Basic Words in Music Translation

Basic Words in Music Translation

In this era of fast economic development, many people are getting richer and they are not content with material pursuit any more. More and more people begin to seek a spiritual life. Music art is enjoyed popular support among people; especially the beautiful movie songs have encouraged people’s enthusiasm for music. Besides this, various musical instruments become popular and fashionable in people’s daily life.

They hope to play the musical instruments and allowed the sweet music to be presented. Due to these factors, they are eager to learn about basic theory knowledge and cultural background of music. However, most western music related knowledge is written in English. Therefore, it is required to be translated into Chinese.

Now that the society has such kind of demand, the translators should bear the responsibility of being a bridge between the people and the English papers. Music translation is a special part in respect of classifications of translation. It also has some features. Now I’d like to speak of the basic words in music translation.

Read Also: The Translations for Some Musical Terms

Musical vocabulary is very interesting, some of them are common words we familiar with, but they have very special meanings in music. With the purpose of distinguishing different meanings, I list some such kind of words in the following (note: the first, the second and the third columns are the English word, the common meaning and the professional meaning in music respectively).

meter  米  拍子               passage 文章 乐段                       pattern 模式 音型                            beat 拍打 拍子                  quality 质量 音质

duration 持续 时值      second 第二  二度                        staff 员工 谱表                                   interval 间隔 音程           key 关键 调

flat 平地 降号                 sharp 尖头 升号                          natural 自然的 还原                         major 主要的 大调           minor  次要的  小调

bar 条 小节                     time 时间 拍子                            measure 测量  小节                           value 价值 时值                 rest 休息 休止符

tie 领带 延音线              slur 污点 连音线                         wind 风 管乐器                                  scale 刻度 音阶                  step 步骤 音程，度

mode 模式 调式            dominant 显性 属音                  perfect 完美的 纯音程                    sequence 顺序 模进         binary 二进制的 二部曲式

…

The following are some common musical terms:

Pl. Neums 纽姆谱                    rhythm节奏                     dynamics 力度                          duple 二拍子

triple三拍子                             fortissimo最强音的        pianissimo最弱音的                crescendo 渐强

diminished渐弱                      timbre音色                        tempo 速度                                metronome节拍器

Adagio慢板                              Andante行板                    Moderato中板                           Allegretto小快板

Allegro快板                             Presto急板                         key signature 调号                   time signature 拍号

semibreve全音符                  quaver八分音符               semiquaver十六分音符            minim二分音符

crotchet四分音符                  staccato 跳音