Covering a Sharon Cuneta song a daunting task for Hannah Precillas
Hannah Precillas
Hannah Precillas couldn’t be more thrilled when she found out that she was going to cover a Sharon Cuneta song for her next single. But realizing the weight of the task at hand, various questions popped into her head.
“I had mixed emotions at first,” she said of reworking and recording the ballad “Sa Aking Daigdig,” which was also used as the theme song of Sharon’s 1991 movie “Kaputol ng Isang Awit.”
“It’s a classic OPM song, so I was like, ‘How can I give this justice? Can I actually pull it off?’” the singer said in a recent virtual conference.
Her biggest worry was figuring out how to give the Vehnee Saturno composition a modern twist without veering away too far from its core. “We had to come up with a new approach to make it sound different from the original. But I was afraid to touch the song because it is iconic,” she said. “I didn’t want to change its essence.”
As part of her preparation, Hannah listened to different local bands for inspiration. “I tried not to listen to the original too much because I have a tendency to pick up on the things the original singer did. Instead, I listened to bands to see what styles I could try,” she said.
Unmistakably Filipino
While the final version has touches of pop-R&B and soft-rock, it was still an unmistakably Filipino ballad. “I can’t do it like R&B or add lots of runs. We did only minimal changes. It sounds modern, but the ballad side shines through,” said Hannah, who won the GMA 7 talent show “Bet ng Bayan” in 2014 and finished third in the Indonesian contest “D’Academy” in 2019.
While primarily known as a biritera, even she knows that hitting high notes isn’t the be-all and end-all of singing. In recent years, Hannah has been putting more effort into honing other aspects of her singing, specifically in terms of delivery and storytelling.
“My version of the song has high notes at the end, but they’re not the highlight and focus. These days, my bigger goal is bringing out the emotion,” she said.
Given the chance, will she be confident enough to meet and let Sharon listen to her version? “Oo naman po. Many singers idolize Sharon Cuneta. I used to be part of a band, and we used to play some of her songs,” she recalled. “If I get to meet her, I would just thank her for all the songs she has shared with Filipinos. But I don’t think I would be able to talk in front of her. I might just end up asking for a photo!” she said. INQ
