research

Many of us recognise the experience of music opening completely new worlds, generating feelings and imagining beyond the everyday. These experiences may be our companions throughout life, but for children, this playful approach to the world and its wonders is fundamental. Unfortunately, the gate to musical worlds may not always be open. This article explores the meanings and relevance of music-related activities in our lives, beginning in early childhood. How can we open up these activities and experiences to everyone, preferably from an early age?

How is AI impacting the music industry? Three experts from Finland tell us it will shake our fundamental assumptions about artists’ identities, their unique creative visions and relationships with listeners.

"Through its themes and concert practices, Our Festival keeps building on the experience of living in a shared world and facing common problems."

The music trade has long been overshadowed by falling sales. There have, however, been some signs of recovery in the past couple of years, due mainly to the growing supply of streaming services. Listening habits and preferences are also changing.

What is music with a social message? A project examining Finnish art music of the present millennium and addressing the ability of music to comment on society is revealing various aspects of human existence, from the individual to the community and from the environment to supragenerics.

The doctoral dissertations in music submitted in Finland in 2005-2006 are marked by two features: the topics are heterogeneous and the approach is multidisciplinary, ranging from the sonic environment and the music-making software of video games right across to Sibelius.

For many decades, librarians have been compiling catalogues of the melodies or themes of musical works. In such a catalogue it is easy to discover that, e.g., the familiar sequence of musical pitches "G G G Eb" comes from (the starting phrase) of Beethoven's 5th symphony. But what if the theme is not remembered correctly or the excerpt does not occur at the beginning of the phrase? These problems are overcome through automated music identification. Such identification techniques can be used in a query-by-humming system to retrieve musical documents in large digital music databases. But what is the applied methodology in such a system? What kind of databases are featured, and how fast can they perform?

A new book and a forthcoming doctoral dissertation give us a fascinating insight into the culture of DJs and DJing in Finland.

"A new Finnish research project is seeking to shed more light on the biological background to musical aptitude. A pioneering study at international level, it aims to understand the biology and evolution of human cognitive functions in music."

The turn of the 20th century is conventionally referred to as the era when the national musical culture of Finland was born. On closer inspection, however, we find its roots in the transnational context of general European art music, which also included the popular music of the day.

"Archaeological excavations in Finland have uncovered a large number of bells, pellet bells and other objects created for producing sound. These findings offer us a new, fascinating sonic window into the so far unknown soundscape of the Iron Age and complement the writing of history of more recent eras."

Music Finland’s latest report on the market value of music export shows that it continues to be a growing industry. Compiling music statistics is not without its problems, but the figures portray a clear message about the importance of investing in music export.

"Although music analysis research, measured as a percentage of Finnish musicological studies, may have declined in the past decades due to changes in paedagogics, performing arts and culture, it has also become more diverse and attained a very high level of quality, to the point of being at the cutting edge."

Transnationality has been a big thing in international cultural studies for the past decade. At the moment, there are several major research projects in the pipeline in Finnish music studies addressing issues across national borders.

Rock star, bohemian, busker, creative genius, contemporary composer, pop singer, session player. Our images of music and musicians are easily associated with images of money and wealth, or the absence of same. Some of these people seem to be filthy rich, while others do not have two pennies to rub together – or simply do not care.