Editing Viking metal (section)

==== Influence from sea shanties and popular media ====

Mulvany states that "Viking metal&nbsp;... is much less concerned with traditional aural materials like instruments and melodies. Instead, Viking bands limit themselves mainly to the use of Norse mythology as a textual source, which they often augment with stylized shanty-like melodies that are meant to evoke apropos images".{{sfn|Mulvany|2000|p=iv}} He elaborates: {{quotation|text=Although the majority of Viking metal bands&nbsp;... limit themselves primarily to textual borrowings, many others can be additionally classified as musically evocative of the Vikings. Unlike folk metal bands drawing from other mythologies, bands using Norse mythology as text have no musical-historical examples to augment their illusion. This has led to the creation of an ahistorical 'Viking music' that is used in tandem with the metal style to conjure up appropriate images.{{sfn|Mulvany|2000|p=36}}}} According to Mulvany, Viking metal draws heavily on [[sea shanty|sea shanties]] and media images of [[Piracy#History|pirates]] and Vikings, an influence evident in two basic forms of the genre. The first type "is largely [[steps and skips|stepwise]] in motion with many repeated note figures", is frequently in [[minor key]], and is primarily sung in unison.{{sfn|Mulvany|2000|p=36}} The second type uses an "arching ascent-descent structure" and is less dependent on lyrics, making it "more evocative of rolling waves on the open sea".{{sfn|Mulvany|2000|p=36}} As examples of the first type, Mulvany examined the structures of sea shanties such as "[[Drunken Sailor]]", the 1934 and 1996 film soundtrack versions of "[[Dead Man's Chest]]", [[Mario Nascimbene]]'s "Viking" song for the 1958 film [[The Vikings (1958 film)|''The Vikings'']], and the chant from Monty Python's "[[Spam (Monty Python)|Spam]]" sketch, and found similar structures in compositions by Viking and black metal bands such as Einherjer, [[Mithotyn]], [[Naglfar (band)|Naglfar]], and Vargevinter.{{Sfn|Mulvany|2000|p=36–42}} The second type, that of arching ascent and descent, Mulvany noticed in compositions by Einherjer and [[Borknagar]].{{Sfn|Mulvany|2000|p=37–38}}

The shanty influence results from stereotyping in which certain aural associations are equated with "images of sailors, sea-borne marauders, and Vikings", and "though rooted in traditional sea shanties, these aural images have been perpetuated through the media of pirate movies and television shows, and they have been extended&nbsp;– by association&nbsp;– to Vikings".{{sfn|Mulvany|2000|p=39}} Ashby and Schofield agree with Mulvany that musically, Viking metal bands generally are unconnected with a real Viking past, but instead connote a broader sense of the maritime, presuming that "this conflation of maritime contexts is a knowing one, but one nonetheless felt to be somehow evocative."{{sfn|Ashby|Schofield|2015|p=497}}

Keith Fay of the folk metal band [[Cruachan (band)|Cruachan]] has also noted the influence of sea shanties on Viking metal, although disparagingly. In an interview with British magazine ''[[Terrorizer (magazine)|Terrorizer]]'', he said that there is "no real defined 'Viking music', so all these Nordic bands use 'sea shanty' type tunes to match their music. A lot of these bands, especially the bigger ones, are called folk metal but they don't really understand what real folk music is; though I know this is not true for all of them."{{sfn|Sulaiman|Yardley|2010}}