Collaboration in making singable translations of song
Abstract
This article begins with general, theoretical issues on singable translations before discussing a specific project, which has produced singable translations into English of about fifty songs penned by the Brazilian singer and popular composer Noel Rosa. The theoretical issues focus on Peter Low’s ‘Pentathlon Principle’ (2005, 2008, 2017), a set of procedures developed by the author to guide translators who venture into song translation. Throughout the paper, we comment on particular difficulties faced by the authors while translating a group of Noel Rosa songs into English as ‘singable translations’, and how we overcame them.
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