babble drunk enough before a game so they build up the courage to lead the crowd in singing it.

madalas kami magkita ni jo avila. send me a PM on what it is exactly you guys would like me to tell him

Yeah, what he said. Except the DOM part, sorry Bluewing.

I'm from the BBBrass Band (94-98). I was part of last year's attempt at bolstering the numbers of horns by calling up an alumni brass band group. I think that there was a real desire last year to try and get as many people playing horns. Despite having been one of the core people working with Mico, the program seemed to have fizzle out. Here are my thoughts:


1. Bigger venues with bigger crowds

What seems ironic is that despite that adding up 8-10 people per game to the already 7 guys people still didn't hear the brass band. Last time I went to the games, I was just a few seats away from the brass band and I could barely hear them. Araneta is a pretty big venue, not to mention that Ateneans number about 5000 a game making a full ensamble (like FEUs) the only way to be heard.


2. Change in the Cheering Culture

The bigger problem I think is that cheering is now a fast paced shouting match BETWEEN TWO SCHOOLS. Back in the dark ages of the 90's, we were just 6 horns but we could be heard. The reason -- most of the other schools didn't
have any organized cheering squads. It was just Ateneo and La Salle; UST and UP were just starting to organize their pep squads. It was easy to play the horns and do eloquent cheers since no one blasted you down with a bassline that spelled out UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS.

Case in point, last Sunday when the FEU brass band starting playing, we just gave them a dose of our bassline and that was it.


2. Drums over Horns

One of the key problems was also the fact that nobody knew when to let the horns play. There's now a standard routine that the BB has gotten used to and I feel that they find it difficult to integrate the horns.

4. Young and Old issues

Lastly, there was, as is evident in many cheer threads here, a gap between what the old and the new guys feel about what Ateneo cheering should be. There was the matter of taste and the style of playing as well as the general feeling by most of the alums that the horns were there just to fill in the dead time. We realized that having alums was suppose to be a temporary situation to fill in the need but playing a brass instrument (or any instrument other than a guitar or drums) isn't as cool as it used to be and that has also affected recruitment of newer members.


On a positive note, it would probably shock a La Sallite to see this thread as most of them have conceeded the fact that we are the best cheering community in the UAAP. Discussions like this are what I suppose will allow us to go above the noise that is UAAP cheering for years to come.

I would venture to say that the most important thing that the horns can do right now is to give the right note to cheers like go and fight and the school song since our guys are so hoarse from cheering they tend to start of on a note or half note higher. I noticed that since it starts a bit off key, we don't get to sing it as loudly as we'd want to.

Bottom line, if ever they do need us, we're just here and raring to help out.

hi cerberus.

it seems obvious that brass-versus-drums is a big cultural/generational divide.

brass tends to be associated with the old school because the people who play it grew up at a time when the grade school had a full drum-and-bugle corps and the high school had some sort of CAT band. so there was at least some institutional support and training of young brass players. also, there was a tradition among the old-school of being jazz or big band/swing fans. jazz and big band have middle-aged to oldie demographics. songs the old bands used to play (like "has anybody seen my gal?") would probably seem hopelessly old-fashioned to kids today.

my feeling is, the babble wanting or not wanting to integrate brass into their routines is only part of the issue. they probably need some freedom anyway to explore their chosen medium of mostly drums. they are also reacting to the personnel limitations - there are plainly not enough brass players attending school or alumni with sufficient free time to hang around for practice.

the other part of the issue is, does the babble know what sort of tradition they're leaving behind by transitioning to a mostly-drum driven repertoire? i just think they need to make an informed choice about what cheers and songs are out there, and take occasional advice from alumni cheerleaders, especially the super-oldies.

inevitably we will move away from some cheers. but i'll bet there will always be alumni out there grumbling in the corner with personal agendas, whining over why the babble doesn't ever cheer "vivo vayvo" or some such relic from the past anymore. everyone has his non-negotiables. everyone has a favorite cheer that, if ateneo were ever to stop performing it at games, they might just consider making their children take the la salle entrance exam.

which seems like a good time to bring up my own non-negotiable:


Blue Eagle The King
(Words and Music by Raul S. Manglapus, AB '39.
Words and lyrics adopted by an American university, Brown University
for their own use.)

Fly high!
Blue Eagle fly
And carry our cry
Across the sky!
Cast your shadow below
Swoop down on the foe,
Then sweep up the field away!

Fly high!
Over the trees
Make known to the breeze
Our victories!
Spread wide each wing
For you are the King
Blue Eagle the King!

Oh the Eagle's the King of them all
And his blue feathers never will fall
For the Blue and the White
And the Eagle's in flight
Ateneo will fight today!

(repeat second verse)


WHAT IT HAS GOING FOR IT: it's only the best fight song ever written. it's got a quaint turn of phrase ("cast your shadow below/swoop down on the foe/and sweep up the fields away") that just yells out authenticity and tradition. that's not surprising considering that it's from a vanished padre-faura world that will never return - you really can't fake this sort of thing. and it's got pedigree - raul manglapus wrote it. when you get to the end of the song you feel like snarling "ATENEO WILL FIGHT" at all your enemies, like winston bloody churchill, promising to fight on the beaches and to never surrender.

WHY IT'S OUT OF FASHION: you need a good brass band to start it properly. not to mention a core of people who remember how powerful that song was. unfortunately, ateneo sufered a 14-year championship gap, which has done the memory of the song great damage. the last time it was sung properly, as a full-throated victory song in a championship game that had been put out of reach, the year was 1988 and we had just beaten la salle.

WHY IT MIGHT COME BACK: alumni curmudgeons threatening to boycott ateneo if the song isn't revived somehow (ha ha, kidding!). maybe if enough students watch english premiere league football on espn as well. it's english football fans who best understand the power of mass singing in a stadium. watch a game where they belt out "swing low sweet chariot" sometime. the whole experience gives you a level of chills that drums or yelling or clapping or girls thrown 20 feet in the air could never achieve. ever.

What's the full title of the "Fundador" song? And don't any of the barflies get smart! Peking if you've got the full lyrics how's about a post-up!

Frankly there isn't any other school in this neck of the woods with a battle song that moving, that regal and that majestic.

One other thing, who the hell started all of this uptempo singing of the "Hail Mary" song anyway? The Song For Mary is best sung slow, alma mater hymn nga e, its SUPPOSED to sound like a dirge! We don't have to sound like the Glee Club while singing it, although THAT would be a dream come true for me.

Ay naku, seems all those great Grade School traditions like the Drum and Bugle Corps, the late great Mr Areza's music class and glee club training, and the elocution training all seem to be fading away. Those as a whole were the great foundations of great Ateneo cheering. By the time Mr Alfonso and Jong Castaneda were teaching us cheering in the High School we had the vocal power, the "face" and the appreciation for the fine cheering tradition of Ateneo. (Raul Manglapus was singing the Song for Mary while he was being tortured by the Japs you sissy-assed whiners! LOUDER!)

Wala na bang cheering contest ngayon ang mga freshmen sa College? I remember dati ORSEM pa lang may cheering contest ng mga Blocks, palakasan at paastigan doon mismo sa quadrangle. Don't PE classes teach the cheers and the fight songs anymore?

Thank you Cerberus and Peking Man for your thoughts.

I would think that the minimum objective for the brass band is to just play the intros for songs/chants we love: Ateneo Ateneo Woo-oh-oh Go and Fight, Roll Out the Victory, Hail Ateneo Hail, and of course Blue Eagle the King.

Now if we can muster enough recruits with alumni volunteers (and maybe some assistance from some military bands out there?) and can be a larger/louder force, then we can do cmplete pieces like Go-go and X properly.

i agree with you. the BBB has gone a looooong way from the good ole days of being a purely ALL-MALE group take it from me. BBB batch 96 (the LAST all male BBB batch before the FORCED merger with girls)

btw. does anybody still remember the "silent cheer"

For a while, di ko siya ma-gets. Fortunately, Fr. Roque Feriol's "lundagin mo, Baby" and Manny Dy's "epoche" (tama ba spelling?) came back to haunt me. I've been laughing my tush off since.

It's been a while since I've heard those athletic hi-jinks. Makes you realize that the best yet cheapest seats in the house were those in the bleachers. Can't forget being envious of my Band cronies who'd turn Neanderthal in the bleachers during games while I had to be reserved and objective while double-shifting as Guidon photographer down at courtside.

hi blue fuel, got your PM, thanks. let me just say that i totally understand the brass situation and accept the idea that the lack of horn players has led the babble to evolve into the drumming machine it is today. rest assured that everyone on the web who starts a cheering-related uaap thread seems to think the babble is doing something right this year. keep it up, guys!

Thanks.And now it's time to bring out the big guns.

joescoundrel - i think i've finally found the 'fundador' version that's quite close to what the jesuits taught us. just a little editing required to get it to the ateneo grade school version. it took a lot of digging through false trails on google but here it is in all its glory.

NOTE: THOSE WITH NO FORMAL TRAINING IN SPANISH AND DO NOT KNOW THE PHRASING RULES FOR HOW WORDS ENDING IN VOWELS FLOW INTO THE NEXT WORD: you might have problems imagining how this song goes. seek professional help. or find a tisoy classmate.





MARCHA DE SAN IGNACIO


Fundador sois Ignacio y General

de la Compañía real de Jesús

hueste belicosa y fiel


¿Qué arrogante caudillo

osará en su furor

eclipsar el gran brillo

de vuestro valor?


Lance, lance a la liza

averno infiel

a su monstruo Lucifer.

En tus filas se inmola

el celeste escuadrón

por Jesús, quien tremola

tu invicto pendón.

Al contrario infunde el rayo

vengador

cruel terror.


En ti siempre campea

denuedo marcial

y al Empíreo recrea

tu fe sin igual.



Pues contigo avánzase

guerreros férvidos

en valor ínclitos

con Luzbel bátense,

y alzan sus lábaros

en el combate marcial

fiel presagio

de paz benéfica y de laurel,

de paz y de laurel.

I agree that issues regarding the Band should be addressed with the long haul in mind and not as a current season stop gap measure. What makes the Band issue a bit complicated (among other things) is the fact that the Eagles and the Eaglets do not play back-to-back double headers anymore (tama ba?), unlike in the old NCAA days. Then, the college could always rely on the High School Band to help out given the back-to-back scheduling, and we reciprocated the gesture when there was a "mini" revival of the Band at the college level in the mid-80s by teaching our High School colleagues the standards years after Col. Campana (the old Ateneo Bandmaster) had passed away.

You're right. A Band alumnus familiar with the set-up would be in the best position to make a case with the Alumni Office. Unfortunately, yung mga ka-kilala kong alumni have since migrated (like me) or are now jamming it out in the big bandstand in the sky. I could likewise help out in any little way I can from my cave here in Toronto. Sayang, Jun Dalandan's brother was a major force during the Band's heydays in the late 70s. Unfortunately, Rolly has since moved on.

and just to clarify - "fundador" aka marcha de san ignacio was NEVER a game cheer. it was actually sung at masses. so any new movement to get it sung at games would be breaking new ground.

Sorry, Ruckus, but the first Female Babbles were not in Batch 1996. There were a number of us way back in the days when the "initiation" is done in the Cafeteria in front of the whole community. I for one was not spared from this initiation. Right, Mav? But we were not dressed in these cutesy outfits that the female babblers are donning now. We dressed ala regular babbles and were tasked the same way as male babbles.

Only difference back then is that we were never allowed in the court. Only time we were allowed to do so was on the opening of season 50 (i think) where we were part of the opening. Alas, out outfits left little to the imagination (much to the delight of the male population watching at the Rizal coliseum).

I wonder if the female babbles now go as far as the High School to invite them to support the teams? That was out main duty back then…

My view about the Cheers – as long as the Community does it with heart our cheers come across as a force to reckon with and will remain that way. Ergo, it’s being copied.

One Big Fight!!!

Sangre Azul,

Did I, by any chance, hitch a ride with you to the high school in one of those invitation expeditions? You wouldn't happen to know my classmate, OrigFemaleBabble, would you? Yup. There were ladies on the Babble then all right.

And don't even remind me of that initiation in the caf. I felt like I was hazed!

I think the first time Ateneo even tried lady cheerleaders was in the 1985 MMBL game against La Salle. All these GALs veterans from Assumption, St. Scho. Poveda, Maryknoll and Holy Spirit joined in the halftime cheers.

Mav,

We were together in one of those expeditions with another Female Babble, our good friend KA.

We were assigned the First year classrooms while you and some other guys went to the higher levels.

It was funny how these freshies (too old now, tho) still come up to me now to ask if I was the "Girl" who went to their classroom one August day...

Sangre Azul,

Cheers to you! I remember that day very well. You and your close friend went to the First Year classrooms while the guys...well, we sort of skulked off in different directions.

You should have convinced your other friend -- tawagin nalang natin siyang si Ms. Bagets -- to join the Babble. She would have inspired the boys to cheer too -- for the other school. Ha Ha Ha

Does this "Belle" have the initials "FR"?

For awhile it was rumored that this "Belle" had the hots for Mav, much to the consternation of Mav's GF.

Naghuntahan ng mag-Panero.

Maybe we can make a cheer out of King Conan's favorite battle cry, "Victory Or Death!" And everyone grunts like the Orcs that surrounded Helm's Deep all throughout the game.

Peking is right about the "Marcha", siempre pa big hit during Feast Day every July 31. It would be good to sing it at a game though, like say AFTER WE BRING THE CHAMPIONSHIP BACK TO LOYOLA HEIGHTS WHERE IT MOTHAF---ING BELONGS!

HOO-YAH!

i have my doubts about teaching "fundador" to the basketball-going crowd actually. if we can't even handle english songs then the jump to militant-catholic spanish complete with satanic imagery and death and valor might be a bit extreme. if on the next feast day the fundador singing at mass sounds soldierly enough, maybe the babble ought to try it with a bleachers section or two. but i'm not holding my breath.

there's a good thread-within-a-thread hidden somewhere here about "cultural conditions" that make ateneo a strong cheering school. some of the conditions have already been mentioned - thorough speech training, the old support infrastructure that developed school bands, the military traditions, and the all-boy history which is now being altered (for better or for worse) by the the contributions of the atenean women.

i think that a totally underexamined factor is the ateneo talent for the languages and the arts, and i don't just mean how the school strives to turn out well-spoken, confident, well-read, even arrogant people. i mean the way many ateneans have an instinct for how the spoken word relates to the psychology of crowds. we each have a public speaker's ear for what works and what does not. we each have sufficient theatrical training within us to understand timing, rising action, momentum, climax, how to read an audience's mood and how to push their buttons. and some of the best writers in english in the history of the philippines (de la costa, manglapus) have composed ateneo songs or cheers.

consider, if you will, the surface similarities between two cheers: "halikinu" and la salle's "rektikano." on the face of things, they're very much alike: nonsense content, lots of kinu-kano sounds, lots of rah-rah-rahs. i don't even want to start an argument about what the cheers mean (unless i want to relive my days reading 'jabberwocky'), or even who wrote what cheer first and who copied; the point is that one cheer seems to flow, while the other does not.

the relevant sequence in the la salle cheer is as follows:


REKTIKANO, KEENE-KEENA (2x)
REKTIKANO, REKTIKANO,
REKTIKANO! RAH! (2x)
SEEZ-BOOM-BAH! (2x)
BOOM-RAH-BOOM-RAH
BOOM-RAH-RAH (2x)
SIS-BOOM-BAH
SIS-BOOM-BAH
LA SALLE, RAH!


from the outset it's clear that the multiple momentum-killing repeats and slowdowns and limp ending of 'rektikano' mean that the la salle cheer doesn't trip off the tongue as easily as 'halikinu,' which keeps you zipping right along to the end of the cheer with minimal shifts in momentum. the only time 'halikinu' changes pace is during the 'halikinu hoo, halikinu rah,' sequence, so the disruptions to the flow are kept to a bare mimumum

and vowel sounds are what you hear in a noisy crowd. la salle can cheer as loud as it likes but the hard-consonant 'R' or 'K' or 'T' sounds won't be heard as clearly in a stadium as the deep vowels of a vigorously cheered 'HALEEEEKEEEENOOOOOOOOOOO'. don't ask me why this is so; it's just some unwritten rule of language the writer of the ateneo cheer figured out, and the writer of the la salle cheer did not.

*chuckle*

Only in atenista.net will you find an intellectual discussion on cheers and cheering traditions.



But I totally agree with Maverick. Tradition. It matters.

And same with Peking Man. Good insights, dude. Sa totoo lang, what you said in the quote, it's God's gift to the Ateneo.

Too bad I joined the Ateneo in the last three years of the 1990s. (Aside: Last batch na kami ng 16 units of Philo , and we were the last batch that the Ateneo was still called "The College of Arts and Sciences") I don't remember girls in the BBB, but when during my Sophomore year, there they were, uggh. Sayang. I always thought the Ateneo was a cut above the rest with its all-male factor. They just had more crowd-appeal for me that way.

But going back to traditions. That's why I love the Ateneo so much. We have so much history to go back to, that weaves all the generations into one beautiful Jesuit-inspired fabric.

This is amazing. This analysis is totally above public-message-board-caliber.

well you're dealing with geeks here after all :-)