Translate to live. Live to translate.

Paddy Moloney passed away a few weeks ago. Along with many other musicians, he has been a part of my life's musical memory, especially for he was a renowned figure within the traditional Irish music scene, one of my lifetime favorite music genres. Paddy was a terrific tin whistler and uilleann piper, and a jovial entertainer at his gigs with The Chieftains. I got to see him live several times and it was always something to remember.

As a result of his death, these days I have reflected on how these experiences enrich us in life, especially regarding our translation works. I have been playing traditional Irish music with my friends for over twenty years now. And not just Irish but also Breton, Castilian, Asturian, Galician, English shanties... I have played gigs with a couple bands we formed at the time, in public and private sessions; in glitzy pubs and seedy dens, weddings, baptisms and communions; in Seville, the rest of Spain and even in Ireland; sharing pints of beer with several internationally-acclaimed artists of the traditional music scene whose names will not say anything to 99% of those who read this text, but who were and are real stars for us.

They are life experiences you not only enjoy, but also learn a lot from. The vocabulary and jargon of that musical niche are extensive. Let's take my instrument, the guitar, as an example. Normally, one learns to play it using standard tuning, but my all-time favorite guitarist is John Doyle, and he plays using another tuning, a "open D" tuning called Dropped-D tuning, in which the 6th string (usually an E) is lowered to the key of D, which changes a handful of chord positions on the neck frets. There are other tunings, like DADGAD or Pelican, suitable for playing this type of music, but Dropped-D suits me. Tunings are a very personal thing.

Here you are John Doyle playing some reels in Dropped-D tuning with another legendary musician, fiddler Liz Carroll.

The fact is that, in the end, when you share this music with people from all over, you end up learning, almost by obligation, an extensive list of terms. Not only related to tunings or music in general, but to your instrument and the instruments of your fellow musicians.

That thing with four double strings that sounds terrific is called bouzouki, and it is of Greek origin. That round tambourine is a bohdràn, and it is played with a different kind of tipper depending on the sound you want to get from it. The musician to the right doesn't have an epileptic fit, he's playing uilleann pipes, full set, with its chanter, drones, and regulators. The girl who plays the violin does not play a "violin", but a fiddle (the popular way of calling the violin outside the classical context), and she is the fiddler of the session, which is as we call this gathering of musicians to play and have fun. That other one is not playing a small accordion, but a concertina. The older man next to me does not play a recorder, although it looks like it, but an Irish wooden flute; do not confuse the name with the tin whistle or the low whistle (its more low-tone version). And he plays it very well, he does all the ornaments (taps, rolls, cuts, triplets and crans) to perfection. Hopefully today the lady who plays the hurdy-gurdy will show up.

And what are we going to play? Just as in Spain we have styles ("palos") for flamenco, with their rhythms and their particularities, and we know that a "sevillana" is not the same as a "bulería", a "soleá" or a "fandango de Huelva", in Ireland and the rest of the countries that share this type of traditional music the same happens. If the session leader of that moment, or for that set, yells at me “reels D-A-F#m!", he is telling me that he's going to play a three-reel set, that the tempo for them is 4/4, and that the harmony for the guitar is based on the chords of D major, A major and F sharp minor. And I'll have to work and improvise from there as much as I want.

However, if we have played a lot together and he yells at me "slip jigs Em-G Bothy Band!", he tells me that he's going to play two slip jigs, whose tempo is 9/8; the first in E minor and the second in G major. In addition, he tells me that the second tune will be played in the version of the mythical group The Bothy Band, one of the mainstays of the modernization of Irish traditional music in the 70s of the last century. Everyone knows that particular slip jig as straight out of the Bible. Then we will also play jigs, polkas, hornpipes, slides, and some slow air. Perhaps we will play some quite popular piece but whose name has been lost in the mist of time and no one remembers anymore. These pieces are called 'gan ainm' in Irish, 'no name'.

And there is much, much more; a whole universe of centuries-old knowledge and vocabulary around this type of music.

Right, now. I think all of this has value when it comes to translating. And it has even more value from the perspective that I have not had to study or research it. It's been pervading and infusing me with knowledge over the years, thanks to my experiences. Through these simple examples that I have put above, in which I have remarked in bold and italics almost forty useful terms or concepts of Irish traditional music, I wanted to emphasize that, in my opinion, life experience is fundamental, essential, for someone who translates, and that perhaps it is that experience that should end up deciding your choice of specialty within the world of translation. The world is a huge place, knowledge is infinite, and not everything is in the books, much less in a handful of university subjects.

So, my point here is your life experiences will help you to enhance your skills and background as a translator, so you have to live to translate... as well as your translations will sustain your life by paying the bills. There is no life experience without value, and you never know when crocheting, bird watching or walking through the woods identifying mushrooms is going to get you a new client. Surely, many of you know exactly what I am talking about. Things happen. Perhaps the CV of a person who translates is the most appropriate to reflect in detail their hobbies, in contrast to other jobs or work environments in which hobbies are almost recommended to be left out.

I always like to add something personal to these articles, so I'll end with a personal story.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Ireland for several days. I stayed within the Cork area, where I have a couple of well-established friends who hosted me. I remember playing about four sessions in two days. I ended up with blisters on my fingers, happily shattered, and full to the brim of Beamish, the amazing and delicious local stout.

One of the most intense and joyful experiences of my life has been playing that first session in Cork. I had played with people from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, or the USA before, but always in Spain. Sitting in a genuine Irish pub for the first time, in Ireland, and playing the music that I had been loving and practicing for decades was like arriving at my personal Shangri-La. It may seem silly to someone who can travel a lot, but that's not my case, so I was pretty nervous and didn't want to screw up the session.

Screwing up the session? How? Let's see how. ^^

Within the session etiquette, which are more or less tacit rules or code of conduct to organize among the musicians and not spoil the "craic" (the merriment, in short), it is understood that you, as a guest musician, are welcome; BUT, ahem, you have to be aware of where you are and who you sit down to play with. Thus, in most pubs there are sessions for initiated musicians who are learning their instrument, and others for those experienced who already have a certain mastery in playing. If you are a novice and when you play the violin it still seems like you are mistreating a cat, you cannot expect to join an advanced session on equal terms. You have to put your ego aside. If you don't do that, in addition to look quite selfish and pathetic, you will be spoiling everyone's fun. If, for whatever reason, your ego is greater than your common sense, all the musicians will let you know. Mark this in red: you don't want to be given a cold shoulder.

When the musicians as a whole are upset by your behavior during the session… they give you a cold shoulder. In other words, you're left out. They stop looking at you, smiling at you, yelling the chords, talking to you. It is a powerful non-verbal language of exclusion. If it still doesn't work, the session leader will stand up and tell you clearly "Lad/lass, go have a pint, stop playing for a while." And when you get up, the rest of the musicians will close ranks, eliminating the place where you sat. On ocassions, some musician/s will stand up and simply leave the session. If you don't get it after that, you have a real problem that goes far beyond music. And you must have been very, very wrong, or know very little about where you are, for that to happen. Deep down, it's just having a little common sense and some insight. For more info on session etiquette, click here.

Well, in that first session in Cork (at a wonderful pub called Sin é) I was terrified that I would screw it up and get cold shouldered. My hands were shaking. What if I'm out of tune? What if they don't like the Dropped-D tuning? What if they don't like how I keep the right-hand rhythm? What if a Comhaltas delegation shows up with truncheons and they drag me out of the pub for insulting Irish trad music? ^^

When I sat down, I was greeted by a couple of the musicians I already knew, but I was completely ignored by the others, beyond a simple dry greeting. When I took the guitar out of its case, I saw how some of their faces changed. My guitar is black around the edges and with a blue gradient towards the center; very pretty, but not at all the visual style of guitars used in traditional music. I think they thought that I was going to mess it up, with that guitar that seemed most suited to playing other things. They looked at me with some suspicion while I tuned, and I noticed a gesture of curiosity when realizing that the instrument was not tuned in standard.

A minute later someone started with a set of jigs at half time pace, very comfortable to warm the wrist up; and as it is said: the rest is history. They would nod their heads and smile at me when making certain chord progressions, which they clearly recognized from this or that band or album. It could be said that they breathed easy. The tension had vanished after verifying that I did not come to blow up the session, that I knew the session etiquette, and that I knew what I was up to in terms of music. The pints began to appear on the table as if by magic and it was one of the most memorable nights I have spent playing. No cold shoulders but warm hearts.

From a translation point of view, these experiences must be put into perspective. It seems like a night of music and pints, but it is actually a night building a bridge— using and repeating a vocabulary that I had known for years and that I had been using alone in my mind, like in front of the mirror, with myself. Going to the source of that terminology and contrast it with the people who speaks it in their daily life; check that it's useful, that it works, that they understand you and that you are in the same page; that you feel apart in no conversation because you have made yours that particular jargon, it is like closing a circle of amazing knowledge.

Sláinte! It is what you say, in Irish, when toasting.

I don't know if there are many EN> ES translators out there specialized in Irish music, but if you ever need something about it, like translating an article, book, or the subtitles of a TG4 documentary, give me a whistle and we'll see. ;o)