found in Norway, Sweden, Finland and the northwest corner of Russia. The only traditional Sami instruments are drums and the flute, though modern bands use a variety of instrumentation. Joiks, unrhymed works without definite structure, are the most characteristic kind of song. Balto-Finnic music Balto-Finnic music is a category of music of Balto-Finnic people, that overlaps with both Nordic folk music of Nordic countries and Baltic folk music of Baltic states. Finland's musical ties are primarily to the Balto-Finnic peoples of Russia and Estonia (Cronshaw, 91). Runolaulu (runo-song) is a kind of song found throughout this area. Estonia and Finland both have national epics based on interconnected forms of runo-song, Kalevipoeg and Kalevala, respectively. "Estonian runo-song has the same basic form as the Finnish variety to which it is related: the line has eight beats, the melody rarely spans more than the first five notes of a diatonic scale and its short phrases tend to use descending patterns" (Cronshaw, 16). Contemporary Applications In recent times Nordic folk music is used in developing the background score for movies, TV shows and games. Popular TV shows like Game of Thrones and games like God of War have used Nordic folk music to give a mythic experience. See also Neofolk Nordic popular music References Nettl, Bruno. Folk and Traditional Music of the Western Continents. 1965. Prentice-Hall. Eaglewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Broughton, Simon and Mark Ellingham with James McConnachie and Orla Duane (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. , The Book of Music and Nature: An Anthology of Sounds, Words, Thoughts (Music Culture) Further reading +