This paper compares the aesthetics of three songs from two musical traditions (one from the indigenous Manobo community in non-Islamic Mindanao Island and two from urban popular songs). It argues that song is not merely a personal expression but a performance (song-act) that indicates concrete "presence effects" of relationships to a material, social world. This philosophy of music aesthetics departs from the once dominant European concept of absolute music as form but on the not-so-recent studies on music embodiment or incarnation where song makes sense as a substantial act in social worlds
