This panorama is a pictorial view of music instruments starting with older bamboo and other instruments of undetermined age, going on to two types of gongs-flat in Northern Luzon and bossed in the South. These two areas may be viewed as pocket of cultures comparable to other pockets in Borneo, Sumatra, other islands in Southeast Asia and the mountain regions south of, and including, Yunnan province of China, thus placing the music of Luzon and Mindanao in a larger geographical context […].

The nearly 500 photographs in the book are almost all taken in the field, showing details of making and playing bamboo buzzers, jaw harps, zithers, percussion tubes, flutes and other instruments[…].

The essay part of the book is a concise account of the music cultures of Northern and Southern Philippines, the role of agriculture rituals, harvest ceremonies and prestige feasts in music-making, the musical forms, ensembles and a historical perspective.  The distribution of music instruments is identified in separate maps with native names classifies in tables, listed in an index-glossary of more than 800 native terms.

The account serves as background information to the more specific elements such as the relationship of music sung or played in musical intervals of half-step to expressions of love and sentiments, clearly separate from a music played in whole steps, a representation of nature and the physical environment.  These two scales are indeed manifest in tunings of separate flutes in Mindanao and Palawan, with other flute tunings in Flores and Nias showing a concept of proportions in dividing the bamboo tube into two, three or four parts. (texts from cover)