Finnish music
| Music of Finland | |
|---|---|
| Genres | |
| Specific forms | |
| Ethnic music | |
| Traditional music | |
| Other music | |
| Regional music | |
| Local forms | |
| Related areas | |
The music of Finland can be roughly divided into the categories of folk music, classical and contemporary art music, and contemporary popular music.
The folk music of Finland is typically influenced by Karelian traditional tunes and lyrics of the Kalevala metre. Karelian heritage has traditionally been perceived as the purest expression of Finnic myths and beliefs, thought to be spared from Germanic and Slavic influences. In the west of the country, more mainstream Nordic folk music traditions prevail. The Sami people of northern Finland have their own musical traditions, collectively Sami music. Finnish folk music has undergone a roots revival in the recent decades, and has also become a part of popular music.
In the field of classical and contemporary art music, Finland has produced a proportionally exceptional number of musicians and composers.
Contemporary popular music includes a renowned heavy metal scene like other Nordic countries, as well as a number of prominent rock and pop bands, jazz musicians, hip hop performers and makers of dance music. There is also a Schlager scene with bandstand dancing where the local variety of tango is also popular.
There are two major traditions of folk music in Finland, namely, music of the Kalevala form, and Nordic folk music or pelimanni music (North Germanic spelman, "player of music"). The former is considered the older one. Its most important form is called runonlaulanta ("poem singing" or chanting) which is traditionally performed in a trochaic tetrametre using only the first five notes on a scale. Making use of alliteration, this type of singing was used to tell stories about heroes like Väinämöinen, Lemminkäinen, and Kullervo. The songs were memorised, not written down, and performed by a soloist, or by a soloist and a chorus in antiphony (see: Kalevala). The Vantaa Chamber Choir is an example of a choir that sings such poems in modern arrangements.
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Wikipedia