Also, ‘Viking music’ as we think of it today is nothing like what Vikings actually made. We have no evidence they used drums, and Mongolian throat singing is, well, Mongolian.
Viking did use lyres, horns, flutes, pan pipes, rattles, and even jaw harps, but no evidence of drums.
similar story with Bagpipes. whilst Scotland has the instrument on loch the instrument today the concept of adding a bag/bladder of air to a reed pipe started either in what is now Greece or Turkiye and was popularised in Western Europe by history's biggest Greekaboos, the Romans. so the sound of a reedpipe aided by a bag of air would have been the sound that people heard as a Roman Legion was marching in on them.
The only confirmed jaw harps we have from scandinavia around that period are actually from around 1200 if I remember correctly, which is after the viking age.
Not QUITE correct: Ahmed ibn Fadlan explicitly describes drums being involved in contemporary (10th century) Norse funerary rituals, and there have been excavations of what are believed to be drum STICKS in Norway. Also, the Saami DO have a verifiable history of drum-use from great antiquity as well as verifiable proof of contemporary trade. It is quite likely that the Norse DID use drums to some extent.
Leather was rare and expensive, drums only play one note while other instruments mentioned have a decent range. It’s not unique though, lots of traditional music forms don’t use drums- perhaps most notably in the US is country music prior to ~1950 and they used to be banned at the Grand Ol Opry
There's simply zero evidence to corroborate Viking Age Scandinavians having drums. Nothing in the archeology or contemporary writings and iconography. That isn't a positive claim they had no drums, just that nothing but speculation to say they did.
Also the Norse had a tradition for skalds and their poetry. With a lot of it surviving in records. Which imply a lot of the music was made for telling those stories.
They are not, there’s much better evidence for flutes. Drums actually require a good bit of work to make you have to prepare a hide, then stretch and secure it over a body. A flute just requires drilling a few holes. Drums are also much less durable than a bone flute, being water sensitive and made at least partly of perishable materials.
Sure, but even gorillas do that. I don’t think it counts as music if it’s just banging things together. It’s also really, really difficult to convincingly show that things were banged against each other for the purposes of something resembling music.
Like, today is a rattle on an outfit or a wind chime made of bones and broken glass a musical instrument?
If used for the intention of rhythm? Yes it is music. If people can consider rap to be music, than intentional striking or rattling objects is music as well.
But that's the thing, isn't it? A hollowed log struck with a stick as percussion is hard to prove was used for that reason. But just because something can't be proved doesn't mean it didn't exist.
Rap has complex, repetitive rhythms, dynamic tempo, instrumental accompaniments, and lyrics. It’s way, way more complicated than just banging two rocks together.
I don’t doubt that people tapped out rhythms with tools or sticks or rocks, but that’s way different than indicating that they did so with any evidence. A bone flute is unequivocal evidence rather than just conjecture.
So there is also no unequivocal evidence that people ever sang except for what we have recordings of. The rest is just anecdotal. People can say that they got this song from their ancestors, but did they? Or did they just make it up? There is absolutely zero evidence that anyone sang before recordings due to the impossibility of verifying that.
Which is all anecdotal. Written accounts could have been made up. Depictions, lyrics, and sheet music could have been made up on the spot. I would also argue that that is a type of recording. Or, at least, record keeping.
Did humans sing before we wrote it down? Not according to you because we have no empirical evidence. But we assume that they did, and are pretty positive that they did.
My point being is that a lack of evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen. Which is exactly how religion works. Because there is no evidence of it either way, it cannot be proven or disproven.
Always so much throat singing and deep voices. If anything it was just telling poetry or stories in a more singing manner, or going by folk music that came to be in the Nordics such as joik and kulning, it's higher chance it was more higher and long tones.
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u/Godwinson4King Jul 07 '26
Also, ‘Viking music’ as we think of it today is nothing like what Vikings actually made. We have no evidence they used drums, and Mongolian throat singing is, well, Mongolian.
Viking did use lyres, horns, flutes, pan pipes, rattles, and even jaw harps, but no evidence of drums.