Throat Singing “Vikings” : An Ethno-Musicological Deconstruction of a Pop-Culture Myth

In this video, I want to take a complete look at the myth of the Norse having overtone throat singing, and deconstruct this myth with a critical ethnomusicological lens. The point of the video is to show that insufficient understanding of basic ethnomusicological realities in pop-culture has allowed for the dissemination of this myth with no basis in any kind of evidence, or more importantly, logic. Rather than just being a debunking of the myth, it is more importantly an example in critical thinking and how to approach ethnomusicological questions with a proper scientific approach. And some Britney Spears thrown into the mix.

Sources:
Throat singing in Old Norse culture? by Nóel Braucher *
https://www.academia.edu/22666429/Thr...

*I have to add a massive addendum to this source. Braucher's academic specialisation is in Icelandic Language and Literature, not any form of musicology, and their paper shows. The first part of the paper brilliantly shows their background in literature and how they expertly delve into the sources and the evolving translations, but the second part of the paper is a very weak attempt at coming up with arguments to support the idea of the Norse having throat singing, and Braucher ends the paper with the statement that the notion has strong indications and evidence behind it, although they manage to show no such indication or evidence.

Because I know some of the dissenters will object to my statement that "no musicologist supports the idea of the Norse having throat singing as a likely possibility," by pointing out that this source does that, let me clarify that Braucher isn't a musicologist. They're a specialist of language and literature, and that makes them as qualified to tackle ethnomusicological questions as a Norse weapons expert can tackle Norse ship-building, which is not at all. Braucher's arguments to support throat singing are extremely weak and show a lack of a solid grasp of ethnomusicology; arguments like "throat singing is connected to the circumpolar peoples," and they also mention the Inuits. This is a classic misconception that no ethnomusicologists would make; throat singing has no intrinsic connection to circumpolar peoples; the Inuits have nothing remotely similar to the overtone throat singing discussed here, and Sardinians and South Africans also have throat singing.

Point is, whilst Braucher is obviously qualified to tackle literature, they were not, at the point of writing this paper, qualified to tackle ethnomusicological questions, and the weakness of the arguments in the second part of the paper shows. The most blaring problem with the paper is its very premise: starting from the conclusion of throat singing and working their way backwards. Had they presented their paper in a music history or ethnomusicology program, the paper would have been rejected at the very start on the basis that it should have been structured as "What could Ibn Yaqub's passage mean?", which is the proper scientific way to go about it, rather than asking "Does Ibn Yaqbu's passage mean throat singing?" which is a pop-culturally influenced, extremely biased premise that brings in the external factor of modern pop-culture into the historical records, using it as the premise from which to build the argumentation to begin with, which is antithetical to the scientific method in music history. So keep in mind that whilst the paper is a great resource when it comes to the literature in question, it is also a prime example of poorly informed ethnomusicological argumentation that I'm criticising in this video.

"What did they sound like? Reconstructing the music of the Viking Age by Chihiro Larissa Tsukamoto"
https://www.academia.edu/31493503/Wha...

"People and Their Soundscape in Viking-Age Scandinavia Critical Reflections in a Music-Archaeological Perspective" by Cajsa S. Lund
https://www.academia.edu/31773185/Caj...

Tacitus's Germania, link 1:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7524/...

Tacitus's Germania, link 2:
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...

00:00 Intro
03:21 The “barking dogs” account
07:57 Tacitus’ Germanic tribes account
09:52 The poor quality of Internet discussions
21:54 “We can assume they had throat singing because they were pagans”
25:48 “Throat singing is found all over the world”
29:26 Anything that isn’t impossible isn’t automatically a serious hypothesis
36:51 A fundamental hypocrisy
42:46 Manipulative language
46:50 Conclusion