Music, community and identity

In this Special Feature FMQ takes a look at the fascinating network of relationships between music, community and identity. We discuss the role of music in building communities on the one hand and specialised, music-based communities on the other.

What if the aim of music education was not to focus on producing masters, but to create a lifelong, enthusiastic connection with music, where an essential part is making music together? This is exactly what the Kaustinen-based Näppäri method strives for.

The recent immigration wave into Europe has proved that where there is no common language, music and art can provide an important communication avenue between immigrants and locals. Through art, immigrants are able to express their own culture but also to give a voice even to their most harrowing experiences. Likewise, music played a pivotal role for Finnish immigrants in America in the turn of the 20th century. It enabled them to maintain their Finnish identity in the new environment and to integrate into American society.

"As a worldwide sub-culture, heavy metal is an excellent example of the specialised communities that emerge in modern society, governed by individual preferences rather than a shared physical environment – similar music tastes or, say, consumer choices."

Over the decades, music has been an important element in the shaping of the identity of Finland’s Swedish-speaking population. Yet this minority has never had a uniform culture and still does not; today, discussion focuses increasingly on the variations of Finland-Swedish culture and its constant state of flux.

Opera is not necessarily the elitist pursuit of only a small city set. Pentti Tynkkynen, a church musician living at idyllic little Punkaharju in Eastern Finland, composes opera on the community’s terms.