Welcome to the first issue of Translingual Discourse in Ethnomusicology (TDE), a new peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal aiming at encouraging discourse across language barriers by publishing English translations of ethnomusicological papers that have originally appeared in other languages and therefore probably not received their due recognition.

The editorial board is the main body of TDE. Its members are not selected by countries and their respective nationalities, but due to their language skills. Members of the Editorial Board provide the editors with suggestions for articles which they consider to be paramount and outstanding. If a second reviewer – usually somebody who can read the paper in its original language – supports the publication, the editors approach the author and ask – given that he or she is interested in the publication – for an English pre-translation of the article. At the end of the double open peer review process professional proof reading is carried out by native speakers with expertise in academic English and ethnomusicology.

The editorial board will be extended in the forthcoming months by a few additional members. Most languages spoken in Europe are already represented here – Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Slovenian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovak, Polish –, and some important non-European languages are also already covered including Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, and Persian. However, a few important languages are still missing. Colleagues from around the world who speak a language, which is used by ethnomusicologists as a language of publication but not yet represented on our board are invited to participate. Please contact us!

Due to our policy we do not encourage online submissions of articles by authors. Instead, authors are requested to contact one of the members of the editorial board or one of the editors if they want to submit an article. There are no charges to authors for publication.

In order to speed up the publishing process and ensure that the articles are made available to readers as soon as possible, Translingual Discourse in Ethnomusicology will publish on a rolling basis. As soon as a paper has completed the peer review and editing processes, it will be made available.

In addition to the benefits of an online journal with a rolling publication schedule, Translingual Discourse in Ethnomusicology benefits from its status as an open-access journal. All articles are made freely available immediately upon publication. No professional memberships, license fees, or paid subscription are necessary to access the journal, and there are no publication embargoes that might limit access to journal content upon initial publication. This is particularly important to ethnomusicologists and musicians who live (or work at an institution) in the emerging countries ––where much of our fieldwork is carried out – who cannot afford membership costs or additional journal subscription fees.

In order to keep the translation process transparent and open for further discussion, TDE will publish the original text together with the English version. Authors have the opportunity to add to the publication additional video and/or audio materials. Finally, we want to stress the broad focus of Translingual Discourse in Ethnomusicology. The journal hopes to publish articles related to all aspects of Ethnomusicology at present and in the past. At the kick-off meeting in Vienna in April 2014, we have defined some topics, such as Ethnomusicologies before the 1940s, Theory and Methodology / Praxis, (culturally rooted) Musical Analysis, Field Work, Intangible Heritage / Patrimonization / Sustainibility / Revival, (local) Ethnomusicologies, Gender Issues, Archives, Ethnochoreology, Identity, Organology. On all these issues (and more) TDE will publish articles. The texts actually are in various stages of the editing process. We hope that scholars from all backgrounds and institutional types will participate in this journal, as readers and/or authors.

The first moves towards the foundation of an open access journal in Ethnomusicology were made in 2012 with an informal meeting of the editorial team, coining the name "Translingual Discourse in Ethnomusicology“. Flora Klonner beautifully designed the logo. In 2013 the Austrian Science Fund launched a call for founding open access journals in which our team was successful after the long review process of almost one year. In April 2014, the kick-off workshop at the University of Vienna took place, to which all members of the Editorial Board were invited. Today - one year later - we are excited to launch the first articles of the first issue (the 2015 issue).

Our thanks go to the open access team of the University Library of the University of Vienna for their active support in all respects and the Austrian Science Fund FWF for financial support. We also thank the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG) and the University of Vienna for providing infrastructure and the human resources. We are grateful for this support and hope that with the interest and participation of our colleagues worldwide TDE will grow and become a journal that is important to ethnomusicology.

Looking forward to your feedback!

April 2015

Regine Allgayer-Kaufmann, Gerd Grupe (editors)

TDE kick-off meeting in Vienna, April 27, 2014