Talk:Music of Estonia/Archive 1

Kannel
Kannel is not Zither, eighter kantele. Folk instruments names are untranslatable, as they are very different instruments. (also as guitar is not a lyre and horn is not a trumpet) As a teacher, I would say, the article is in very-very bad condition. A would say, its not an article, its a disaster! Wrong in facts and formulations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.28.105.74 (talk) 22:20, 19 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Kannel is the Estonian zither. Andres 20:05, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * It's most definitely a type of Zither. GMRE (talk) 15:34, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Metsatöll
Should we mention Metsatöll somewhere? I can't quite figure out where to mention them, though. Aarnepolkusin 20:17, 2005 Jun 12 (UTC)


 * Without some clue as to what Metsatöll is/are/were/was, I can't suggest a place to mention her/him/it/them, but you can always make a new subheading as needed. Even if the section isn't complete, someone will fill it in and/or otherwise reorganize as needed as the article grows. Tuf-Kat 21:36, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)


 * They're just this folk metal band: see here . The article as of now isn't very extensive so I'm not sure if they're the first to mention. I know next to nothing about Estonian music and I don't know if adding them would make any sense (you can tell I'm a newbie...). They do have a guy playing torupill and kannel and such, so... I'll try to figure something out. Aarnepolkusin 00:30, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)


 * As long as they're notable enough to deserve a mention in a more complete article, there's nothing wrong with adding them here now, I think. It would be best if it was part of a whole section about Estonian folk-rock, assuming there is something more to say about the field, but maybe that one sentence will inspire someone to write more and expand on it.  Anyway, welcome to Wikipedia, let me know if you have any other questions. Tuf-Kat 03:11, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)


 * Alright... went and did a slight reorganization too. I'll leave it for now. And thanks. Aarnepolkusin 06:58, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

Article completeness
This article is in a very pure condition.--Termer 04:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Where in heck is Estonian pop and rock music in this article? Guest 14:24, 2008 Aug 24 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.219.88.59 (talk)


 * I actually have to agree, this page contains mostly classical music of estonia. Sort of reminds me of a highschool music history book, where nothing is mentioned about other musical styles. Anyone with more knowledge of Estonian pop-music should try to improve this article. Numerous more than important figures and facts like Georg Ots, Miliza Korjus and the Singing revolution are too important not to be included. H2ppyme (talk) 20:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't be a reference to Viljandi Folk Festival? Zkvrev (talk) 11:25, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * @Zkvrev Make a reference then. Also, there's a lot that's still missing from the article. The article could easily be expanded by at least 5 times. GMRE (talk) 15:34, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

"The Herring lived on dry land"
The Herring is a somewhat mythical being in Estonia.

It's a well known old folk song and should be mentioned as a notable example. It's called "Heeringas elas kuival maal" ("(The) herring lived on dry land").

A rough retelling of the song (not a literal translation, but a good retelling of the infrormation): ''In the ancient time the herring used to have legs and live on dry land. It used to destroy Vermin, like Rats and it was kept like a cat. One time a two masted Sailing ship was transporting a large load of Salt. Back then salt was expensive. Some unit of it called "saam" (or something like that) cost 100 of something in gold. There was a herring aboard the ship. The specific herring liked to eat salt, so it started to tunnel its way around the salt sacks. Eventually it accidentally chewed its way through the ships wooden hull, causing it to sink. This angered Neptune (the god of sea), who said to the herring: "Hey herring, because you chewed a hole into the ship and sunk the new ship, you will now have to live in seawater as punishment." The salt from the ship was released into the sea, resulting in the seas now having a salt composition.''

Sources: There's countless more similarly obscure sites, but I'm not gonna list them all. I think I've proven that it's relevant to estonian culture. GMRE (talk) 15:34, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
 * This one mentiones that there's multiple slight variations available for the wording, but the most commonly known version (that my translated retelling above is based on) became famous in 1969 when it was featured in a cartoon. I've seen it on TV, but it doesn't appear to be on youtube.
 * This shows that the song fragment "when the herring lived on dry land" was used in 2011 as the name of some culture event at a school in Valjala.
 * The "Korp! Sakala" academic fraternal organization has it in a list of songs titled only "Heeringas" (Herring).
 * The publishing house "Kentaur" (Centaur) keeps the song in the same list as the national anthem and other famous (in Estonia) 19'th century songs.
 * The Tallinn University keeps it on a list mostly consisting of old and culturally relevant songs.
 * The ensemble "Sailor" keeps it on their list of songs.