Music, Maestro?
Rizal as Musician. Music played an important part in all Filipino reunions in Barcelona, Madrid, paris, and other cities of Europe. The Filipino contemporaries of Rizal could either play an instrument or sing. Especially, in the home of the Pardo de Taveras and in the Luna studio, every reunion was enlivened with the playing or singing of the kundiman and other Philippine melodies. Rizal had no natural aptitude for music, and this he admitted. But he studied music because many of his schoolmates in the Ateneo were taking music lessons. Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings

He learned the solfeggio, piano, flute, and singing. But not the guitar - and he did not sing well. 'If you could hear me sing,' he wrote Enrique Lete, 'you would say you were in Spain because my voice is like the braying of the asses.' That kind of music wasn't part of his genius. He was listening to the music of his heart.