Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA)

[Baglady]

Interesting to hear bagpipes in Uppsala on the History Channel's Viking series.

I've given up on trying to compare anything this show comes up with with actual facts. Suspended disbelief is what it's called.

Liked the pipes though.
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A bagpipe is only too loud when it's out of tune

[Olle]

I haven't seen the show. What kind of pipes where they?

There is no evidence of bagpipes in Sweden going back that far. The closest thing found is "Lundapipan", dated 1050AD, which is sometimes claimed to be a bagpipe chanter, but it's just a fragment and much more likely to be a hornpipe, in my opinion. Here is a reconstruction of it, made by Åke Egevad.

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Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se

[Baglady]

Actually, they sounded like Scottish small pipes. I don't remember a drone so they could have been a hornpipe although it seemed to be continuous so a bag is likely. Unless they were circular breathing.

We have been discussing the shows total lack of interest in sticking to any semblance of the facts on the local Viking club FB page so anachronistic background music is no surprise.

A few weeks back we chuckled at an actor trying to play a Finnish lyre like a guitar.
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A bagpipe is only too loud when it's out of tune

[Yuri]

Actually, if you mean he was holding the lyre like a guitar, it's not as silly as it looks. There is a technique where a type of lyra is strummed right across all the strings, and the unwanted ones are dampened by the left hand fingers. The pose of the player is quite similar to that of a guitarist. Check out this vid: (in English, too) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhdKEjIZ-Hg
That's Russian gusli, one of the two types, and it's fairly much what the Finns used to play in the past.