Maybe it depends on how far back you want to go.

Benjamin Bagby of Sequentia, a medieval music group, plays an Anglo-Saxon harp. This instrument is contemporary with, and historically consistent with the chanting/reciting/singing of such things as Beowulf, which Bagby does with considerable élan on a DVD.

"Hark to the song of the Spear-Danes. . . ."

In Olde English. But with sub-titles.

Bagby uses the Anglo-Saxon harp to sort of "punctuate" his spirited recitation, as the scops and bards of that time did. But it's kind of amazing how much music he can get out of six strings, no frets!

I understand that such things as Homer's Iliad and similar epic works were performed the same way back in ancient Greece, using the lyre, a very similar instrument.

Don Firth