Iceland #11 : Fumundar Songur

Imagine a country without musical instruments.

What sort of music do you suppose this country would
have as its tradition? In Iceland, while the great centers
of Europe wined and dined and went to the opera and the
symphony, Icelanders sang. Without so much as a chordal
instrument to pitch their voices against, they sang. Old
lyrics survive.

If I am going to die tonight,
let me die without suffering.

There are other song texts which call to the Norse gods,
ask for the return of the sun, a way out of the winter,
mercy from the frozen breath of the storms. Maybe you
can begin to fathom how a blues scene thrives here.

Once this republic stood up to the Danes and reclaimed
its legacy from them -- this happened in many ways,
certainly, but most especially with the recovery of the
landmark Icelandic Sagas, which a ten year old Disa
Gudmundsdottir saw come ashore safely in the arms of
Icelanders in 1971 -- Iceland´s standard of living went
from one of slaves to one of landowners. Now, mere
decades later, it is listed in the top five nations for its
overall standard of living, and a rate of unemployment
hovering just above zero.

In the eighth century, the Vikings set off from Sweden,
Norway and Denmark like a band of pirates and began
plundering and partying in the wild North Atlantic --
as well they went to America, Greenland, England,
Ireland, France and Italy, even made a stop in Baghdad
-- and they found this volcanic island. For about three
hundred years, these Vikings went on quite a roll, setting
their stamp wherever they went, altering the histories
and cultures of each place.

Odin´s Day is Wednesday, Thor is responsible for Thursday,
Freyr for Friday. TGIF...thank God it´s Freyr´s Day! One
of these Norsemen, local legend Ingolfur Arnason, stopped
here in Smokey Bay, and his statue is now on a hill outside
the Ministry of Culture in downtown Reykjavik, overlooking
the harbor his boats first put into.

They didn´t bring much in the way of musical instruments,
these Vikings. One was called a langspil, another was a fiddla
-- wood relics with strings -- but neither survived the cold
for long and there are only remnants of them in local museums.
The first genuine organ didn´t make it to Iceland until a mere
150 years ago. Think about that a moment, in terms of the
cultural history of Europe. Suffice it to say, any sense of a
"formal" music got a very late start on the island.

They sang, and it is in their singing voices you can feel the
ages quiver. A woman named Gudrun has done a devoted
job of researching old songs here, and perhaps because of
the isolation and lack of a chording instrument or concert
pitch, there is what you could call a specific "Iceland sound"
which permeates both the oldest and newest recorded styles
of singing.

Fummundar songur, or "fifth song," is a singing style rather
unique to Iceland; in terms of harmony, this means that the
melody lines are sung five notes apart, usually with four or
more voice parts. This type of harmony was forbidden by the
church in parts of Europe, but Icelanders were too pagan in
spirit, too far out of the loop to know, and so kept using it.
This isn´t the only musical rule they broke, but the ongoing
development of fummundar songur gave Iceland its own
dark, strange and beautiful oral signature. It includes the
ancient rimur, a kind of chanted poetry you can detect even
in Medusa, the most recent record by Bjork, and on some
pieces by Sigur Ros. And yes, to these ears, even records
like the soundtracks to Angels Of The Universe and Children
Of Nature have it, too, amidst their layered and reverberating
sonic landscapes.

Last night Disa took me a block up Grettisgata to her brother
Sverrir´s for a light meal and a visit with his wife, Gudbjier, and
their delightful eleven year old twins, Rebekka and Sverrir-Pall.
After eating, we moved into the den where candles were lit and
Sverrir-Pall played us some piano pieces. His twin sister then
joined her dad in some recorder duets, utilizing some fifth-note
harmonies. Before long the twins pulled out homemade paper-
mache didjeridoos and droned happily on them. I played a few
tunes and had the children join me on the vocals to Tilde, a tune
that easily fits the Icelandic lexicon. This grouchy old Canuck
singing with these two blonde angels seemed to inspire the other
adults. Little hymnal-sized books of old Icelandic lyrics were
produced, and before you could say pissa a hraunid, Disa and
Gudbjier and Sverrir were singing three-part fifth-song
harmonies on traditional Icelandic songs.

I got goosebumps. We´re in this wooden room by candle light.
I have the children curled up with me. This singing...it performs
unusual tricks and calls to ancient mysteries; it has old laundry
women and trolls and elves and Viking gods all walking around
inside its vocal crevices. It is very much an Icelandic sound.

Surrounded by these beautiful blond youngsters, I closed my eyes
and listened as these Icelanders sang in the parlor using only the
original instruments of this northern island....their singing voices.

If I am going to die tonight,
I will die without suffering.

DL