Imagine if talented, visionary European artists decided to adopt Siberian and Mongolian throat singing to enhance their artistic take on European Neopagan spirituality, only for millions to take their allegorical re-interpretation of ancient Germanic history literally and end up believing throat singing is part of the historical and cultural heritage of Scandinavia... haha... wouldn't that be terrible... hahahahaha...
Intro 00:00
History-themed music vs actual historical music 01:22
The allegorical quality of modern Viking music 12:48
Neopaganism's role in this genre 17:44
Why poetic license is important 32:32
Music about a culture vs from a culture 38:42
Feelings over facts 39:20
Wardruna/Heilung's creative genius 42:02
Why music theory is important 47:32
Our obsession with material culture 52:36
Throat singing & cultural appropriation 54:10
Horned helmets are more plausible than throat singing 58:04
The Siberian-ification of the Norse 1:00:34
I am become misconception, destroyer of facts 1:06:34
NOTES AND CLARIFICATIONS: *On the subject of the tagelharpa* Dozens have objected to my stance that the Tagelharpa is not a Scandinavian instrument because they understood my point as being: "no single tagelharpa ever existed in Scandinavia." Of course I don't believe that. When I say that the tagelharpa is not a Scandinavian instrument, I don't mean that not a single tagelharpa ever entered Scandinavia in all of history; we must assume this Karelian and Baltic instrument had entered Scandinavia anecdotally due to geographical proximity. Instead, I mean that it has no history of consistent usage as a common cultural artefact to the point of being deemed a *staple* of Scandinavian culture. There is no evidence that the tagelharpa existed during the Viking Age; all evidence for it emerges later, and evidence of the tagelharpa in Scandinavia after the Viking Age is virtually nonexistent. And the fact that most people think of it as a staple of Scandinavian culture going back to the Viking Age, effectively snatching its cultural associations from the Balts and Finns to project it on the Scandinavians is an unfortunate case of involuntary cultural appropriation allowed by pop cultural ignorance. The tagelharpa is a Karelian and Baltic instrument that we must assume had some anecdotal presence in Scandinavia from time to time; not a cultural staple of Scandinavia used by the Viking Age Norse as most think. *Regarding throat singing* For those with arguments like "you can't prove they didn't have throat singing/we have proof they did, texts mention them throat singing," they are kindly asked to redirect their pop-culture influenced arguments to this video where this idiotic myth is deconstructed thoroughly: kzhead.info/sun/mqmEepaha553lq8/bejne.htmlsi=6Nlslsj1cirCqXa0 Sources: "What did they sound like? Reconstructing the music of the Viking Age by Chihiro Larissa Tsukamoto" www.academia.edu/31493503/What_did_they_sound_like_Reconstructing_the_music_of_the_Viking_Age "People and Their Soundscape in Viking-Age Scandinavia Critical Reflections in a Music-Archaeological Perspective" by Cajsa S. Lund www.academia.edu/31773185/Cajsa_S_Lund_People_and_Their_Soundscape_in_Viking_Age_Scandinavia_Critical_Reflections_in_a_Music_Archaeological_Perspective_Studien_zur_Musikarch%C3%A4ologie_VII Throat singing in Old Norse culture? by Nóel Braucher * www.academia.edu/22666429/Throat_Singing_in_Old_Norse_Culture Intro 00:00 History-themed music vs actual historical music 01:22 The allegorical quality of modern Viking music 12:48 Neopaganism's role in this genre 17:44 The value of inaccuracy 32:32 Music about a culture vs from a culture 38:42 Feelings over facts 39:20 Wardruna/Heilung's creative genius 42:02 Why music theory is important 47:32 Our obsession with material culture 52:36 Throat singing & cultural appropriation 54:10 Horned helmets are more plausible than throat singing 58:04 The Siberian-ification of the Norse 1:00:34 I am become misconception, destroyer of facts 1:06:34
15:41 Vikings dressed as Siberian shamans? I think for their audience ignorance is bliss. If they knew or cared, the visuals alone would make the the whole experience unwatchable. It's not about anachronism, but misleading by omission. I'd make disclaimers about historical accuracy a legal requirement.
This new movement reminds me very much in it's ideology of people in Renaissance who believed in great old cultures and lost knowledge of the ancients, and divided the history into antiquity, dark ages and modernity. And that line of thinking is still prevalent today, where a lot people think of "middle ages" as the age of regression, where enlightened and noble knowledge was lost and is only now being rediscovered. "Neo pagans" are thinking very similar IMO - that they are rediscovering some lost European culture. Where in fact, it was way more linear progression, and a lot of what would today be seen as clear Christian tradition, was actually practiced and started by pagans. And is very different than the old Christianity that would be practiced in Judea during the Roman times. That is also why each country has their own spin on those "Christian" holidays and traditions, that would reflect their specific pre-Christian traditions. And then ofc, we also have more modern spin offs, in the form of Santa Claus or Ded Moroz which were invented during the cold war for each on their respective sides. Santa Claus being predominant because America "won" the struggle, and is specially interesting when you consider his "traditional" clothing is nothing more than the add for Coca Cola.
I as a Finn never knew tagelharpa was actually Finnish and I thought it was Scandinavian viking instrument. I feel betrayed, I feel confused, I feel like my culture has been robbed…
I got curious to see what someone with no knowledge about the tagelharpa would see if they googled it and, shockingly, the first link I saw was saying how it originated from Scandinavia and it's name comes from Swedish. This was a comment on Quora. Scrolling down immediately, a wikipedia link said exactly what you said; Estonia and Karelia. I can -sort of- see how someone already biased in favour of Tagelharpa being scandi would only get their beliefs entrenched by uneducated quora comments, of which there are thousands of.
Are you single? Asking for a friend...
Blackpink's music is a pure, authentic representation of medieval Goryeo dynasty music. Change my Mind.
Jennie, Rosé, Lisa, Jisoo ❤
Gangnam style and its horse dance represent the old mongol origins of the Korean peoples and thus is a true representation of old gogureyo and Altaic music. /s
Now I can't help but imagine people in the Goryeo dynasty singing and dancing like K-pop artists 💀
푸하하하 😂 I'm Korean.😅
@@ptolemyisoter5959 all are descend from great hwan nation !
Babe wake up, the iranian man just dropped another hour long videoessay on ethnomusicology
Damn you beat me to it
I am so awake for him 🥹
Yeah....
5:16 People complained about it? It was my favorite part.
Iranian man who speaks French Canadian and talks about how this type of music isn't historically accurate. Just culturally themed. Mr. Worldwide.
Vikings playing cute-sounding doot-di-doot panpipes is the "dinosaurs had feathers and went Bwark" of ethnomusicology
let the vikings be cute, damnit! They clearly wanted to be
This is such a funny and correct analogy
imagine hearing the dooting flutes right before your monastery is sacked, same terror as realizing you're about to ride your bike past a flock of geese/pack of dromaeosaurs
except real
Have you noticed in places where the rocks are grey an the weather dull to the point where colours 'seem' washed out, people have traditionally dressed in an absolute riot of colours? Why should their music not also be a raised middle finger to the washed out colours of their environment... well... by being bright and happy?
Heilung kinda is to the iron age what steampunk is to victorian england. It transmits the vibes modern ppl are feeling about the era, not trying to acurately represent the era
Very well put.
What would be a good name for that. Ironpunk? Viking punk? Plunderpunk?
Agreed.@@faryafaraji
@@rabidclocko Ironpunk has my vote - I don't think we're culturally ready to refer to stuff as "viking" when there's so little understanding of what that word actually means and plunderpunk is pirates of the caribbean ^^
Mhmmm, mhmmm... *jots down notes* Mesopotamian Bronzepunk... Scandinavian Ironpunk... Greco-Roman Sandalpunk...
I was literally at a Einar Selvik concert in my hometown in Poland before Covid, where in between his songs he would talk about his music and say that this isn't viking age music, only his personal take on viking age literary art inspired bythat time and suddenly a group of people started booing him. It's so ironic that all these polish fat biker metalheads with runic tattoos and giant beards start hating on a norwegian artist literally explaining what is and what is not historically accurate. It takes 2 beers to start booing your heroes. Unfortunately, this also describes the state of Viking Age reenactment movement in Poland.
I’m in the United States, and the weird co-opt of modern interpretations of “Viking age” culture into yt nationalism/ethno nationalism is so bizarre to me who has a lot of heritage from the triangle of Scotland/england/sweden. I don’t have a lot of large personal traditions carried on from these places, except for maybe how my natural artistic styles gravitated towards fiber arts/illustration styles similar to “Celtic symmetry”, but that could have been narrative driven by my relatives so who knows? What’s really cringe is these people adopting the modern Viking interpretation because it really maps onto recent colonization efforts and the idea of “finding new land and taking riches” appeals to their brains as something to be proud of. Which to me, is hilarious, because historical Viking culture is only a teeny tiny % of that. That’s like taking today’s police culture and saying it represented the entire “modern” age. Most Vikings just assimilated OR went back home with the things they stole lol. I just have noticed there is a weird co-opting of “Viking heritage” used in really disgusting subcultures to “ethnically validate” their garbage behavior and ideals. At least here in the United States. 😅
Art is more important than the artist or their original intention for the art they've created. Once it's out, the art is defined between the work itself and the consumer. If this would not be the case, every self righteous painter would automatically become a billionaire. The value of art is always judged by the receiving end rather than the creator. My point is that nobody enjoys pandering and in this case it is very disrespectful to deny the artistic interpretation of art on the base of moral grandstanding. Dictating how any piece of entertainment or art ought to be consumed is in fact dictatorial.
@@aleks5405 "Dictating how any piece of entertainment or art ought to be consumed is in fact dictatorial." In other words: "telling people they should not enjoy Wardruna as historical reconstruction is dictatorial." When free audience interpretation of art begins actively harming other fields like the scientific ones, those fields have the right to defend their own integrity. Art isn't some sacrosanct thing that trumps everything else, but you're so tunnel-vision focused on the freedom of artistic expression that in your opinion, everything else, including empirical knowledge, has the duty to submit to being obliterated by it. And if people who care about objective reality DARE defend it when art harms it, you label those people dictators. The paradigm you've devised is *insanely* manipulative. By telling people what Wardruna objectively isn't, we can make sure the traditions of Mongolians and Siberians isn't stolen and retroactively appropriated. "But what about muh artistic interpretation?!" Your precious freedom of artistic interpretation doesn't have primacy over literal *misinformation* The right of Mongolians to not have their culture stolen and historically revised matters more than your self-absorbed obsession with the sanctity of your personal interpretations, something you deem more important than the right to accurate representation of *entire cultures* The neopagans have the right to interpret Wardruna as they wish, but that right ends where it starts trampling on the integrity of other fields, like that of historical fact, or when that freedom turns into appropriation and theft of other cultures. Furthermore, delusional behaviour is never justified, but you support some neopagans literally deluding themselves, because telling them the truth is "dictatorial." What a disturbing mindset.
People will always project their own values onto others. People want to believe Heilung or Einar Selvik's music is what they want it to be, regardless of the musicians' intent because it validates and empowers their own ideas. And that's always more powerful than facts.
Im a Romaboo but Im lately interested in all the civilizations around the world that achieved works of copper and bronze. That said, Ive encountered several weird 'indo-european' supremacists commenting on documentaries about bronze age Scandinavia etc. It is so strange to me.@@aubreejobizzarro1208
Calling Heilung or similar bands authentic viking music is like calling a Ridley Scott movie authentic history. Doesn't mean its not good, its enjoyable as fkk I blast Heilung in the gym when i wanna get pumped, just gotta realize thats not how it would have sounded 1000 years ago. These musicians 100% know what theyre doing and i doubt they'd say it was authentic.
As a fan of Ridley Scott and these bands, I couldn't agree more. (Not sure about Napoleon though, but maybe it's my French Canadian bias 😂)
@@faryafaraji yeah I've heard some bad stuff about that one. I think most of these bands kinda take the Niel Degrasse Tyson approach. "know the rules, and then bend them at your leisure"
@@faryafaraji Wait, you're a fellow Canadian???
Enjoyable as FKK ? (😂). Greetings from the land of FKK! Enjoy your naked gym sessions.
Lately it isn't that good either 🤣(at least as far as Ridley is concerned)
I spent an entire weekend at a Viking reenactment playing my Anglo Saxon lyre nonstop, occasionally stopping and giving a very similar lecture to those that would listen, and one thing I really emphasized was how soft and earthy and even quiet the lyre sounds and how that actually can inform you a lot about the musical culture of early medieval Scandinavia, and given the stressed importance of music that we can kinda glean from saga sources, you can make a good conjecture that when the lyre came out, the long hall quited tf down because everybody wants to hear the music snd nobody wants to be the guy to spoil it (especially in a room full of drunk Norsemen 😂); i also emphasized the stark difference between a quiet solo lyre and what we hear from Heilung snd Wardruna, while also clarifying every 5 minutes that i wasn't playing anything authentically historic but playing what I could come up with using my method of combining experimental archaeology with music theory (aka i was just jamming the whole time with an early instruments very limited range) And being among viking reenactors... They gave me an overwhelmingly positive response and were genuinely fascinated to hear what was the closest approximation to what actual Viking age music might have sounded like (oh yeah another point, you can only play so much on a 6 string lyre that basically gives you 2 chords and a very small dynamic range to work with), suffice to say it sounds NOTHING like what you hear from Heilung and maybe only a few songs by Einar Selvik (when its just him and the lyre) But its a shame how preconceptions can prevent others from appreciating actual historically reconstructed music when the historical recreation can be just as entertaining as modern artistic interpretations
Really cool anectode, thanks for sharing mate!
"Just jammin'" on the lyre is probably a pretty accurate approximation of how it was played a lot of the time: sure you've got the hits, but you know what? I'm gonna just mess around with these couple notes and see what I get. *plucks away Vikingly*
Kind of hard to square the jingly delicate lyre called a "Joy Wood" in Beowulf and a jaunty panpipe with the throat singing dirges of neo-folk
If you happen to upload video of you playing i would love to hear it!
WHAAAAAAAAAT? you're telling me my mongolic-style throatsinging wasn't done by Erik Sexson????????????????????? :(((((((
😢😢😢😢
🤣
Erik Sexson was famous for something else
@@greendalf123first coomer
@@greendalf123 tell me his father was good at the sex and not that Erik was close with his son…
I have to wonder if the people who insist Norse throat singing existed are the same people who say your Roman music sounds too Eastern.
They are-people who base their expectation of historical music on what pop culture provides rather than real anthropological curiosity. Countless times, the same people would argue for throat singing in one video and do the "why this sounds Arabic" in another
@faryafaraji Heh! I always assumed Roman Music would sound Arabic because most of the Arab world at the dawn of the Middle Ages was freshly conquered former Roman Territory, and that's where a lot of their music was coming from... I mean I was(am) still making ignorant assumptions, but having an idea of who is when puts me more in a mindset to ask "do these cultures connect," rather than assuming they don't.
@@MogofWarThat's very much correct, Arabic music at the onset of their rise as a civilisation was a synthesis of Greek and Iranian music, with Eastern Roman music impacting it immensely
I'm Swedish and I had no idea people actually believe Mongolian throat singing was somehow Norse. In most art forms in the Nordic countries you can see a clear progression from Iron Age Norse culture to what we have today, of course the same would be true for music. And as said in the video, the Norse were just northern Europeans. They had traditions that were distinct from those of their neighbours of course, but in material culture, music, language, ideals etc., they were closely related to other cultures of the same region, especially other Germanic speaking cultures. Throat singing can sound very cool, but it'll never sound Norse to me.
Yeah same, the flute and kuling etc felt way more real to me (beccause it is of course)
Same. Im hungarian and I have NEVER imagined that throat singing is somehow norse or from Europe at all XD When I saw that clip that was shown here, not even a flicker in my mind says it is norse or even European.... ^^" This neopaganism and wicca is an asthetics, like a moodboard on pinterest :D some take it too seriously i guess
I agree. Also Swedish and I think we have some idea on what is not right, even if we are not highly educated in viking music.
You have no idea how much I resonate with "monologuing while I pace a circle around a small room" type energy.
Thank you so much for this awesome video! As a "spelman" (nordic fiddler) , nothing makes my blood boil like searching for "Nordic folk music" and getting throatsinging viking-larpers instead of traditional fiddletunes😄
Who's gonna tell the American Viking LARPers that Alexander Rybak is probably more historically accurate than they are 😆
Man in spelman is man I imagine, but spel as in game (player?) or spell as in magic?
@@3choblast3r4 Spel as in spela, it's simply put the Swedish word for playing an instrument. I think that it was sometimes spelled as "speleman".
@@3choblast3r4 It pretty much means ”playing man” or ”man who plays (an instrument)” or something along those lines. The word ”spel” refers to playing music, games, or acting, but ”spelman” or its plural form ”spelmän” is used for folk musicians specifically. The English word ”spell” has no Swedish equivalent that sounds even remotely similar, but I can’t speak for the other languages.
My Mom's maiden name is Spellman.... Her dad was Irish, though.
Oslo definitly not the Stockholm of Iceland. But one must admit that ABBA is the only authentic NORSE/VIKING music to ever exist.
The terror that fills your heart when you hear the disco music echoing from the approaching ships.
@@isidoreaerys8745 The winner takes it all
Lagaetha is the Dancing Queen.
Me and the berserker bois taking our shrooms and cranking up the mamma mia soundtrack
@@isidoreaerys8745 oh, now i need someone to set a clip from the vikings to mamma mia or something 😂
For anyone curious about the actual translation of what he says in the beginning, it's: "Hello. I am Farya Faraji. I'm in Iceland's capital, Oslo. I love ABBA. I am ready to die for ABBA." Impressive pronunciation btw, Farya! Love your channel bro ❤
Loved that, caught the Oslo dirst time around - I appreciate the irony, as you were in fact standing in Stockholm. As a Dane, I now feel slightly left out? And never mind the Finnish… 😂
Good to know, thanks 😊
Interesting. Thanks. Anyone know what he said towards the stream after that explosion at 18:32?
@@mjinba07 Basically , "Will you shut it, I'm trying to film a video over here, geez"
@@dreamerchrysalis384 😆
the whole “birds dont talk” thing is hilarious when you consider the existence of parrots
And even what would be much more familiar to ancient Europeans, corvids, who while can't do it quite like a parrot can speak and even mimic quite well
@@aff77141 There's an entire legend of Octavian and speaking ravens.
Lyrebird has entered the chat: >revving chainsaw< "HEY YOU!" >gunshot sound
The weirdest thing with parrots talk is that they don't mimic other sounds when they live in nature. They only mimic humans when they live with humans.
@@_TheDudeAbides_ It would indicate that they might have adapted to living with humans because I think that it is very hard to do selective breeding based on how well a bird talks since taking birds do not always have young that are good talkers.
I'm a Viking reenactor. When talking to people about the culture of the "viking age" Norse, I'm definitely going to use your videos and things as a great reference / point to make on music! I love Wardruna, Heilung, Skald, etc., but they definitely aren't equivalent to "ancient" or early medieval music. Thanks for an awesome video!
Crazy how hard it is for people to fathom that the Vikings aka a medieval people had medieval sounding music and not some other worldly music as if the Vikings were akin to the Huns some people who came from another part of the world to cause mayhem. They were pagan but having a different world view and customs/ethics doesn’t mean they would have completely different music or cuisine like they are still a Germanic medieval people that was influenced by other medieval peoples.
Popular culture in general has a very distorted image of "the Vikings", so it is not very surprising to be honest.
I hate the Hollywoodisation of the Norse legacy so much.
@@jodofe4879 It's an unfortunate fact that most sources we have of the Vikings are from the people who got sacked by them, who would be most likely to personalise them as barbaric bloodthirsty butchers from a far away wilderness. Which in modern times has evolved into "cool guys with cool tattoos who don't look at explosions".
Sometimes you really appreciate _A Knight's Tale_ for eschewing "authentic-sounding" music altogether and just blatantly anachronistically recreating authentic vibes. The medieval European equivalent of a jock jam would have been played on shawm, lute, and tambor, but that's not getting a modern audience pumped--"We Will Rock You" is the natural analogue. Love these banger video essays, and really loving the weapon collection on your wall.
I agree. A Knight's Tale does a great job of representing history by using showing us that jousting is comparable to WWF wrestling and Formula 1 motor racing. It also used real jousters who were really hitting each other.
I find it fascinating when films use anachronistic modern music as a facsimile of historical vibes. The somewhat recent _Elvis_ film did this well by combining authentic covers of songs that inspired Elvis or that he covered; with modern covers and original music in the styles of genres that themselves were born off of those whom said authentic songs were a part of. It creates a relationship with the audience that they can inherently understand, that otherwise may seem more distant and unapproachable. The _The Great Gatsby_ film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby Maguire tried to do something similar to these films by wholesale incorporating modern party music into the soundtrack to translate the themes of celebratory excess within the story.
They're basically musically saying the quiet part out loud 😂
I saw an interview where the music guy said everyone expected things like violins, which were anachronistic anyway, so instead we have trumpets blowing electric guitar solos.
the music in Peaky Blinders was the reason I couldn't get through the first episode and I don't care what that says about me. I think it was just too close, like making a WW2 film with Beach Boys songs
This reminds me of how Christians love the song hallelujah by Jeff Buckley but that song is about a sexscapade with a neighborhood woman. Like that's not a Christian song just because it uses Christian imagery to appeal to a mostly Christian audience. The line literally says I don't know if there is a god above but all I have learned from love is how to outshoot someone who put drew you.
Christian here: I don't love or hate the song, never paid much attention to it really. I had to google the lyrics to check what you said
I thought it was Leonard Cohen?
It’s a Leonard Cohen song, even if the Jeff Buckley cover was the most popular in America. And it’s not about sex, Cohen described (and frankly the lyrics are pretty clear) that it’s written as a conversation between his identity as a Jewish man and his often dissipated life (that includes sex, but sex is not the main theme). Though it is jarring that today Hallelujah is known as a Christmas song, given the song’s clear Jewish themes.
Same way jingoistic hyper-nationalist Americans think Springsteen's 'Born in the USA' is a pro-American anthem.
Depends on what type of Christian you're talking about. Baptist, pentecostal and so forth. For some who was raised pentecostal, we knew who he was and what that song was about. We never sung it at all. But then again I have come across Christians and I just look at them like they fell off the back of a turnip truck. Thankfully I'm not in church anymore but still, we knew.
It’s interesting that Christianity is viewed as an event akin to modernity, that it wholly replaced the past somehow. You’d think in an age of globalization we’d have a better intuition for how syncretism works, or at least clocking the dynamic. Weird! Guess inventing new past-themes for ourselves is more fun than everyday cultural continuity, and ironically a very typical modernist project Great video man this is fucking great EDIT: holy shit the reveal of watching your own song become a misinformation vessel in real time. That’s bananas
Yeah some of those more revisionist neopagans love presenting the spread of Christianity as an apocalyptic event spread wholly by the sword. They even refer to terms like, mass genocide, presenting a picture of all pagans being utterly wiped out, raped, pillaged, and forced into Christianity, with their entire cultures utterly replaced. The last statements being all the more ironic given that they idolise the Vikings of all people.
I mean, I am Swedish and grew up with a mom who certainly believed in God in a pretty standard Christian manner but also fully in spirits living in trees and the ground, "tomtar" (little people dressed in grey that guard your house), ghosts and grounded spirits and many other folk lore things. This is a modern day person, I am sure newly Christian Scandinavians probably believed in all kinds mythical things.
As someone who grew up in Ukraine, I know one local pagan song that is still chanted in rural areas and praises one of the old slavic pagan gods... And it's melody is Carol of the Bells. Recorded in Ukraine in 1920s and later popularized in the USA, this song became famous to the general audience as a Christian song, yet it's origins are purely pagan. Which means that by rejecting this originally pagan music, neo-pagans reject the very paganism they wish to cherish.
That's very interesting. What is the song? (The Pagan song I mean.)
What’s the song called? Are there any recordings? Can you write down the lyrics? Sorry if I seem demanding, you’ve really piqued my curiosity.
@@skellagyook Schchedryk. It has a ton of performances. Slavic name is Щедрик
Me, currently planning to Christianize Toyotathon and Shark Week: 😏
I find it unlikely that the melody of "Carol of the Bells" is pagan in origin, like many classic tunes the specifics are lost to history Unless I misunderstood and that wasn't what you were saying
As the great Hitchhikers Guide once taught us: "To summarize the summery of the summery, people are the problem."
This makes me think of the first time I went to a renaissance festival. I did a little research and sewed myself what I considered a vaguely acceptable tunic for my "generic viking" costume. Didn't see anyone else wearing the same kind, only people with very Assassin's Creed Valhalla-style makeup and costume armour pieces.
I've been listening to the nordic neo-folk genre for a while now, primarily wardruna and heilung. This whole time I'd been under the impression that they are depicting ancient nordic music, cloting etc, as it was historically, to the best of their ability. I had just come to this conlusion on my own without bothering to check the historical authenticity of this type of music. I will still definitely keep listening to these artists because they are stunning musicians and performers and the music is very powerful and emotional. But thank you for enlightening me about the historical facts and present misconceptions. Amazing video.
Interesting what you said about neopagan Norwegians trying to avert every aspect of music associated with Christianity, even if they are in fact pre-Christian: we've also had a small neopagan movement here in Greece. A lot of them claimed that they wanted to "go back" to how things were before Christians and later Ottomans arrived and "corrupted everything" and were extremely hostile to any aspect of Greek culture that is conventionally seen as "Christian" or "Turkish". For example they despised the art style of Byzantine Iconography. But when you tell them that this art-style has it's origins in Ancient Greek drawing traditions (in Alexandria and elsewhere), they tend to react badly and say you try to "appropriate" or "Orientalize" Ancient Greece. Similarly they were very hostile to the idea of Ancient Greeks using the "Erasmian pronunciation" instead of the "Reuchlinian" one and other facts that challenge their stereotypical perception of Ancient Greece. My guess is the more you learn about a historical period of ages ago, the more distant you feel towards it. And when you are raised with the idea that that period is vital to your identity and that you are this people's direct descendants and heirs, the growing disassociation contrasts with this preconceived idea pretty hard and you tend to get defensive. Same goes for when you realize that aspects of your culture that you grew up with and feel familiar with are actually of foreign origin or worse of a people that you are taught of as invaders.
Fascinating points, thanks! Not sure if you saw my other video about the cultural movements in Greece trying to revise its nature and portray it as a purely Western culture, but I had never considered the variable of neopagans there. Much of the rejection of Greece's transitionary nature as a bridge between East and West lies in the romanticisation of Ancient Greece as the pinnacle of Western European identity, so I'm not surprised neopagans who identify with it would do the same as Eurocentrists. God forbid those neopagans hear recontructed Ancient Greek music.
@@faryafarajiwould you consider a band such as Daemonia Nymphe to be on the right track of reconstructing ancient Greek music? I'd like to know so that I have an idea of where else to look for it, and if it turns out they aren't I can still appreciate the aesthetic and pageantry of their performances.
Oh i hate those people the large amount of pseudo history they constantly spout and spread is the epitome of cringe as well that ultra nationalistic rhetoric they almost all follow What!? The Hellenic Orthodox iconography has its origins in Alexandria i didn't know that could you perhaps direct me to a source about it? I am legit interested
@@dirckthedork-knight1201 I still remember when one neopagan wrote an article presenting Nikephoros Phokas campaign against the Islamic Emirate of Crete as a genocidal campaign against Olympian worshipping Greeks... Some people out there are insane.
The pronunciation thing always baffles me. If ancient Greek sounded like modern Greek (which some Greeks today seem to believe), why would they have invented an alphabet with vowels that sound the same? And then invent some more diphthongs that also sound the same? And why would the Romans originally have transcribed phi/theta/chi as ph/th/ch if they were always meant to be fricatives? Nothing makes sense if you assume this…
It's not just the music, the whole Viking reenacting scene is massively influenced by Viking pop culture and Metal and Neopagan spillover. Then you can add all the fringe groups wanting to appropriate and reshape the period to suit their agendas. I find that foreigners often do it much better, because they approach it with much more rigorous research and strive for accuracy, perhaps because it's not as mainstream as in Scandinavia. Your point about Nordic Neopagans wanting to distance themselves from Christianity and therefore grabbing onto unrelated shamanistic elements mirrors how many Scandinavian Viking reenactors will gravitate towards Eastern styles to look distinct from the neighboring Anglo-Saxons and Franks, while the Scandinavian archaeological finds are unsurprisingly closely related to the nearby Christian European styles.
I feel the US is essentially a "neo-culture". There is this mental image "White " or "Black" americans have of real-world Europe or Africa. Groups like Neo-Pagans and NOI are built around this image, and when they realize that mental image is wrong, it triggers a harsh mental dissonance. While in some cases people like Malcolm X were able to adjust the realization. Many others demand that cultures to retroactively fit their mental image.
@@radiokunio3738 and Asia too. People line to assume things about my culture here in the states that simply aren’t true, even for people who follow traditions better than I do.
"I find that foreigners often do it much better, because they approach it with much more rigorous research and strive for accuracy, perhaps because it's not as mainstream as in Scandinavia." As a Norwegian: YEAH. Two comics about the Norse come to mind. One from Norway (Ragnarok by Odin Helgheim), and one from Japan (Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura). I've read parts of both. And the notable thing is, the Japanese one is so much more thoroughly researched. It's admirable. It's a good manga. The mangaka clearly put in effort with the research. Sure, there are some fantasy elements here and there, some creative liberties with the characters and action and plot points, but it still feels very viking. Even uses the correct futhark on the cover. I appreciate it. Meanwhile the Norwegian one keeps relying on pop culture tropes and it's aimed at children and it's... so cringe. So bad. It's almost like the author went, 'ah, I know all of this already so I don't need to do any new research!' And it shows.
That whole scene is cringe af
I don't know. American here. We have Prof. Jackson Crawford who keeps getting attacked by our own people for pointing out linguistics details from different region ns and having people from there that have doctorates in their country's history and language from the past. Apparently that is so wrong and they don't even know what they're talking about. Don't even get me started on the fact that people have actually used preserved bodies to show what the viking hairstyles looked like, pisses off our Americans here who think it's bad ass braided mohawks that got started BEFORE the viking movement! It's exhausting.
1:17:40 "How do you think it would feel to be a Tagelharpa player from the Baltic region - from the Fini region ... only for it to be now completely snatched away from them ... " I ran across a "joke" that the Finns tell about how so many Finnish things are widely "known" as Swedish. I don't remember the joke. The only item I remember being "known" as Swedish when it was originally Finnish is saunas.
or Baltic things known as Scandinavian
I'm so done with every non-Abrahamic spiritual figure being called a shaman. This has been driving me nuts for a while, and I'm just a guy who read a book about Siberia one time. I can't imagine what it's like for actual practitioners
To add to this issue of historical and cultural misunderstandings, I told an Alexa device to play Norwegian folk music. I didn't say, "Norwegian dark neofolk music," "Danheim," or "Heilung," just, "Norwegian folk music." Guess what it played? A Danheim inspired neofolk song with a stag (or some other beast) panting in the intro, along with Wardruna. Don’t get me wrong, I love Danheim, Heilung, Wardruna, and the like, but you know it's a big problem when a popular voice-activated speaker thinks of those bands as typical Norwegian folk music. And, I wasn't even asking for "viking music!"
I think in cases like these is where you would need to use the distinction of traditional music vs folk music - it's redundant, I know, but because Folk as a genre contains so many modern associations with it that don't even necessarily correspond with oral tradition (as in, it encompasses bands ranging from Mumford and Sons to Wardruna despite them being completely in contradiction with each other), you have to use the same label that scholars who did fieldwork recordings did when they submitted their findings to the Smithsonian or other publications for archiving.
It should have come up with munnharpe and fiddle dances or something.
Tfw it didn't play Gammel Jegermarsj 😔
1:14:40 reminds me of how Miracle of Sound's "Valhalla Calling" ended up being passed as an ancient Norse chant on TikTok (it is a song for an Assassin's Creed game)
This always blew my mind because it is so clearly modern, lyrically and melodically. It has the hallmark of contemporary song and writing.
Even Gavin (aka: Miracle of Sound) had to step in and say "No, dudes, this is NOT an ancient Norse chant!". EDIT: GOT HIS NAME RIGHT THIS TIME!
And it has references to his other Assassin's Creed songs in it!
The Žižek sniff was the final confirmation I needed to fall in love your videos!
Your point about the movie 300 reminds me of a common critique of Scarface: many Americans didn’t see it as a caricature of Cubans gangsters in Miami - instead it became historical source material for many uneducated viewers who were already suspicious of Cuban immigrants coming to the US
20 or so years ago, my dad went to Mongolia for an ice skating tour where there was also some cultural exchange agenda attached. The minister of foreign affairs welcomed them and everything. For context, we are Dutch so we love ice skating but these days, it hardly freezes during winter. So we travel to places where they have frozen lakes to do our ice skating there. Anyway, he brought back a whole bunch of Mongolian Music CD's for me with a lot of throat singing. It wasn't as polished as the HU, or Hanggai but I thought it was cool and I didn't know what I was hearing when I heard throat singing for the first time. Years later, when I saw Hanggai perform live in Oslo, Norway, there was throat singing and the audience was looking around, bewildered because they couldn't locate where the overtone was coming from. Now it's in all the Germanic Pagan traditions all of a sudden and it feels a bit like envy as well. As if we, "Germanic peoples" regret not having invented something that's as cool as throat singing. I tried it myself but it's hard to get the overtone right. It works in the shower but outside of that, you hardly hear it.
"not as polished as the Hu, or Hanggai" .. these are modern versions of the throat singing and is very far away from the traditional and essence of this style... :(
@@uuguul i think he meant in terms of production quality. Also both of those bands are historically themed bands, the HU is even quite explicit about this and heavily feature electric guitars. The entire hour long video you commented this on is about this exact topic
I'd recommend Huun Huur Tu. I have no Idea how modernized their sound is but I'd guess very little. Found them around 10 years ago and have unsuccessfully tried to recreate their singing ever since.
The Norse made a clear distinction between themselves and the Sámi + Finnic peoples. That alone should leave little reason to look northeast for viking aesthetics*. It's good for foreigners to recognise and remember that the current 'norse' pagan aesthetic of antlers and painted drums is a very clear progression of Sámi indigenous cultural appropriation of the Nordics for 'exotic' touristic purposes, we have been oppressing the Sámi in several ways since the 17th century. *There is a bit of new osteoarchaeology from Sigtuna and Birka that shows a high percentage of Finnish and Estonian immigration and trade, but it's often reflect through recognisable differences in personal adornment ie. cultural differences.
Yeah the Norse constanty portrayed the Sámi as these "weird, distant, mystical" types, which suggests a great deal of disconnect between the two. With a stress on the mystical side. The Norse constantly portrayed them as the "magical, mystical ones," which suggests to me that the Norse themselves weren't as overtly mystically witchy shamanistic as we like them to be in the modern day, since they constantly stressed all that as an attribute of the Sámi that made them alien.
I'm not Sami first of all so I can't speak for them, but seeing folks like Heilung it kinda irks me because it's almost the equivalent all the members dress up as native Americans. Maybe Sami people don't mind it but personally it feels a bit weird.. and I will say I do like the vocalist lady's outfit bc its just her cosplaying Vicar Amelia from Bloodborne lol
@@psykodactyle Tangential, but I always find it strange when people refer to the Sami in a similar manner to native americans. Wikipedia says that the Norse were there before the Sami, but both reach back over 3 millennia so they're essentially both "indigenous". It seems that the Scandinavian countries tried to forcefully assimilate the Sami within the last couple centuries, but that has happened to countless other minority cultures too, so why are the Sami viewed differently? All the current nation states formed by crushing local cultures and languages to varying degrees in order to force a national consciousness where one didn't or barely existed before. But I never see Basques, Catalans, Roma, Bedouin, etc getting compared to native americans.
@@josecarlosmoreno9731 I don't blame you not seeing the similarity. It sometimes escapes even people who potray themselves as 'political commentators'. The question of 'Indigenous people' is a political question that arises, when a govermental power exerts political control over areas outside their own realm, i.e. colonialism. Lapland was not part of the Swedish realm until the 1600s as it was not taxed as belonging to the realm. The status of Sami under Swedish law was more akin to Inuits of Greenland under Danish law, than Finns under Swedish law.
@@psykodactyleHeilung are so over the place with their aesthetics, that we don't what to make of it. They don't pretend to be us, they don't fashion themselves after us (we don't were antlers...). They have the reindeer, which the Scandinavians most certanly did not have during their pagan days. Perhaps the fjelsámi might get offended of that. Ou and as a Christian Sámi, I don't know if this attempt at 'Norse shamanism' is More foolish or clownish. My ancestors became Christian out of their own volition, because they did not want to follow the spirits anymore (which I know exist). Besides, most what we remember of the pagan past is what our *Christian* ancestors decided to remember. Anything we remember is already remembered by Christians. In that sense it does make some sense to go to the edges of the World to find things, that are not 'tainted' by Christianity. But authenticity this does not make.
I always think it's hilarious when I find out someone speaking another language didn't at all say what the subtitles said, and now you did it in my language. Thank you for that ❤
I really enjoyed the point about neopaganism's role in music and how we think about it, particularly for the point about Abrahamic religions and their early goals of synchronicity. As a Polish woman who is very interested in what paganism looked like in slavic countries and tribes, I have had to have this conversation a lot. Christianity was not some cultural powerhouse of a force that stripped all other influences. For the most part, especially in slavic countries, so long as you attended mass and prayed to their god, you were free to also do whatever else you got up to, creating a very interesting mix of what we would now call pagan practices mixed in with Catholicism. There are so many of these pagan practices still present in our culture that people associate with Christianity. When people want something that specifically "opposes" Christianity its hard to point to anything with any historical accuracy because... that was not quite how it worked.
Perhaps the references to vikings "singing like dogs" was just a way to say it was bad (e.g. just because someone says rap music sounds like booty cheeks doesnt mean youll hear trumpets in it)
That's the most widely accepted interpretation right now in academia as the *actual* quote is "singing that sounds *worse* than dogs barking," not "that sounds *like* dogs barking". More info on my video dedicated to debunking the throat singing myth; link is in the pinned comment. We say someone singing badly sounds worse than nails on a chalkboard, but the comparison is between the awful feeling both induce, not with the actual acoustic properties of both sounds.
Genuinely the joke about yodeling sounds more probable.
Not to mention that there's no way in which throat singing sounds like dogs howling to begin with. Someone(s) have never heard an actual dog howl innit.
Now I can't help but Imagine a society in the far future, trying to interpret our lost civilisation. "Apparently, they sang in a way that evokes either the sound of plump posteriors in constant colliding motion or precisely toned flatulence measured with impressive control of the muscles in their hind quarters." And then a band akin to Heilung pops up, inspired by this ancient way of singing.
Someone didnt like panpipes an some happy merry go jolly singing
12:10 In other words, to the 21st century Western audience, the tagelharpa evokes the image of a juiced-up beefcake with Futhark tattoos, which they associate with Norse stuff because that image is their baseline understanding of what a viking is.
Couldn't have said it better myself
exactly, right? and i'm pointing at you, history channel, for that image
from the perspective of a native american who has grown up on a reservation, yes this is exactly what they did and it makes america kinda look like dwarves, drink shoot, bang
To me it evokes the image of the elements, our lost connection to nature and a higher power which is basically what they believed in B4 Christianity™ but yeah sadly most ppl just go "hurr im a berserker *howls*"
To be fair, it's a very contaminated transmission through first the English and Germanic people, sometimes French, whose only contact where the pillage they suffered and later on on romanticism that try to make it sound cool. As warrior as that society can be, doesn't mean they were trying to scare out the shit of everybody and making it extended to every aspect of the life including music. Now, there were warrior dances and music(see Valgarian guard mercenaries and the dance they executed before going berserk, literarily) but they also had the scalds, with the solemnity it implies their duty to educate in a culture with primary oral tradition, or plain entertainers. Is a guy playing a catchy dancing song with a flute, dressing in vibrant colours and practical clothes for their harsh winter and singing something similar to the folk songs of the chorus of the local wooden church a threatening guy?. Not likely because, you know, he's not trying to scare me but to entertain me
Great video. I'm glad I was exposed to throat singing as a Mongolian thing first so that I didn't start thinking it was Nordic. Don't worry, this (mostly) blond-haired, blue-eyed dude agrees with you on all points. Just like with Wicca, I think this is just a longing for a deep sense of family and tradition we have lost in the West. We really want to connect with our ancestors and know what their cultures were like, but... that's often impossible. So maybe we are envious. Thanks for your great channel explaining our best understanding of real ancient cultures' music.
5:15 Seriously? People are complaining about the aulos? That is the instrument that pulls that song together the most and I love the whole song for it. If it was gone or replaced I would probably not like it nearly as much, if at all
To bring up an analogy that isn't related to music, the notion of colored archaic statues jarred a lot of people, myself included. We've been so conditioned by relatively modern artists that the "faulty" discolored statues are somehow more appealing than the rich and vibrant reality.
You could apply this comment to most pop culture depictions of the ancient world. We imagine that Brown, sepia, and grey are realistic because it was tougher, dirtier, and more violent, but in reality it was all of those things and also a rainbow of as many colours as they could get away with.
The idea of the late Middle Ages as xenophobic, to the point that you risk being burnt at the stake for looking at someone the wrong way, goes in a similar direction. Premodernist has recently made a nice video that touches on this ("Advice for time traveling to medieval Europe").
@@TripleBarrel06 Not a full rainbow though! Prior to synthetic dyes and pigments, some colors might be very expensive or not available at all, depending on the time and place.
@@SnakebitSTI Right but with leaves, roots, and dirt very common across Western Europe you could achieve full and vibrant reds, blues, yellows, and greens, just like the colours we wear today (since all the extra-bright colours aren't ones people wear regularly anyway).
Vibrant blues were impossible with European minerals, its just that all high end art used imported materials when possible in order to show off the owner's wealth so that didn't matter. As master long distance traders the wealthier among the norse would be ashamed to dress in European dyes. A lot of it would have been very tacky but so is most aristocratic art. There's a best selling book by a journalist with a history degree named Michael Pye that connects the origins of the modern fashion industry in Flanders to the need to keep creating new clothes to appease seasonal Viking traders who might burn your workshops and warehouses down if you bored them by offering the same goods as last time. Ironically the whole idea of drab militarism comes from the army of the British Raj when Indian dye exports had been driving traditional brightly coloured military uniforms for centuries. Khaki was practical in response to smokeless powder making bright red uniforms a viability they hadn't previously been but also a deliberate way to make the occupying army look distinct and disciplined compared to Indian civilian styles. The idea of Anglo-saxon discipline ruling Indian decadence was inspired by Tacitus' Germanica which was more Stoic philosophical allegory than careful ethnography but that still doesn't stop anyone to this day. @@therat1117
Your speaking Swedish at the beginning was pure gold. Even with the little Swedish you may know, anyone would think you're a cosmopolitan polyglot familiar with various languages and cultures, the latter of which is not even so far from the truth.
Abba forever ✊
Never take these videos down, no matter how many complain. These videos are very helpful for snyone who cares enough on these subjects. I completely agree. Historical accuracy matters far more than the modern audience's feelings, and what you're doing is legendary, at least in this modern time. Keep up the good work, and always inform us of things like this.
Damn, I am impressed by this video essay. I am a practicing Heathen and I really appreciate how well thought-out your points are. I especially appreciate your takes on neo-paganism and christianity, modern reconstruction vs. revisionism, etc. I studied music and history in college and I suspected you were a scholarly gentleman when I first found your music. I am pleased to discover that my assessment was correct and I am sharing this video with my Heathen friends to help them understand some of my theological arguments. I also appreciate your referrence to Jackson Crawford's work as I gind him to be an excellent scholar with great content who deserves more recognition for his work
Thanks for the kind words Jonathan!
@@faryafaraji You are very welcome. I love your music and I really appreciate your interpretations when you create music for cultures from the past. I was pleasantly surprised when you pointed out that your Byzantine music is basically modern Greek folk music (If I am recalling your words correctly). I don't know much about Greek folk music, but now I am curious. I love to explore folk music traditions from around the world
It's not just the 21st or 19th Century that indulge in these kinds of myths and projections with regards to history. For some odd reason, the 4th Century Germanic heroes of the Saga of the Volsungs follow 12th Century knightly and courtly etiquette. I wonder if it has something to do with when the Saga of the Volsungs was written.
Seeing my favorite Achaemenid bas relief drop an hour long video essay is the perfect way to spend my night
Thank you❤ That's exactly how I see Farya✨️
Man i wish i had friends who knew a thing or two about archaeology or Iranian history because i really wanna screenshot this comment and show it to someone lmao
This video is so refreshing to see. I'm not finished with the video yet - I'm going to bed lol - but definitely finishing this tomorrow. Just half an hour in you've not only taught me things, but primarily reflected some frustrations that I've had with regards to historical reenactments (of all kinds, but definitely also for my own culture as a Dane), denial of true history (to me Christianity 'stole' part of my culture not by replacing it, but by combining and embracing it, shaping the roots and reasons to fit Jesus and God rather than the Norse pantheon), and forgetting the true roots we do have in folk traditions that are slowly fading into obscurity. Of these you even mention kuling/laling, which I find immensely beautiful and to have immense musical potential even in the modern era and still sound somewhat foreign, but throat singing is preferred for how it supposedly fits the 'strength' of Viking culture. That directly leads to a recent experience which encapsulates a lot of my points. Just two weeks ago I was at a Viking-inspired, fantasy-fueled LARP about Ragnarok, and the experience and setup was absolutely amazing, but the focus of my comrades disappointed me a lot. In the provided roles, I was given a farmer who had immense diplomacy skills and usually managed to solve conflict without strife. My co-players view and focus was on the popularized warring culture of Vikings and Hirdmen. No mention or acknowledgment of the power of words or the virtue of wisdom and cunning was present despite its importance in the few sources we have. In the game even fellow farmers and thralls tended to find mindless brutality preferred. As a history nerd I knows Vikings were the odd ones out who, most likely, came back home to till the fields and create a family when they'd gathered enough gold and glory to be of interest to interesting partners. Few people seem to understand that people from the Viking age were just - people. Slightly different from their close neighbors, but only by margins. Late to Christianity - because Rome hadn't conquered and reformed us yet. You even dared delving into the nationalistic ~white supremacy~ part of the issue, which I can only applaud you for. They are desperately trying to take hold in the new-age pagan traditions, making literally everyone uncomfortable because of their nasty ulterior motives. I figured you'd get issues with these people by making the video but refrained to comment - sad to know they are already at your throat, but considering who they are and your ethnic background it can barely be surprising... I've dabbled in Asatru since I was a teen, not quite spiritual enough to dive in headfirst but too attached to quite let go. I want to believe, but the thought of a perfect and all-powerful being is foreign to my nature-based worldview, so I cannot find comfort in the Abrahamic religions (dabbled in Islam for a second, though). The Old Norse sentiment of gods fits a lot better, and even if I'm still only on the cusp of actually believing it's important for me that people understand what they deal with and how it fits with reality. It'd be horribly sad for new-age pagan people, in search of a respite from Christianity, would continue the unfortunate, slightly Christian tendency of appropriating and reclaiming aspects of foreign cultures in willful ignorance. I and my fellows cannot follow religious practices exactly like that of my ancestors - that opportunity was lost nearly a thousand years ago when Christianity rolled in. But we *can* try to honor it by rekindling the humanely appropriate practices to our best ability, by whatever means allow us to regain some sense of identity. TL;DR cause no one will read even this bit - this video is awesome and its right into some pet peeves and frustrations this Dane has, as well as societal aspects that are important and relevant for this. Thank you for the beautiful work.
Well, didn't expect my long rant to be noticed by Farya, and I'll just assume he read it all so hot damn. This is my first video, I finally finished it, and I will be watching more for sure. I love his whole approach - there's a clear disdain towards the polarization of the world that we need to spread. Things are not black and white, and the nuances are extremely important. I'm also glad you just say things as they are, uncompromising, cause those are facts, and in facts we don't compromise. That leads to misinformation. For one, representation matters, but a black Viking is just a bad look - that's a compromise of history, leading back to my previous point. Instead, just as how unfortunate it is that the face of new-age Viking spiritualism doesn't delve into the more forgotten parts of our culture, it's incredibly unfortunate that we don't bring forth POC stories, cause there are a treasure trove of Asian, Middle Eastern and African folktales, lore and history, but we'd much rather revise Eurocentric stories to fit POC than *actually* bring forth their culture. Another way to remain Eurocentric ties in very closely with your commentary on 300 and the harm that did to the perception of Iranian history. Prince of Persia had a chance to redefine the notion people had of Persia, but the representation was off - a white man stood in the place of the good representation, giving a sense of familiarity to the part of the audience usually catered to, while the monstrosities in 300 was portrayed by POC, keeping it 'foreign' and 'odd'. White audiences need to learn how to relate to actors of difference cultures and races (both in visual media and audio) rather than needing themselves directly reflected before they're allowed to enjoy it (like having Middle Eastern / Asian people be represented by whites, or pretending throat singing is originally Nordic). This leads very much into how correct you are about the notion of shamanism and how we in Western society put European culture as default. There's Europe and its offspring, and then the rest of the world. There's the Abrahamic religions, and then the heathens of which Muslims may or may not be included depending on your flavor of White. This (unsurprisingly) leads to a warped understanding of the world, with the notions of superiority of 'complex' societies, fully ignoring how unviable its been until recently to have stationary communities in desert or steppe regions, making Hunter-Gatherer or nomadic ways of life not only necessary, but literally the smartest way to live in many supposedly 'barbaric' or 'less civilized' regions. Not to mention such non-European ways of life doesn't cause immense carbon emissions or devastate ecosystems, and Science is currently adopting farming techniques from various native lands (sustainable rain forest farming from South America, revitalizing and reforesting water-saving practices from Sahel, and so many others). But that's a tangent coming from my background in Biology. What I'm actually trying to say is that, likely because Western audiences are usually catered to and have been spoon fed propaganda-like notions as a leftover of history, many look at the world through that Western, Eurocentric, Abrahamic (Christian) lens. Anything not like them gets labeled lesser, or exotic, or foreign but fascinating, and when it becomes accepted or cool in their minds, it needs to conform to the world view they have already - or does so automatically for them to understand it, even without the conscious decision from the consumer. The last instance I experienced of this was, unsurprisingly, a KZhead comment about Greek Mythology. A person was vehemently arguing under a comment about the importance of flaws and duality in the Greek Gods. Coming from that Abrahamic background, this person posed that by simple virtue of being Gods, they were perfect and infallible, and our notion as humans that they were came from a mortal perspective. As seen in many, many Greek myths, the Gods can be both stupid, jealous, gullible and vain, and this was likely part of the understanding that Ancient Greek peoples had of their world and pantheon - of how life and people are both cruel and kind 'depending on the weather'. But I'm honestly babbling at this point. Thanks for coming to my ted talk. I've been intellectually and emotionally stimulated by this video, have regained a bit of my hope in humanity, and is certainly moving on to enjoy other videos from this wonderful man.
Honestly, I'm good as long as the band doesn't claim that what they're doing is authentic (which neither of my faves, Wardruna and Heilung, does). Your essay helped me understand what Heilung mean when they describe themselves as (I'm heavily paraphrasing here) what pagan music could have sounded like today if it had the opportunity to develop further after Christianity came to Europe. The answer is clear: a hypnotic dance beat accompanied by verses meant to help heal a horse's broken leg. Which makes horned helmets, braids, and the historical costumes at pagan music shows the equivalent of wearing a t-shirt with a band logo. Teeheee- this is my new headcanon now.
A much-needed in-depth representation of this type of music. I really thought MOST people generally understood that this type of music is clearly not medieval Norse. It's crazy how this got so out of proportion, especially considering that it is played in museums. What you say at 10:12 is very important not only for music but also for culture in general. Most people typically have either a very 'modern' or their own conjured-up images of the past. Some have suggested that Heilung and Wardruna, despite not being historically accurate, are akin to the band 'the HU', where modern musicians play old music. However, I disagree with this comparison. 'The HU' members play instruments like the Tovshuur and the Morin khuur, which have a continuous historical lineage, being played from medieval to modern times (as far as I know). Additionally, they utilize pentatonic scales, similar to traditional Mongolian music. What makes their music modern is that they combine it with metal of course. While Wardruna's Einar Selvik reconstructs old instruments (which are very cool btw) and recites part of the Poetic Edda, both the intonation and rhythm of Wardruna's songs is modern with incorporated elements from other 'exotic' traditional cultures. By the way, I like that you flimed this video in 1000 different places and from 100 angles. haha
Couldn't agree more. The HU are amplifying Mongolian folk music, but Wardruna isn't Scandinavian folk amplified; rather it's an avant garde, experimental, new sound, which has its own merits
Huun-Huur-Tu is a fantastic band that creates a more authentic sound of Tuvan and Mongolian music. The only equivalent band I can think of for Norse music is Krauka, and even then only really their very first album, Vikinga Seidur. That album, I feel, is the closest thing we have to what actual Norse music of that time period would have sounded like other than some of the lyre playing done by Farya and Harald Foss.
Would a more authentic way of performing this be done through adapting modern music but with past themes maybe? @@faryafaraji
@@blakeprocter5818 have you checked out Per Runberg? He is a hero in the Swedish folk musican scene. Most, if not all, of the album Andor is on KZhead, and on Spotify, try searching for Tolvmilan skog. There is also Garmarna, who tend to use a modern take on Swedish folk music, check out Sven i Rosengård, or Korp, check out Varulven.
The HU rocks!. Since they are, you know, the original real deal and copyrighters so to say of the throat singing, there is this feeling of authenticity that many waudrunas wannabes don't get. Maybe if they tried incorporated Sami Joikin they would get the same effect without being pretentious and also disingenuous
This is an amazing video; I was just nodding along the whole time. Your criticisms of certain elements occupying the "historical music" space are well-articulated and hit the nail on the head, and I also totally agree with your admiration of individual artistic flair and style. While features like throat-singing obviously aren't authentically Scandinavian (and we should push back against people who claim that they are), creative people should still run with their muses and create the sort of music they like (and which others too clearly like), so long as it isn't claiming to be a representation/reconstruction of something that it isn't. I think "historically-themed" artists are on something of a spectrum of authenticity, which can fluctuate from song to song depending on the artist. Speaking only for myself as someone new to making music, like your point about Einar Selvik, I try to "capture" (note, not "authentically reproduce") the spirit of an earlier age with more simple/"appropriate" instrumentation in certain songs, while in other songs I draw upon heavy inspiration from metal music, modern folk, religious chants/hymns and even hip-hop. On that note, I very much like how transparent you are in the descriptions of your songs by stating outright that certain elements and features you employ are technically modern. That, however, doesn't stop them from appealing to and fulfilling our desire for an authentic cultural experience, which is a tricky balancing act and an art you've honed and perfected. Keep up the great work anyway, friend. It's great to hear your perspective on things and I have great respect for your music and your breadth of knowledge.
It's always an honour to read your comments my friend. I actually tend to reference you as a model of what a culturally authentic, modern take on a previous iteration of a culture is. Your Varangian Ballad may not be reconstructed Norse music, but it is a prime example of Scandinavian music of today, especially with the sound of the metal stringed lyre you play (is that a lyre? It could also be a zither but my ear says it's a lyre with metal strings). And of course it's beautiful music, as I keep saying. Also, sorry about the very late reply to your last email, I'll write to you in not long! I was dealing with some minor health problems but I'm better now
@@faryafarajiMuch appreciated, my friend - and yep, it's played with a lyre. Hope you're recovering well, and no rush :-)
Kulokk is going a little bit more mainstream now that Norway is sending the band Gåte and their song Ulveham to Eurovision, and it's so exciting! And I loved this video, it's been quite insightful. Thank you from Norway 🇳🇴
If this guy told me he was 4000 years old, I’d probably believe it
Incredible video! I'm around 20:09 right now and wanted to chime into share how much movies play a big part in western people wanting to nationistalically identify with historical cultures. When Braveheart came out every North American was saying, "yeah I'm part scottish/irish," when Gladiator and Pirates of the Carribean came out suddenly everyone was into greek and pirate shit, and the Vikings came out and everyone was into vikings or claiming norse heritage. We follow the trends of what the entertainment industry provides us and thus our understanding of that culture is limited to whatever that specific filmmaker's interpretation of that culture perceives them as-- which, as we know, is limited by their research and often influenced by how the producers expect the audiences to accept the interpretation, it's a chicken and egg situation. Old norse linguist Jackson Crawford believes it goes even further than historical drama/bio pics. He believes the viking craze started with the Lord of the Rings movies as much of the viking/pagan look we see today is more inspired by those movies than of traditional viking aesthetics -- as someone who this is definitely true for, I can confirm the relation and am certain is it true for others, which is reinforced by how many viking influencers use the Lord of the Rings OST in their content.
the photo at 25:38 is absolutly perfect by the way. I gather much of the desire for neo-paganism amongst western people is a direct whiplash reaction to wanting to be religious and spiritual, whilst having deep shame of Christianity's history, holding anger towards their immediate religious family, and not wanting to appropriate into a established religion of another culture (islam, judism, hindu, buddist, etc.). So bc they are shameful of their religious heritage (fair enough), and feel it is unethical to join another major religion of another cultural group, they have decided to re-create old religions of their perceived heritage. However, since written records of these religions and cultures were only made by other cultures or christian monks, these neo-pagans have absolutely nothing to go on besides mythic tales, movies, Tv shows, other pagan Influencers, and whatever "feels right" to them- nearly all of it an antithesis to what a christian world would deem appropriate. Oh Christians hate gods with horns, alright, lets wear horns; christians hate animal furs and corpse pain make up, lets wear that; etc. I think folk horror films have also done a lot of damage to this and influenced much of the aesthetic of neo-pagan image and music -- again films with purely christian influence, who's representation of paganism is featured only in relation to christian iconagraphies; ie. Pagan gods = demons. I personally really enjoy the neo-pagan aestetic bc it is enticing, mystical, fantastic, ethereal, and "otherworldly", but I'll also be honest to myself and say that it's simply a DnD roleplaying fantasy aesthetic, it's not historical accurate. I'm okay with this personally and as you said, many neo-pagans I've met at Renfares are lovely individuals who are just trying to find a spiritual meaning to them. Totally cool, no issues there. The issue is really with those people who equate the aestetic to historical accuracy or "what our ancestors practiced" of which sadly there are too many.
I also really appreciate that you constantly emphasize that it's okay to like modern interpretations of history even if its' not historically accurate. Neil Gaiman had a great quote a while back that went along the lines of, "it is not the artists job to accurately represent history as it purely was; it is the artists job to make the audience feel like what it would have been to exist in that time and connect with the emotions of its people." One of my favourite examples of this is Braveheart, where William Wallace and the gang dawn woad paint to go fight the english in the final battle. The lads didn't actually do this in history, they likely wore similar uniforms to the English, but seeing them dawn woad paint gives us the feeling of rebellion that the filmmakers want to us empathize with, and so it cinematically works. Another great example of this is using modern riot girl and pop songs in Marie Antoinette to help the audience connect with the teenage attitude of these French aristocrats
I think along with pop culture/movie influences, another reason Americans (and I’d imagine Canadians too) specifically want to identify with other countries and cultures on a nationalistic level is due to the relative newness of these countries. Both countries were founded within the last 250 years, and more importantly most people living in them have recent ancestry from another part of the world. Combine that with the often internalized belief among Americans that we have no culture/America’s culture is “basic,” “normal,” and “mainline” and you end up with many Americans looking abroad and identifying with foreign cultures, especially cultures that their ancestors hailed from but that they themselves have little, if any meaningful connection to.
@@6ixpoint5ive I agree. I'm a budding neo-pagan myself, and I find myself dying of cringe from mere exposure to 99% of neopagans. It's just too focused on aesthetics, and rather anachronistic and bad ones at that.
Neopaganism is mostly just trying to play dress-up in grandpa's clothes, or what you think grandpa's clothes were. There's a reason people became Christians and never looked back.
54:20 "Why is no one sounding the alarm!? The freaking CUMANS are INSIDE the TOWN!!"
They really did say Cuman side
As someone with pagan tendencies (in the original sense of the word, 'paganus'), the rural folk traditions of my nearer Norwegian-American ancestors does more for my spirituality than the heightened reality created by Heilung and Wardruna. I enjoy both bands and would love to see them play in person, but I recognize their goals realistically. In my own spiritual practice of ancestor veneration, the folk music that my ancestors brought to the US is more resonant to me. I am also a jawharpist (because I'm not musically skilled enough to play the hardingfele, lol) for this reason, and I'm always learning more tunes from rural valleys in Norway because I want to add to and enrich the traditions that persist here in the US.
People often ignore authentic speech and language for the time too, similar to your point about ignoring authentic music for the time.
A small note on the Duduk and Rome: Duduk has a fairly similar sound to the Greek Aulos/ Roman Tibia, although only one Duduk pipe is played at a time, as opposed to two with Tibia. So I don't think it's too out of place of a sound for Rome. I know you know all this (you even mention it later in the video), but I thought it worth saying. I love all your videos, by the way. I've been sending your videos to Archaeology and Ethnomusicology professors on my college campus. They all seem to really like your stuff!
That's a great point, some aulos models produce a sound similar to the aulos, but that's ultimately besides the point. Hans Zimmer didn't use the duduk because he knew that, and audiences didn't accept its usage because they knew the historical connection, nodding intellectually at the connection. If Hans Zimmer had known about the aulos being similar to the duduk, and he wanted that exact kind of sound; then he would have just used the aulos seeing as it has the same sound + the advantage of being Roman. Joe Bloe in 2000 with his bros in the theatre didn't think the duduk wasn't out of place out of knowledge of its similarity with the aulos, he just thought the vaguely eastern sound he couldn't put his finger on matched the vaguely ancient aesthetic of the film, and that's the point of the segment: historically themed music being allowed due to audience ignorance. Also whilst we can stretch the applicability of the duduk for Rome with some stretchy intellectual maneuvres as we're doing here, the fact that it has become the de facto "desert/arab" sound in Western media can't be rationalised with any anthropologically valid reasons.
@faryafaraji Ah. Fair enough. Maybe I'm projecting my style of culturally and historically informed composition techniques onto Zimmer. I like to write music inspired by the world's sounds. I like to compose Gamelan, for example, including taking part in a local Gamelan to get the sound and techniques in my head and reading scholarly articles and ethnographies to better understand. Of course, not everyone does it that way. My music will probably never be mainstream as a result, but it brings me so much joy to be as accurate as possible.
I've played mey (the Turkish duduk) for a Turkish restaurant and I have a mijwiz, the ancient ancestor of the Aulos. The mijwiz has only seven holes for seven notes but mine has only a six note range. I think the reeds are wrong. It's quite frustrating to play much music on it, you can play the Hebrew Sh'ma on it but you can't play much else. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star may be barely within its capabilities but Amazing Grace is out of it's range. The mey has 9 notes and many more songs in many different genres same as a bagpipe. The zurna and Chinese suona can overblow another octave but the zurna can do a lot of music while the suona is more limited because of how the scale is set on the instrument. The lowest note of my zurna is the fundamental and the lowest note of my mey is the same. The lowest note of the Great Highland Bagpipe is the seventh. The lowest note of the suona is the second (re) and so there literally aren't songs that can play on the suona like you would sing and most of what you can find on the internet is (100 Birds) because while the upper octave is possible on Suona, it's kinda chirpy. I discussed this issue with modern Aulos makers and players and what they told me was that there is indeed a full octave on their auloi but the upper few notes are very hard to reach. They simply haven't learned how to play them yet. It would seem that the monaulos took over because of this slightly greater range because Italian Zampogna players don't do any better than me on my six-note mijwiz with one extra hole to make makam hicaz. Zampogna "songs" include a ciaramella which is a zurna for greater range. (A disappointment) The Aulos is usually depicted as a solo instrument which makes me doubt that the ancient musicians had this range limitation. We just haven't figured out how they did it. The instant someone shoved an arghul into a sheepskin (probably by accident) the Aulos mostly died. An Ethiopian once came to me while I was playing a Bulgarian kaba gaida and he told me they used inflated sheepskins like I had under my arm to cross rivers with. (Insert story of how the bagpipe was created when Hassan from Iskanderia was crossing a canal with his arghul and he was clumsy and stuck the arghul in the sheepskin so to stay afloat he kept inflating the sheepskin until the argul started playing itself.
@@petehoover6616 sorry but the mijwiz is not the "ancient ancestor" of the aulos. If anything it's a relatively modern descendent of it, at absolute best. The Egyptians and Sumerians played aulos-like instruments but those, too, were very different from the mijwiz. To make a claim like what you made betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how musical instruments are designed, how they work, and how they develop historically, not to mention a very superficial understanding of both mijwiz and aulos, and probably duduk as well. Furthermore, why are you complaining how it's "frustrating to play much music on it"? I think a real mijwiz player from Egypt would strongly disagree and then go on to play amazing music on it in your face. You just haven't accepted that the mijwiz, like every single other instrument, is designed to play the music that 'sounds right' to the culture it comes from. Just accept that and you can learn to play amazing music on it I'm sure.
Well, Armenia is close to Northern Greece and we know what dashing precocious conqueror those lands produced............and let's point out that Armenia diaspora is well known. However, even if the duduk can sound familiar for obvious reasons, the music and its incorporation has a very modern, like evocative feeling. But I get why he chose it. He wanted to evoke an atmosphere and a sensation, a concept in the viewers. If RS couldn't risk the public ire if he situated Maximus's home in Trugulum(nowadays Trujillo, a completely medieval feeling like town)as he initially envisioned, try to keep the cringe if the soundtrack included a tambourine and some flutes like a traditional seguidilla extremeña from the region
As a Turk I love listening to "Viking" throat-singing music because I imagine Gokturks riding and falling upon their enemies at night, I have to settle for this because my people don't make such music and instead are larping as Arabs and Westerners :D
By turk you mean Turkish? I bet you look identical to an average Greek guy. How are you related to the turks of central Asia?
As a kazakh i don't think folk music evolution is bad, even without big arabic influence our music changed in middle ages, less "throat singing" more high notes, music always evolves, i hope you can apreciate your music from any period of time from oghuz to modern.
Have you listened to Altai Kai? Not TurkISH but at least is TurkiIC
You had to say this to a Turk who looks Mongoloid. I know seven generations of my ancestors. I'm not related to the Turks of Central Asia, I _am_ the Turks of Central Asia.@@vulpesinculta9253
It's not so much foreign musical influence that bothers me, even the Gokturks had Chinese and Iranian influences in art and culture. But as Turks, our very culture and identity which was born in the Mongolian steppes, is being suppressed by foreign cultures masquerading as religions and modernisation. @@tsj8726
Thank you! It's a constant concern that cultural heritage is being undermined by the rule of cool, from "tourists" looking for a new aesthetic in lieu of a personality. THEY CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT! I was one of those reenactors who has been living the waking nightmare of seeing the late night drum circles at events in the late 2000's go way too far. Being slowly canonized as a plausible cultural expression, by people who ought to know better. Anyway, my own impression from interacting with some of the key players is that their feelings about their own legacy is quite mixed, even if they are too humble to insult their fanbase. I referred to the Heilung concert crowd as "Viking Juggalos" to a member of the band, and he burst out laughing. Another artist remarked jokingly that whoever set up an eyeliner stand at ["Pagan Coachella"] would be a rich man.
First time viewer who has now subscribed - love your work! If anyone interprets your video as condemnation of the genre driven by Heilung, Wardruna etc, then they are NOT truly hearing your words. This was fascinating and informative and enlightening…. and it certainly doesn’t make me think less of any modern artistry that I enjoy.
So many mind opening points made, well done sir. Another thing about Norse culture I think people often overlook is their poems. They weren’t just ways of telling a story, it was a way to play with the audience. For instance so many times people turn into animals in the sagas… are they really believing that or is there some metaphor?? It’s possible that the poet wanted both kinds of audiences; on top of the fact that these poems were probably beautifully sung (no throat singing for sure). I completely agree on the matter of cultural appropriation and to it I’ll add: Each human has a background to be competently*** proud of. They have the right to appreciate the many cultural ties of their family tree and heritage. Just as long as that person doesn’t become an invasive vacuum of other beautiful cultures which can be appreciated and enjoyed while not being those ethnicities. In fact I believe papa Franku said something similar. Great video as always Farya 🤟
Ayyy great quote, Papa Franku said that in his video "Weaboos." His wisdom lives on
@@faryafaraji Father taught us well didn’t he?
Benjamin Bagby and his Sequentia ensemble have done a lot of solid renditions of old Norse poetic performances.
The skalds probably did the recitation with a dash of mimic and theatre like features, as well as music and dancing, to give more plasticity to the audience. And try to do it at night, around and fire and mead going around.
The funny thing with the top 1 Lucia song that is always included in a Luciatåg and was played in your clip, is that it was written in the 19th century by people who romanticised the "Sweden of old" and the melody is Italian. There are obviously older songs as well, but A LOT of popular "folk music" has only existed for a maximum of 150 years or so. Another example that Swedes might recognise is the song "En kungens man" that was written during the seventies. A lot of people believe it to be medieval but it was written by Björn Afzelius (I recommend the version by Monica Törnell if someone want to hear it) The seventies was a time when folk music had a great revival in Sweden and a lot of people wrote their own songs. However, of course there were also people that would record new versions of songs that had actually existed since the medieval times, I believe "Balladen om Liten Karin" is a good example of that. While the recording of this song that is available online (I recommend the version by Rosenbergs sjua on Spotify) probably is a lot more modern than it would've been, it is still interesting to compare those two when it comes to the melody and the way they are written (With Balladen om Liten Karin having a lot more phrases that is stated several times, for example). What I am saying is that this type of behaviour has been around a long time.
The kinds of 'fans' of art who engage with it only through uncritical positivity confuse me. Frankly, it's often more interesting to engage with a work critically, especially if you enjoy it, since it fosters a greater understanding of it.
Fantastic job, Farya! In that same interview, Einar says that personally, and in the composition of Warduna's music, he identifies more with the Nordic Bronze Age rather than the Viking Age, which possibly relates to the "primitivism" of the music.
He is indeed, although it should be clarified for others reading this that even then, it's not reconstructed Bronze Age music, but an artistic, allegorical spin on it.
Absolutely, because nobody really has any clue whatsoever what Nordic music circa, oh, let's say 1200 BC would actually sound like, but Wardruna's music definitely creates an atmosphere of that remote age.
@@richwest6282recently, a conch modified to be a blow instrument was found in France dating back from the Magdalene period if my memory is reliable. Actually, they tried to play notes and short melodies. Let say that Warduna was not trying to recreate that. It's the little we know........and something else
Modern day T-Series music is the authentic representation of music of Ancient India. You cannot change my mind.
This started as something hilarious, almost like something out of a /pol/ meme: a Middle Eastern dude teaching KZhead audience about what Norse culture should and should not be. And yet, this is some quality content. Thank you for the knowledge and work you've put into the video. I wish you would start with your background first because I fear that many people who could've benefited from hearing your words just clicked out. Probably, this was intended not so much for the new audience, but this site is random in promoting content. I am a huge fan of medieval neofolk, neo-pagan music, and other similar genres. I have been listening to it for more than a decade now. I grew up with Corvus Corax and later Wardruna in my ears. And I've always thought of that kind of music as being metal music played with ancient instruments. Funny that you've managed to find people who think it is historically accurate. For me, it was enough to know that we don't have enough sources to know what ancient music exactly sounded like; any modern rendition is just an estimation if not a complete fantasy. I think that the ancient Norse would actually find Wardruna's music good, just as we do, if a time traveler was able to present it in the right way: explaining what to expect beforehand. That it is an aggressive and exotic sound that makes your head rock, your blood boil, and provokes your mind to deep thoughts. But if the time traveler just played it as is, this would be a cultural shock. At best, they would politely ask him to shut up, at worst, they would execute him in the name of Bragi, you know, just to be on the safe side.
Lol, that juxtaposition of "pop culture" vs "historically accurate" in 22:04 was brilliant
That was so funny lol.
59:15 The whole anti-horned helmet thing is also an over-correction in general. The reason horned helmets shouldn't be associated with the Norse is the minimal evidence for it, not that it is impractical or a "grab hazard". Horned helmets pop up from time to time (two examples I can think of are the ancient Iberians and Oscan Italians, same period) and realistically they are no more of a grab hazard than any other embellished helmet. High conicals, knobs, top spikes, crests and plume holders can all be grabbed, didn't seem to be enough of an issue to stop anyone from blinging up their helmet.
Also that horned helmets shouldn't be used as a Norse icon, since horned helmets have been used in many cultures for a large variety of reasons.
Horned helmets do show up in iconography in Germanic/Norse culture. Depictions of Odin are usually shown with horned helmets, but the end of the horn has a raven’s head. Horned helmets did exist in the ancestors of the Germanic people in the bronze and iron ages. There is the stereotypical horned helmet that appears twice in the Oseberg tapestry from the 9th century.
Horned helmets were only used for costuming during entertainment. The germanics saw the romans wear them while depicting mythological creatures in theater and copied it, or at least that's what I've been told. I'm not sure if the norse had anything to do with this but from what I've been told the lower germanics didn't use them for battle at all, just decoration or for entertainment purposes.
Mongolian throat singing within the walls of Visby might take place as one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen this year… Makes you realize how powerful pop-culture is
Also 300s depiction of the Persians was pure US-propaganda to justify their contemporary war in Iraq
I once uploaded a video of a live performance of some viking inspired music featuring throat singing (Maria Franz from Heilung was among them, the recording however dates a few years before Heilung). The comment section is SWARMED by essays about how the vikings did undoubtedly do throat singing.
This video, albeit rather long, is the best and in my opinion ultimate take on "viking-themed" music and all its implications. You did some great work here. And it made me discover your other videos on historical music, so it's a double win.
Fun fact - some of the music in "Braveheart" that sounds slightly like a tin/low whistle was actually played on a south American quena. I never knew some people thought, music in Hollywood movies should be authentic to the time period BTW. But I don't really follow any debates online about the topic. I also never knew people actually thought Heilung made "authentic historical music". That's whole new levels of ignorance.
The pipes in braveheart are also Irish pipes as opposed to the Scottish bagpipe! To be fair, it does have a more melodious tone.
Can you do a video about music of ancient Finland music such as the Sámi joik or Finnish-Karelian rune singing and Kalevala?
I'll have to inform myself first as it's still a mysterious part of music for me, but I certainly will at some point!
@@faryafaraji perkele 👍
@@faryafaraji I would really love to see that as well! Thanks for this great video, you got me subscribed
Much appreciated. I just discovered your channel with this. I know people hate long posts, but here is the impact this work had on me: I don’t know music theory, and what ability to discern tone and note has been greatly reduced by countless battles and explosions. Music to me was always taught like maths, using the formula and outcomes only, never teaching the reasons or the usage in motion. It was never brought to life. That’s far sadder given my fascination with history. Today I have access to your kind, who open up this world and connect all of pieces together. I am grateful.
Thank you for existing. This was fantastic and in a world devoid of much worthwhile to say and even fewer engaging takes on that which is, this does and was. Appreciate you, look forward to deep diving and further exploring your art/ content. Be well
Very great video, watched whole with pleasure. I completely agree with you in this matter. As a person from Poland I have also similar thoughts on "Ancient Slavic music" which is maybe not so popularized like "Viking" one and not so exotic but still involves features which Early Slavs probably didn't know, like that "dark pagan" theme which is completely modern thing. Also very often is used East Slavic white voice which is common among among Slavs although in different forms (e.g. in Poland it sounds much different than in Russia). And I see that all like people are treating Russian folk music like generally Slavic music though it is, I think, much different than folk music in other Slavic countries and sounds for me more similar to near Siberian music like Mordvin etc. (but I don't know much about this music so I can't argue it's just my feeling). If we want to find Early Slavic music I believe we should look for it in central regions: Belarus, Western Ukraine, Eastern Poland and Carpathia. At the second side there is present-day imagination of "Polish folk" music which are performances of actual folk songs but with much modern influence and without any research into actual folk traditions (these are popular songs like "W moim ogródeczku" or "Czerwone jagody"). Recently I rediscovered Polish folk music in its pure raw form and I find it much more interesting. In Eastern Poland and Carpathian region pentatonic scale is still present and some songs without instrumentation can sound really great. Vocals only songs from Kurpie remind me sometimes East Asiatic music, traditional oberek and mazurek dances sound a bit like Celtic fiddle music and music from Podhale (actually more similar to Carpathian and Pannonian music rather than to Polish) gives a unique exotic vibe. I am amazed that Polish music sounds like that and it's a pity that most people have no idea about that music. Thanks if you read this and have a nice day!
Are there any youtube channels that perform the types of Polish folk music you mention?
I'm very very happy that your channel and this video in particular was fed to me by the KZhead algorithm. I share a very similar outlook on pop culture's cultural appropriation and how much damage it's done about the accuracy of the ancient world and the cultures that inhabited it, as well as the idea that cultural appropriation isn't a one-way street and it has been done by people, companies, and cultures around the world, I was born in New York to Irish immigrants and spent my summers in Ireland with family, and thanks in large part to relatives who are either actual history professors or just very interested in our families and Ireland's history, I've also had arguments along the lines of ones that you related in this video, namely that insular Irish Catholicism is much closer to what Irish paganism and culture was like vs what pagan revivalists would have you believe pre Christian Irish culture, religion, and history was like. You've earned a very well-deserved subscription with notifications turned on thanks to how well this video was made and how you make your points both reasonably and succinct enough that IMO you're right up there with Metatron in regards to the delivery of information, soundlessly made arguments and done with respect while also not pulling any punches. For now, I very much look forward to going through your back catalog and new videos and I'd like to thank you for being so reasonable in an area where the norm is that creators all too often allow feelings/biases to trump the facts.
I remember people losing it when the Atredes themes in Dune had bagpipes because they thought House Atredes was being portrayed as scottish instead of greek descended. Then you look into it and turns out Zimmer was pretty damn accurate lmao.
Yes and no haha, the director wanted bagpipes because "he personally always saw the Atreides as Celtic" in his own words, so the intention remains stereotypically "bagpipes = scots/celts"
That i did not know, @@faryafaraji that's actually kinda funny lol
@@faryafaraji there's also the pun of Caladan/Caledonia
@@cuckmulligan7602 Yeah that's probably what drove Villeneuve to conceptualise them as Celtic. Then again he does honour their Greek heritage as he did cast Leto as the Mediterranean phenotype he has in the book so he probably knows his lore
thank you so much for this video. something very similar is currently happening with slavic folk music and folklore as this popcultural rendition of 'slavicness' grows in popularity. your material will be a mighty handy argument that I'll be able to use as a comparison. the whole ordeal however with modern pagans feels to me a lot like trying to explain to americans who come to europe to 'claim their ancestry' because their greatx5grandfather came from ireland/germany/italy etc. that they are in fact and above all americans. they were born and raised in america and their nationality and culture is american. also @38:00 fun fact: impresionists called and considered themselves realists because of what and how they painted. the name 'impressionists' was given later in a scathing review by critic Louis Leroy as a way to mock them
35:32 "Czy ty się słyszysz, Ciesław? Lisy nie mówią i nie trzeba jechać do Francji, żeby to wiedzieć. To do kogo ten lis mówi, Ciesław? Do kruka? Nosz kurwa" Banger of a videoessay as always, bunch of thanks 🔥As part of my research, I had to grapple with the textual layer of East-Slavic and Polish neo-pagan music. And, as you say in the video, there is nothing bad in a certain artistic vision of course, it’s just funny to what extent larpers buy the image created by these artists and go like "wooo, the ancient Slavic spirit is awakening in me, this is the message of our pre-Christian ancestors, go pagan, reject the West" while overwhelmingly often those bands, their songs and aesthetic are the essence of 19th-century European romanticism poetics. Not to mention the Slavic pantheon described in these songs, which was - by researchers, and after them by artists - expanded in a painstaking and desperate reconstruction from extremely scant direct historical sources (cause old Slavic cults are only as true, cool and worthy of attention as they manage to resemble the awesome Nordic paganism with huge pantheon that we know from pop culture, duh). So, it’s reminiscence of the romantic European poetics, plus a complex of inferiority towards the West, precisely towards Western paganisms and the following aesthetic - and all this under the guise of returning to the roots and rejecting some kind of foreign culture imposed on us lol
The Bulgarian National choir was used in Disney movie brother bear, because to non Bulgarian speakers it sounded like native American music. historically themed music is ignorance based
Which is extra weird because Disney Produces in America and native Americans are in America... while Bulgarians are in Bulgaria. Why not use actual native singers? They literally went out of their way to make the music less authentic, they went over the fucking ocean to fuck it up lol.
Bulgarian Orthodox Church Choirs are also a usual go-to for 'sounds like church music' or 'religious chanting', even though the style of chanting they use is very different from traditional Gregorian Chants, for example, and so would be very out-of-place in a historical Catholic or Protestant setting. And yet....
@@princesseville6889cause the whole movie is a Disney production which means they make products/artworks for the general public and especially kids, brother bear like Pocahontas is pretty catastrophic ethnologically speaking and for us it’s an issue but for them and the public at the time it’s not worth addressing, just like gladiator or other exemples quoted in the vidéo
Bulgarian choral singing is used in various settings and genres because its dissonant harmonies and other factors are great at communicating something "otherworldly" to most people outside Bulgaria. Hence using it for the most supernatural scene in Brother Bear (Phil Collins got the rest lol). It's also in soundtracks for Ghibli films, Ghost in the Shell, etc. So yes, they skipped actual native music in favor of a specific musical feeling. Thankfully other filmmakers have used it not at the expense of native music.
Insightful video. It’s going to change how I listen to music going forward. Also the image of Slavoj Zizek when you wiped your nose cracked me up.
I got into the Nordic folk revival in the 1990s, which was based on the folk traditions of, as I understood it, going back to about the 18th century as far as melodies and instruments go, but incorporated innovations - I read an interview with a Norwegian jazz drummer at the time who thought it was stupid. I understand people will draw the line in different places as to what is pure. But there was something about that whole movement that always had a solid understanding of history and folklore, even if bands like Hedningarna plugged lutes into fuzz pedals and played the tambourine with Carnatic technique. They still had a basis in their culture's traditional instruments and melodies. Despite trying to be "pagan," they weren't trying to be "Viking" and didn't take themselves too seriously. When Värttinä combined Finnish verse with Bulgarian harmony and meter with folk-jazz instrumentation, that inventiveness came up with some great new music. They featured throat-singing guests on their 1998 album - is that what sparked the idea? You'd think that, yes, kulning would be at the forefront of ongoing Nordic folk innovation... and *joik* - especially since joik is so similar to American Indian singing. When I was a teenager and I first heard spoken Norwegian, I could not believe it: it sounded nothing like I imagined Norwegian *should* sound. I was imposing my American suburban paperback-reading fantasies on an actual *living vernacular language.* This is the kind of attitude that makes Americans so ugly as tourists around the world, and I am glad I outgrew it. But after watching this video I also understand it's not only Americans who are guilty of such laziness.
Hedningarna definitely don't take themselves seriously. One of the founders is known for playing on a banana-shaped tagelharpa with a chicken mask on.
I was really into Northside too, and I was just thinking about that Värttinä collab with Yat-Kha! That was what originally introduced me to throatsinging, and I think my awareness of it made it immediately obvious to me that Heilung was fusion. Kids today seem to have decided that kulning is something that Jonna Jinton invented (I've actually seen them telling each other that that famous one sung by Susanne Rosenberg is by Jonna Jinton) so maybe that's why they don't use it. Then again, I have heard it used on its own on tv shows in non-Nordic contexts...maybe it's just harder to integrate into other songs? Central Asian throatsinging is easy to integrate into almost everything...it doesn't clash with anything...practically everything sounds better with it.
23:30 thank you for saying this! I've been complaining about this for years. It's very hurtful and anti-intellectual how people lump all non-Abrahamic forms of religion and go "yes this is perfectly historical". Ancient religion, mythology, is often not much better understood than historical music, and so there's often plenty of people spreading misinformation on it. Thank you for bringing it up.
Love this video. Teaching about real history and criticizing the aspects that need to be criticized without getting mad at art for being art.
Oh damn. I hope rest of your videos are this good and interesting. I come from a northern Finnish background and have always struggled with a sense of disconnectedness from our cultural roots. A lot of it has to do with being part of Sweden then Russia and most of the little that has been saved is more Karelian or sami. It's interesting that even though the older generations of my family were very christian there were these hints, faint but there of older beliefs. Singing/ poem chanting has strong roots here. Wonder if you have made a video on the more Finnish/sami perspective on this. Would really be interesting to hear your thoughts on that one as well. You are very well articulated and express your thoughts really well.
I can't believe Ragnar Lothbrok invented abba :( how could our teachers lie to us.......
I'd like to see an attempt at ancient Germanic or Scandinavian music that ditches the throat singing and the big Native American drumskins, and uses the huge Bronze Age lurs from Denmark, maybe mixed with the oldest written Norse melodies from the thirteenth century, or maybe some of the Icelandic tvisongur parallel fifths singing, even if it's disputed whether it was indigenous or imported from the medieval Christian world. A lot of the medieval (post-Viking) Norse folk melodies sound similar to melodies in neighboring areas like the Baltic states or Slavic countries, and I'm sure a lot of them that maybe aren't even written down anywhere that get passed down in families are probably very old. If there is going to be percussion, get rid of the big epic movie soundtrack drums and replace them with rattles and shaking of decorated spears, maybe with a faster tempo that sounds more authentically "tribal" like you might hear in the indigenous music of east Africa or Australia, instead of the "groovy" drumbeats that sound too much like modern music. There is a very obscure band called Waldteufel with an album called Heimliches Deutschland that just feels intuitively more realistic to me (particularly the song "Wolfsstund") than the Heilungs and Wardrunas.
I've done two historically informed reconstructions so far, typing "Farya Faraji Norse music," should reveal them. I also recommend Ensemble Mare Balticum's reconstructions: kzhead.info/sun/mpyHY8l_Z6eVgo0/bejne.htmlsi=k-A1gP5ZV1T5Flh6
@@faryafaraji Wow, Þrymskviða sounds great. The Dorian minor mode works really well for this. Actually kind of sounds like the artist I mentioned in my first comment, even if that one is "darker."
Have you listened to any Icelandic and Faroese traditional singing? kzhead.info/sun/qap-e5maiWdopaM/bejne.html kzhead.info/sun/ddisj9pxpKOsZp8/bejne.html
Very similarly, when we hear that electric guitar riff from Sergio Leone's movies we think of the American Frontier West, even though we all know that electric guitars didn't exist in that time. But it does fit the modern myth about the American West as our current culture has established. Culture is a wily thing to document and describe but I appreciate those who do spend their precious time studying and discovering what we can about cultures of the past. On the other hand, I think it is both fine and natural for modern and future peoples to re-mythologize previously established myths, as long as the documentation of the older forms of these myths are not lost as well. For instance if I say "Thor" how many people are going to think of a blonde guy in a 19th century or 18th century painting, how many people are going to think of blonde Chris Hemsworth in tights, and how many people are going to think about how the sagas mention his hair is supposedly red? The medieval Scandinavians are a bit special in that we really have a large blindspot of their culture despite them being so recent, much the same as the pre-colombian mezo and south american societies. Sure we have the sagas, and we have archaeology, but most written accounts of the medieval scandinavians are from sources written by people other than the medieval scandinavians. This continues to ring true even after Christianization, as deciding to worship Jesus doesn't automatically give you the proper tools and institutions to properly document your society and culture. But that cultural blindspot makes them seem mysterious and lets people project what they want onto the medieval scandinavians. I suppose this is fine and natural as well, as long as people realize that it is their own artistic take on this historical people who did exist and did live normal lives like you and me and realize the extent of artistic liberty taken. That being said, I enjoy a lot of scandinavian power metal and the weird neopagan bands like heilung and wardruna, but I also enjoy learning actual historically reconstructed music because that shit is wild. Both history and modern folklore about it can be fascinating. Sorry I didn't mean to write so much. I love the video and I'm glad it randomly showed up on my recommended.
superb analysis and amazing cinematography (I've honestly never seen someone walk away from the camera while talking in a video essay, it's things like that that break the monotony in a very mentally productive way; and all the beautiful landscapes) and your analysis near 25:00 is actually quite zizekian btw I gotta say you radiate pure splendor
Great video, man, your discussion vids are my favs of your channel. I have a lot to say about one of your passing points cause I've noticed the same for a while. LONG COMMNENT warning. That thing you pointed about how people get mad when a black person is recasted in a role that is historically inaccurate, but don't give a fuck when something from a non-white culture is repurposed and goes uncredited will always be my number one pet peeve. Everybody lost their shit over God of War 3 and Cleopatra, but let black people complain about how our slang is constantly labeled at 'Gen Z slang' or how alot of modern american music that is derived from black blues & rock artists is used as a cudgel to bash Rap music, as if they both didn't derive from the same source. When you point that out, all of a sudden, it doesn't matter how rock started, and it's 'not a big deal'. It's never a 'big deal' when it's non-white stuff getting subsumed into euro/euro-adjacent spaces with no care for the source, but when some dumbass Netflix movie or some goofy hotep with 13 followers makes Cleopatra black, all of a sudden the entire internet looses their shit. No one ever brings up this very blatant hypocrisy when talking about the anger over 'making characters/things black' over white cultures taking things with no credit or care in the world for its source. It's always labeled as black people or 'The Radical Left™️', getting sensitive and complaining for no reason. The incongruence of care irriates the fuck outta me.
This feels like a documentry but they had no one else to cast it so he casted everything himself.
First time the KZhead algorithm graces me with your videos. I loved it, I never knew about just how much of a difference there is between historical inspired vs. historical reenacting music, very well made video!
Hey, thank you for this. I knew absolutely nothing about cultural music and you taught me something today. Thank you! I too believed that there was at least an element of historicity in modern "viking" music. And I enjoy it greatly. But now, I can appreciate it for what it truly is, and with a better understanding of the true history. Awesome work, and I'm very interested in your other work. Cheers!
Well I didn't expect you to post a video this late in the night, but here we are! Greetings from the Dominican Republic.
The strangest thing about claiming that Heilung is representative of Viking Age music is that, on top of being very up front about the fact that historical accuracy is not really their goal, I feel like Viking Age Norse society isn't even what they're trying to evoke. I've always gotten more of a Proto-Germanic vibe from them, like their music makes me think of wild Germania beyond the Roman frontier rather than longships sailing for England.
It's interesting how the construction of a new pagan mythology and aesthetic may have sought to get as far away from Christianity as it could, but used the vehicle of Christian influence to get there. They became what Christians said Pagans were, these spooky heathen types that bathe in animal blood while singing in gutteral demon voices. I like the aesthetic, but it is still relying on Christianity as a reference point.
I randomly came across this video and absolutely adore it! I am impressed by the analysis that was made and by the beautifully structured arguments. I learned a lot! Thank you so much for the enormous work you've done❤ Personally, I enjoy the music these bands are producing, mostly in a spiritual way, and I was aware it can't be historically accurate 100%. And I appreciate you educating people like me and telling the real empirical facts 👍 Also, I realized that I didn't value this music the way it is supposed to be valued. So again, thank you so muh for this video ❤️ Wish you all the best!
Watching some more of the video, I'm loving the dismantling of this idea that modern neopaganism is in any way a representation of ancient Norse paganism, and I agree that a lot of it is LARPing and wanting to seek out non-European influences so that the practitioners can distance themselves as much as possible from Christianity. But music aside, and I think Heilung is about as unhistoric as it can get musically, we do have things like the Torslunda plates from the pre-Viking Vendel period, which show warriors in elaborate animal skins and headdresses dancing in ecstasy. I think this was a widespread part of pre-Christian Europe, even in the ecstatic cults of Greece where they worshipped Dionysus, or in the case of dog headed warriors in India, all stemming from the Indo-European koryos traditions. And I think there is some evidence that the Catholic Church sought to eradicate these ecstatic practices because the resulting trances resembled demonic possession. But even in those cases, we're talking about a very small portion of the population who were involved in secret societies, and not the average farmer, or even the average Viking.
Great point. I should have clarified in the video that my gripe with the animal skin aesthetic is the over-representation, not its presence in an absolute sense. That said, even then, the costumes of Heilung and other bands are highly augmented. Even then, they're inspired by historical clothing, not reconstructing them. The resemblance between Heilung costumes and real animal-based European clothing is much the same as armors in Game of Thrones. They're relatively close to historical medieval european armor and not fantastical to an anime degree, but they're still playing loose with creative liberty, which makes them ahistorical. (By design, as is the case with Heilung).
@@faryafaraji Absolutely. What's depicted on the Torslunda plates or on the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo helmet is never attempted in fiction or fantasy settings, anyway. What Heilung is doing seems to be more in line with Siberian influences, as you said, or maybe very loosely in the case of the antlers, the Celtic cult of Cernunnos, which also has nothing to do with the Norse. On this note, Viking Age statues of Thor are pretty fascinating for bearing almost zero similarity to the Wagnerian concept of Thor. He usually looks like some sort of gnome, a wise old man with puffy cheeks and a rounded nose like Santa Claus (probably more common facial features in Scandinavia than the chiseled features associated with Viking fantasies), does not have long hair, is not blonde (if we can infer hair color at all), and wears a typical helmet of the era.
@@gadpivs I think in the sagas Thor is a redhead. Not sure where the blond image came from!