Cultural Translations

its seminal documents, 11 it would appear that analysis of intercultural musical practices – andthe ways in which they are explained – merits a place in the field cultural translation. Specifically,systems of music transmission and pedagogy seem to represent especially fertile areas for researchon educational issues in cultural translation. 12In order to bring a manageable focus to this discussion, it is important to be impeccably clearabout what will not be addressed here, and why. I will avoid discussion of mere song lyrics andtheir meanings, in order to maintain a focus on the sentient features of musical sound that maybe independent of any linguistic significance, the reason being that such a focus will enable usto face the distinctive features of musical discourse in contrast to linguistic discourse. I will alsoeschew discussion of the kinds of challenges and dilemmas most often faced by ethnomusicologists,scholars who seek to construct comprehensive verbal descriptions of musical systems thatare translated across cultural boundaries. Much has already been written on that topic, which Igreatly appreciate, yet this theme would appear to be less relevant to the purposes of our forum.Rather, the question here today is how musicians adopt ideas and practices from one musicalsystem into another musical system, a process that to some extent typically requires a bridgingof cultural differences: in other words, projects that entail an attempt to translate one music(or at least prominent aspects of a preexisting tradition) into another form of music. I will alsoconsider educational implications of this kind of cultural translation, which typically yields someprototypical form of musical hybridity as its outcome.For those unfamiliar with music research there may also be some reluctance to recognize themeaningfulness of musical practices, or at least the validity of their interpretation. Just how significantshould music-making, the mere production of pleasurable sounds, be appropriately regardedwithin the context of other seemingly translatable human activities? The global ubiquityand expansive history of musical activity serve as some testament to its ultimate utility, for socialscientists consider music-making to be a universal practice associated with all known human societies,and with a lengthy history that may even rival that of language. 13 In November of 2010, Itaught briefly for the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus, Syria, a nation that is home to someof the earliest evidence of music in the world. At the National Museum of Syria I viewed Ur-Nansha,one of the world’s oldest known carvings of a musician. Ur-Nansha is the name inscribed ona 26-cm tall gypsum statue that depicts an androgynous court musician, the chief singer of IblulIl, who was King of the city-state of Mari, located in what is now Eastern Syria. The Ur-Nanshafigure was found in a Massif Ridge archaeological dig, nearby the Ninna Zaza temple (2600-2400BC). According to recent research findings, a 3,200 year old song, also from Syria, offers the ear-2411 See Susan Bassnett, Translation Studies (London: Routledge, 1980/2002); Edwin Gentzler, ContemporaryTranslation Theories (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1993/2001); Naoki Sakai, Translation andSubjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); andGideon Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins,1995).12 Margaret Mehl, “Cultural translation in two directions: The Suzuki Method in Japan and Germany,” Researchand Issues in Music Education, 7 (2009), http://www.stthomas.edu/rimeonline/vol7/mehl.htm.13 See Nils. L. Wallin, Bjorn Merker, and Steven Brown (eds.), The Origins of Music (Cambridge: MIT Press,2000), and Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body (London:Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005).David G. Hebert