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  #1  
Unread 09-06-2015, 10:17 AM
Alex Pepple Alex Pepple is offline
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Default Translation Bake-Off: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - 2015 Edition

Dear Eratosphereans,

¡VIVA LA MÚSICA!

The theme of this year’s Translation Bake-off is SONGS. This will be a double-blind event, judged by the Top Secret Distinguished Guest (TSDG) Yodeler! Participants will be translating songs from other languages or dialects into English. Note that for the main event, the English translation must be singable to the tune of the original words. If the original tune has been lost, as in the cases of Sappho and King David, later musical settings of the original words are acceptable. Also, musical settings of poems not originally composed as songs (e.g., mélodies and lieder) are acceptable.

The Bake-off Staff is reasonably confident that the educational and non-commercial nature of this event falls under the Fair Use provisions of copyright law. We will attempt to make entries invisible to search engines so that the audience is limited to the Eratosphere community. However, please be aware that if you chose to translate a song that is not in the public domain, and you have not secured the permission of the copyright holders (lyricist and composer), there is a possibility that your entry may be removed at their request.


DATES:

Noon (Pacific Daylight Time) on at St. Jerome’s Day—Wednesday, September 30, 2015 noon (PDT) Saturday, October 31—will be the deadline for our main event, and also the beginning of the three secondary events (which will kill time while our TSDG Yodeler deliberates for a week).

The main event finalists, with commentary by the judge, will start being posted the morning of Wednesday, October 7 Saturday, November 7. The number of finalists will not exceed twelve.

The deadline for the three secondary events is noon (Pacific Daylight Time) Tuesday, October 13. Voting for the popular favorites of both the main event and the secondary events will open at noon (Pacific Daylight Time) Wednesday, October 14, and will close at noon (Pacific Daylight Time) Sunday, October 18.

The traditional grumbling over time zones, the tardiness of Bake-off staff, etc., will run throughout the festivities.


PRIZES:

For the main event, one prize per translation will be awarded to the TSDG’s top three picks and to the popular vote’s top three picks. (I.e., even if someone’s translation is in both top threes, that person will win only one prize, not two.)

For each of the three songs in the secondary events, the popular vote’s top translation will win a prize. (If someone is the winner for more than one song, that person will receive a prize for each winning translation.)

Each prize will consist of the winner’s choice of a book from the Able Muse Press catalog, courtesy of Able Muse / Able Muse Press.


THE MAIN EVENT:

Please send ONLY ONE ENTRY AS MANY ENTRIES AS YOU CAN MANAGE for the main event. All of the following components must be sent TOGETHER to the email address by Wednesday, September 30 noon (PDT) Saturday, October 31:

1. Your name (it will be removed before it is sent on for judging) and the names of the song's lyricist and composer.

2. Your promise not to complain when a singer provided by the Bake-off performs your English translation a cappella, and perhaps somewhat differently than you had in mind. Having all the entries performed by the same singer will help the entries remain anonymous. (A PDF of sheet music of the original would be appreciated, but it is not required.)

3. A very brief note about the original author and/or composer, the context or cultural significance of the song, or any other information you think may be interesting or helpful.


4. The written text of your English translation.

5. The written text of the original.

6. A link to the original in performance.
Ideally, it will be the same version of as the provided text; if not, please note any variants.


7. A literal English prose crib,
showing the word order and syntax of the original, and providing alternate meanings of ambiguous words or phrases. PLEASE NOTE that presenting someone else’s prose translation instead of your own prose crib is NOT ACCEPTABLE because a.) it is not your work and b.) it will not give non-speakers of the original language—i.e., the vast majority of your readers here—enough information about which word is doing what. PLEASE ALSO NOTE, while you are composing your literal English prose crib, that http://wordreference.com provides excellent dictionaries for multiple languages, and also has online forums in which you can sometimes ask native speakers for help with tricky idioms. Google Translate is unreliable. You have been warned.

THE SECONDARY EVENTS:

Three songs will be provided by the TSDG Yodeler for translation the morning of Wednesday, September 30. Each is considered a separate event, and participants may choose to enter all, some, or none of them. Entrants may enter each event as many times as they wish, so long as each of their entries is substantively different.

A thread for each song will be posted to the Distinguished Guest board, providing the original text, literal English prose crib provided by the Bake-off staff, links to the original in performance, and contextual notes.

Each secondary event may have its own unique rules; for example, one of the songs must be translated in such a way that the English translation fits the tune of a DIFFERENT song than that of the original.

Entrants will add their singable English language translations of each song to its own thread. An extra point will be awarded to each secondary event translation for which the entrant provides a link to that English text in sung performance, regardless of the musical merit of said performance.

Entries may be edited and re-edited until the threads are locked on at noon (Pacific Daylight Time) on Tuesday, October 13.

Enter one, enter all!

Cheers,
...Alex
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  #2  
Unread 09-06-2015, 09:10 PM
Claudia Gary's Avatar
Claudia Gary Claudia Gary is offline
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Alex,

This sounds like a beautiful idea. And I don't want to be a killjoy. But I'm not sure the meaning and implications of "singability" are fully explained above.

Those who understand and love classical art songs (such as the many composed by Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven, and Mozart) know that the music was generally, if not always, written based on the poem, and not the other way around. This has always had certain implications for the singability of any translation.

The above composers apparently had a good understanding of the various vocal ranges, the locations at which each range shifts most naturally from one register to another, and what this implies for placement (in pitch) of the various vowels.

In other words, those composers wanted to make it possible for a singer not only to get the words out but also to produce a beautiful tone. And the composers knew and understood the science of this.

So, if the goal of this bake-off is actually to create singable songs, I hope this will include the question of whether a given translation's inevitable changes in (especially) vowels will allow or prevent its being sung as beautifully and clearly as the original lyrics.

It's unlikely that any translation will work quite as well as the original poem, but at the very least it should be singable in the fullest sense of the word.

Claudia

Last edited by Claudia Gary; 09-07-2015 at 05:36 AM.
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  #3  
Unread 09-07-2015, 12:05 AM
Alex Pepple Alex Pepple is offline
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Claudia--That was the thinking behind having a singer perform the finalists, so that everyone can take these important aspects into account. Some poem translations that fit the original meter on the page may not work well in sung performance, because they place unimportant words on high, emphatic notes, or disregard the importance of the caesura (so that the singer can breathe) in French alexandrine sonnets, for example.

...Alex
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  #4  
Unread 09-07-2015, 03:13 AM
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AZ Foreman AZ Foreman is offline
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What about songs from non-western musical traditions, such as Arab, Chinese, Indian or Persian? Can the performer handle the intervals present in those scales? How much adaptation should we expect?
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  #5  
Unread 09-07-2015, 05:10 AM
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Claudia Gary Claudia Gary is offline
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Thank you, Alex!
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  #6  
Unread 09-07-2015, 01:05 PM
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Catherine Chandler Catherine Chandler is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Claudia Gary View Post
Alex,


Those who understand and love classical art songs (such as the many composed by Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven, and Mozart) know that the music was generally, if not always, written based on the poem, and not the other way around.

Claudia
So, if I understand it correctly, English translations of classical art songs would be ineligible for the bake-off, since most of them (that I know of) such as Lieder and mélodies, were based on poems in the first place.

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  #7  
Unread 09-07-2015, 02:10 PM
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Martin Rocek Martin Rocek is offline
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Cathy,
no, I do not think that is the intention. The translation should be singable to whatever music the original is being sung--Schubert, Schumann lieder, etc. are specifically meant to be included.

AZ,
great question--I am not a singer, so I will leave it to others to answer.

Martin
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Unread 09-07-2015, 04:38 PM
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Catherine Chandler Catherine Chandler is offline
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Thanks, Martin. That opens it up considerably, what with Baudelaire, Verlaine, Hugo, Lamartine, Gauthier, etc. etc.
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Unread 09-07-2015, 05:04 PM
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Martin Rocek Martin Rocek is offline
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For your amusement, let me point out that not all "original" settings have particularly fortuitous phrasing--in Handel's Messiah, it sounds very much as if we sheep-lovers have gone astray: https://youtu.be/LmeyG5LlFWU or https://youtu.be/ixmNZQH0NjU for a slightly faster version with nice pictures
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  #10  
Unread 09-07-2015, 07:29 PM
Alex Pepple Alex Pepple is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AZ Foreman View Post
What about songs from non-western musical traditions, such as Arab, Chinese, Indian or Persian? Can the performer handle the intervals present in those scales? How much adaptation should we expect?
AZ--100% accuracy can't be guaranteed where microtonal intervals are concerned. Expect the tendency common to most Westeners of rounding off at least some of the microtones in such pieces to the nearest half tone. But if you can provide a good audio or video version of the song, every effort will be made to duplicate whatever tones are heard.

...Alex
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