Ili-Ili Tulog Anay

A Visayan lullaby sung by a sibling or aunt while the mother is away at market. It was the first tune we chose for Hele, and it is one of the tunes that come with the app.

The words

Ili-ili tulog anay
Wala diri imong nanay
Kadto tienda bakal papay
Ili-ili tulog anay

Mata kana tabangan mo
Ikarga ang nakompra ko
Kay bug-at man sing putos ko
Tabangan mo ako anay

Ili-ili tulog anay
Wala diri imong nanay
Kadto tienda bakal papay
Ili-ili tulog anay

The singer is not the mother. She has gone to the market, and whoever is holding the child is asking them to sleep for now, and then in the second verse to wake up and help carry what she bought home, because the bundle is heavy. It is a lullaby that admits it is also a working day.

Hele plays the melody only. There is no singing in the app.

Where it comes from

Ili-Ili Tulog Anay is a Hiligaynon folk song from Panay. It was collected in Aklan in 1956 and set down by Priscilla Magdamo, whose Songs of the Visayas was published by Silliman University in 1957. The melody has been sung far longer than it has been written down, which is why no one person is credited with it.

Why it is free to play

The melody is in the public domain in the Philippines, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom. Hele plays the bare melody only. The 1957 harmonisation is a separate work and is not used, so nothing in the app depends on a licence.

The same is true of every tune that comes with Hele. See all the lullabies.

How it sounds in the app

It is arranged for an eighteen-note music-box comb, the same eighteen notes a real movement has, so the tune sits inside the range of the instrument rather than being played on top of it. Your child winds the brass key and lets go, and the lullaby slows as the spring runs down until the last note rings out on its own.

You can turn the key yourself, without installing anything, at hele.toys/try.