Heill Scott!

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Scott Schroder"
<speculum_terra_incognito@...> wrote:
>
> Hello -
>
> I play and record music and have had a fairly substantial
curiosity on the subject of music in ON and its relationship to the
performance of the material from that culture that is available to
us. It should be noted that the number of references to Eddic or
skaldic poetry in saga without musical accompaniment is certainly
far more common than reference to performance that does feature
music.

There are almost no references to eddic material or it's performance
in saga-literature. This is likely because such performances would
no longer have occured after christianization, and thus be centuries
older than an average saga-writers direct experience. One of the few
references, that does occur, is found in the so-called Nornagests
Þáttr from a rescension of Ólafs Saga Tryggvasonar. It is a type of
missionary-story, where the king is visited by a guest, who turns
out to be the norse god Óðinn in disguise. The wise, story-telling
guest 'sló Gunnarsslag' for his listeners, which means that it was
performed as music. This would be a piece of the eddic type. Indeed,
Gunnarr himself, a Burgundian king, plays the harp with his toes in
the norse tradition while he dies a snake-pit. Jordanes claims that
the Goths played and sung their heroic songs. When Ólafs guest 'sló'
a 'slag', we see two words from the same root, both used about the
act of playing an instrument (Eng. slay/slew). 'slag' is a neuter
synonym for masc. sláttr, and both mean a piece of music, something
'slain'. The verb 'slá' can also refer to the act of playing a
musical instrument. In fact, traditional norse, solo musical pieces
are still called sláttr, pl. slættir (Mod.Norw.& Swed. slåttar). We
do not know for certain what the norse called eddic material in
general (Snorri Sturluson is thought to have applied the term Edda
to his book about norse poetry, and the term Eddukvæði is modern),
but a term used by Snorri (forn vísindi) is certainly a candidate
for ancient usage. Several titles of eddic pieces refer to song or
chant, such as Gróttasöngr and Grógaldr, where söngr is song and
galdr is chant (of a religious type - gala means to chant/sing).
There is wide agreement that eddic material was performed/sung by
the ancient norse, which is of course the topic of recontructing the
music of such performances is such a hot topic. Aryan folk, such as
the Indian Hindus and Zoroastrians, still preserve their ancient
traditions of religious chant. For instance, Aryan priests intone
verses (prayers, blessings, good wishes, etc.) according to a set,
inherited tonal-system. Typically, in Hindu chant, the same three
tones are used in standard chants, such as the daily Gâyatra-mantra
prayer (3 times each day at fixed times). Many consider that the
norse were originally a non-christian folk, and that their religion
was of the Aryan-type, rather than the Semitic or any other, and
that a norse priest (ON goði, Go./PN gudja) would have chanted after
some such tonal-pattern as his Hindu equivalent, for instance. Of
cource, chant would also have been performed by non-priests as well.
In rimur, which is one of the surviving nordic musical tradtions,
the poetry is sung/intoned in a way that is likely related to this
ancient religious chant, but just how is hard to say.

> I haven't undertaken an inquiry into the subject adequate to
warrant a decisive conclusion, but my impression is certainly
that the familiar verse material that we have artifacts of now was
primarily or exclusively performed without music.

See above. I also refer you to the Sequetia project, which is the
best known of modern efforts to reconstruct eddic musical performance

> There are ballads from all of the Scandinavian countries and at
least some of the Viking Age colonies, such as the Faroes, whose
origin is at least immediately subsequent to the Viking Age, if not
before.

Yes.

> Jorge Luis Borges wrote fictional material about archaic Germanic
lays being sung with the accompaniment exclusively of the harp. He
certainly was an avid student of archaic Germanic verse, and it
would surprise me terribly if this was a reference to a valid
tradition, but of course it could certainly also be fictional
construction.

The Germanic harp is, indeed, known to have been used by Germanics
while performing traditional poetry.

> Finally, I think that it would be inappropriate for me to go into
an exposition of the different types of tuning systems, and
therefore the likely ON tuning, on thsi list. However, 12 equal
intervalic tuning was not used by any culture until the 17th century.

Yes.

> Most cultures seem to have naturally adopted a system called just
intonation, one of the implications of which is that instruments
would be intrinsically limited to one, or at the most a few,
different scales.

Yes. Knowing which ones would tell us a lot, especially if there is
a source for the time signature/rythym (for instance, ljóðaháttr,
used in eddic song, where the stress pattern must be related to the
time signature of the music - incidentally, ljóð can mean song, in
addition to poem, as in German lied)

> The system of 12 equal intervals per octave was employed to allow
an instrument to play numerous scales, with the accuracy of a given
scale correspondingly diminished. You can read more about just
intonation by performing a search of the Internet, I'm sure. I don't
have any references that I can provide offhand.

Yes. You mention that in this earlier system instruments would be
limited to 'one, or the most a few, different scales'. The question
here, as regards norse music, is which scales? Without ready-tuned,
extant instruments, there will be debate, and there is. This is why
the jaw-harp is so critical, as it is untunable and known to have
been played by the norse - thus the scale-debate is solved, at least
for this instrument. By studying the harp's use in non-christianized
cultures where it occurs (and where the norse may have got it from),
we can learn something about how the norse likely used it. Siberian
shamans use it to heal folk, in Asia it is used in religious chant
(India, China, Indonesia, etc.). Like the Australian aboriginal
digeredoo, the jawharp is a hypnotic, trance-inspiring instrument.
The tones are nature-tones, translating Scandinavian usage here. As
we know that the norse played this instrument, and as it's use in
non-christianized cultures is documented, it is reasonble to assume
that the norse usage was similar. Lastly, if the harp's use was more
connected to norse religion than any other instrument, it would not
be surprising if it disappeared completely, or nearly so, which is
in fact the case. Yet it did survive in Germania, even if barely,
and this tells us something about norse tonality, indeed.

Regards,
Konrad

> Best regards.
>
> >From: "akoddsson" <konrad_oddsson@...>
> >Reply-To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> >To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> >Subject: [norse_course] Re: Jawharp contra Wagner
> >Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:38:18 -0000
> >
> >Good link below. I have an interest in reconstructing the
authentic
> >norse poetic and musical performance of pre-christian times. I
also
> >like and listen to rimur, nordic folk music (even play some of
it).
> >I have followed the Sequentia reconstruction, but am not all that
> >satisfied with the results, as the group seems too 'operatic' and
> >studied to my ears. Rimur, although post-christian by many
centuries
> >and therefore less authentically norse, are more interesting to
me,
> >as they seem to preserve something more similar to what I imagine
> >authentic norse performance to have been like. I imagine that the
> >average 'singer' was untrained in the modern sense (not
Sequentia),
> >that he was rural (not surprising), learned his art from the older
> >local singers, and used a tonality different from that represented
> >by the modern 'well- or even-tempered' 12 tone scale. All of this,
> >of course, is true about rimur (also about nordic folk-music on
the
> >whole). Furthermore, I imagine that such a rural 'singer' of old
> >would have had some musical accompaniment (see other oral cultures
> >on this point), but that this would have been typically sparse and
> >performed by a musician/musical specialist (probably one, but
maybe
> >more in a higher class, court-setting) who was trained to
accompany
> >such performance. Also, I imagine that such performances,
typically
> >in a rural setting, would have included some prose-links/story-
> >telling between sung/chanted/intoned verse-sections, as well as
some
> >solo musical pieces (slættir), whose rules and tradition
would be as
> >complex as that of the poetry (compare the surviving traditions
with
> >their ornately nordic, poly-tonal, highly structured, virtuosity -
> >solo fire, but accompaniment-style in performance with poetry).
Now,
> >we can easily reduce that the times/rythmic-types used were the
same
> >as those lying behind pre-christian, traditional germanic verse,
for
> >example fornyrdislag or ljodahattr. This tells us something about
> >the time, which would have been hammered out by a steady foot,
just
> >as in surviving nordic traditional music. The grey area, of
course,
> >is tonality. What scales/tones were really used by authentic norse
> >singers of old? We can figure that tonality was regional and
learned
> >from older, local performers (shown by all surviving nordic
musical
> >traditions, including rimur), and that singers (and musicians)
had a
> >personal style, highly influenced by their masters, but
identifiably
> >their own on some telling points. Now, the tonality of any
randomly
> >selected, modern performance could just as easily be taken from
> >church-music as from pre-christian music. Indeed, there is reason
to
> >believe that many, perhaps most, of the scales found are foreign
in
> >origin, and thus not truely representative of authentic norse
music
> >or poetry (a fair amount of ink has been spilled on this topic).
The
> >problem is that we do not possess any stringed instruments
(fiddles,
> >langspil, harps, etc.) or bored ones (bone-flutes, willow-flutes,
> >etc.) where the tuning/tonality is a)preserved intact and b)deemed
> >to represent typical tonality at the time. Folk were raised with a
> >certain tonal-background, much as they were with a cultural one in
> >general. They 'heard' music a certain way and could, not doubt,
deem
> >any music native or foreign by ear. Now, I have done some research
> >on musical intruments of the time (as have many others more
learned
> >than I on this topic) and have discovered the following, which I
do
> >think is Odin's golden-key, so to say, for us modern folk (the
quiet
> >revenge of the aged-one against the killers of germanic music):
the
> >mouth-harp. This simple, portable instrument is found everywhere
in
> >Germanic soil, as it was discarded when the tongue broke and a new
> >one obtained. It was cheap, easily made by any smith wanting to
make
> >a little extra money. In my research, I have read about, visited
and
> >seen iron- and viking-age mouth harps. Now, this intrument is
Odin's
> >golden for the following two reasons: 1) it was actually played by
> >actual norse persons in norse times (with no other musical,
cultural
> >or religious back-ground than a norse one, as far as we can tell)
> >and 2) unlike other intruments (surviving or not) thought to
really
> >have existed at the time in norse culture, the mouth-harp cannot
be
> >tuned - it has only one tonality. Play the mouth-harp in the
museum
> >and it will still sound exactly like it did when it was made,
given
> >only that its tongue is intact. No tongue? Make a copy and it will
> >still sound identical. This gives us a tonality (with a tonic
note,
> >a primary scale and microtonal series), which singers must
likewise
> >have used while being accompanied by this instrument. How popular
or
> >truely representative was this instrument? Archeaology tells us
that
> >it was very typical. Consider also the affordability and
portability
> >issues: 1) most folk were poor and good instruments expensive 2)
the
> >mouth-harp is portable - just but it in your pocket and set sail.
It
> >is logical to assume that ancients loved music as much as we do,
and
> >that aspiring musicians took their instruments everywhere, just as
> >many moderns still do (despite recording-technology, music-players
> >and less demand for actual live performance). One imagines that,
in
> >ancient times, a man heard no music unless 1)he sand or played 2)
he
> >had contact with someone who sang or played. A great environment
to
> >sell cheap, easily made instruments in, indeed. As there is no
real
> >doubt that old singers would have been accompanied by a mouth-
harp,
> >often if not exclusively, and that some/most of them would
likewise
> >have played it themselves (though not while singing, obviously),
can
> >be not assume that the harp's tonality also occured in singing?
This
> >would seem a natural enough conclusion. Now, I certainly do wonder
> >why Sequentia, for example, did no use this instrument, and why
the
> >other viking-age musical reconstructions that I have heard do not
> >use it either. Perhaps the instrument is considered too primitive
or
> >not glamorous enough for moderns with romantic ideas about the
noble
> >ancient germanics' musical tradition. Wagner or not, one singer
and
> >one jawharp player would be, I think, typical enough of an ancient
> >performance. Thoughts welcome.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Konrad
> >
> >
> >--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell@> wrote:
> > >
> > > THE LINK: I just came across this book online: "Kvæðaskapur:
> >Icelandic Epic Song", by Hreinn Steingrímsson. It looks
interesting
> >although there's a lot that's too technical for me to understand.
> >It discusses the possibility that the traditional Icelandic
> >singing/chanting style might go back to very early times, and that
> >Old English poetry could have been performed in a similar way.
> >Unfortunately some of the special Icelandic characters don't show
> >up, so watch out for missing 'ð', etc.
> >
> > > http://music.calarts.edu/KVAEDASKAPUR/
> > >
> > >
> > > THE CORRECTION: For some reason I absentmindedly added 'ik' in
that
> >first line of the would-be Gothic verse in my reply to Konrad,
which
> >should have read: 'Brikan skal airis, broþar,' (an attempted
> >translation of ON 'bresta mun fyrr, bróðir').
> >
> >Noted. Nice ;)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
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> >
> >To escape from this funny farm try rattling off an e-mail to:
> >
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> >Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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