Nobel Gabasan: Music guru at his best

MANILA, Philippines - Financial gain and the high standing attained through hard work usually measure the success of professionals. However, other people would argue that a more definitive yardstick for success is when a person finds himself in a state of bliss and needs nothing more in life.

And that’s not necessarily a place where the streets are paved with silver and gold and the tributaries flowing with milk and honey.

Nobleto Gabasan, or Nobel to his friends, is one of the more prominent sons of San Jose City, Nueva Ecija. He teaches young people music, making them “tuneful, beat-ful and artful,” and the splendor that resonates from that job has afforded him real meaning to life and living.

Nobel was introduced to music at a very young age. The eldest of four sons, his parents set him up to a life that they saw fit for him. Aside from solfeggio, keyboard and violin, he also had initiations to clarinet and sax, tasks that his weak lungs couldn’t hold.

“I was young then and I felt that, like other kids, weekends are for fun. I felt bad because instead of playing with my brothers, I was into reading notes and tinkering on piano keyboards,” said Nobel.

But behind the keyboards, he gained rapid progress. He was enrolled in an exclusive school where music was being taught with passion and power. He moved to the big city and found himself learning the finer points of his craft at one of the best music schools in the country — the University of Santo Tomas Conservatory of Music.

At UST, Nobel flourished as a musician. He also worked with other groups from different colleges and faculties of the university. 

“I conducted the Engineering Glee Club, Education Glee Club and the UST Action Singers, later known as the UST Singers. I gave the responsibility of the UST Action Singers to my friend when I left the Philippines for overseas contract of the band in 1989,” he said. “The UST Action Singers was then a student organization started in 1972. I conducted for three years, from 1985 to 1988.”

While studying at UST, Nobel took a part-time teaching job at Trebel School of Music and Malate Catholic High School. After graduation, he was given a permanent post as a classroom music teacher at Ramon Magsaysay High School in Manila but eventually left the post to join a show band. He was recruited by one of the Cruzes where he does keyboard and front act (front liner). That band was very successful with gigs that encompass the best entertainment spots in Manila.

“The band took off in 1989 outside the country to Japan and then Macau. I performed with them for eight years,” said Nobel. “The band was good. But I was looking for something better; something more challenging, more fulfilling.”

Nobel set out with continuing education. He took post-graduate studies in the US. It took him three summers to obtain his Kodaly Certificate at the University of Hartford in Connecticut. He also took intensive training in Dalcroze Eurhytmics at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Massachusetts. This course also leads to certification. And when the PRC launched its first-ever licensure exams for music teachers abroad, Nobel came in seventh place.

Explained Nobel: “The Kodaly approach, when fused together with the key elements of Dalcroze Eurhythmics and Orff Schulwerk, in my opinion, is the best approach to deliver good musicianship needed by the students. We are not focused on training our students to become professional musicians someday. Our goal is to make them musical.”

Now, more equipped and confident, Nobel moved to Hong Kong to embark on a new career as a music teacher. He found the job attuned with the deepest desire of his soul.

“It was tailor-made for me; the job was the fulfillment of the things that I had been seeking all along,” said Nobel. “I am completing my MA Music presently at Hong Kong Baptist University.”

Nobel teaches kids from Nursery to Year 6. He said that the concept of teaching children in their formative years is based on the fact that “what a child has heard in the first six years of life cannot be eradicated later. Thus, it is better for kids to learn music in their pre-school years because children store a mass of musical impressions before school age.”

“Provide children with lots of activities, meaningful activities at the foundation stage. This will be their fondest memory on what music is all about. Enjoyment, fun and excitement that they look forward to every after lesson,” Nobel wrote in his soon-to-be published book on music methodology.

Nobel’s trailblazing effort in music reverberates in San Jose, his hometown. As a way of giving back, he has put up The Music House. His goal in setting up the school is simple: Share his passion and musicality with young children in his hometown.

That music school, located at the corner of Bonifacio and Cervantes Streets, completes the pieces that define Nobel as a musician and as an artist. — With reports from Dave Casuco