[FA Worldmusic] education, to Dmitri's points

[Robert Singerman]

Thanks Dmitri,

I'm very glad the 17 Hippies, like Opera as you say, understand the  
importance of communication in words, beyond language differences. At  
Popkomm this year, I heard so many anecdotes of the essential point  
and benefit of cross language communication, like in Japan,  
obligatory translations in cd booklets, in many countries obligatory  
translations on videos and TV...not to force anyone to care about the  
lyrics, just there, if one wants to partake. I heard last night the  
story, (soon to be a documentary film), of how rock and roll helped  
split the Soviet Union.

Education is one critical key and language learning techniques, (like  
Yabla.com), are an obvious way to better understand, (if one wants!),  
lyrics, translations, words, cultures...Yabla is now being tested at  
The Alliance Francaise in NYC and their Spanish subscription service  
is growing well. I'm certain there are other language learning tools  
that I don't know about yet that also work towards increasing the  
understanding across languages with lyricists helping lead the way.  
The French use a music cd series for language learning in education.

Some video translation technology (other than for language learning)  
will gradually become ubiquitous, starting in 2008 and are extremely  
exciting, with lyrics encompassed and translations encouraged. Can't  
say much more now on this, but it's coming quickly. The Gracenote and  
Yahoo legal lyrics program, (not translations - yet) are extremely  
successful, with over 425,000 songs now and growing, almost all  
"commercial" songs in English, with original lyrics available as  
metatag data and micro payments and contracts with publishers set up;  
this launched in 2007 and is building every day. I'm still working on  
visual (live) systems and have "promised" to have something elegant  
and usable by globalFEST, any and all suggestions from readers are  
extremely solicited and welcome.

I saw Dobet Gnahore and know how much more of a world leader she will  
be when all people can understand her lyrics. Billy Bragg hugged me  
in Berlin, after I told him about how he could use these new methods  
to reach people in different languages. He has something to say, like  
all of us, especially musicians and songwriters. Ky-Mani Marley, now  
special guest on the Van Halen Reunion Tour! released his Voxonic  
version of The March last week on his new album, a great, political,  
song, in Spanish, which he doesn't speak....Prodigy, ("one of the 5  
top MC's/lyricists in Hip Hop") of Mobb Deep is on the CMJ Music with  
Subtitles panel and is totally committed to making his raps  
comprehensible to the people who don't understand English all around  
the world. It's coming and world music, (if not the world), will  
benefit, especially when all/most of us start to envision the  
possibilities of communicating in deeper and still conscious ways  
with other cultures beyond our own spoken language knowledge and move  
towards a critical mass of worldwide understanding.

Evolution, Robert