If you’ve ever sung in a choir you know the wonderful feeling of oneness with others. There is the solidarity of many breathing as one, the unifying feeling of standing shoulder-to-shoulder and making glorious sound. But what if you can’t sing? Well, there are many types of choirs — and anybody who has ever watched American Idol auditions knows that lack of singing ability need not be a barrier to success.
Those who cruise around the web regularly may have seen the viral videos of what are called Complaints Choirs. One blogger felicitously described the phenomenon as “organized griping set to music.”
According to the world-wide complaints choir site, a Finnish-German couple, Tellervo Kalleinen and her husband Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, first discussed “the possibility of transforming the huge energy people put into complaining into something else. Perhaps not directly into heat — but into something powerful anyway.” They live in Helsinki (Finland), where the term is valituskuoro, literally “complaints choir,” which “is used to describe situations where a lot of people are complaining simultaneously.”
Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen offered the concept to different events to which they had been invited as artists. The Springhill Institute in Birmingham, U.K. liked the idea, and gathered complaints and choir members by means of posters and flyers. Mike Hurley, a musician, wove the complaints together into a song, and soon the first official Complaints Choir was performing. They videotaped a performance and it appeared on YouTube in August 2006 — where it became instantly popular.
Not everyone was thrilled. In The Guardian (December 5, 2006) columnist Andrew Brown wrote, “…the Birmingham Complaints Choir is small, and sadly pedestrian. ‘Birmingham has changed so much. I liked it more before,’ they start.” (Sigh.)
Artists Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen went back to Helsinki, gathered complaints from prospective singers and other Finns, and founded the Helsinki Valituskuoro, the great Helsinki Complaints Choir — a group of nearly 100 cranky people. Here they are in all their glory:
(Music composed by Esko Grundström.)
“…Why is the cord of the vacuum cleaner always too short?…”
“…Bullshitters get on too well in life …”
“… tramline 3 smells of pee …”
Onmse niin fare! indeed! (“It’s not fair!”)
Since then, complaints choirs have formed all over the globe.
The Helsinki Complaints Choir is admittedly the grandest and most glorious complaints choir so far, but the St. Petersburg (Russia) Complaints Choir is pretty darn good. Their complaints are much more philosophical than those of other choirs, almost Tolstoy-esque at times (“I complain about existential horror.”). Their song is more tuneful and more sprightly than most — and the accordionist is fabulous. The tune speeds up as it goes along, turning into a raucous folk song with the singers nodding their heads in time, clapping, and stamping their feet.
“…Why do we keep loving when love is so painful?…”
“No more money for acne cream!”
“T-shirts always shrink after the first wash!” (A shared problem world-wide, clearly.)
The Hamburg Complaints Choir (which is actually from nearby Wilhelmsburg, Germany) seems strangely humorless, but at least their video is long (9 minutes, 15 sec.).
“…why the customs fence is dismantled not yet?”
The Poikkilaakso Elementary School (also in Finland) recently joined the Complaints Choir movement with a charming song. (Composer Matti Salo, conductor Elisa Hilli.) Nice complaining.
The brand-new London Complaints Choir is searching for complainers and complaints. If you live in London and you’ve always wanted to complain in a choir you should consider joining. The founders are Benjamin Nolan and Mawgen Beattie who can be contacted at the new London Complaints Choir website.
So where are the New World’s choirs, eh?
Well, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) TV show As It Happens collected listener and viewer complaints, set them to music, sponsored a choir, and then they gave a great performance.
“I can’t open childproof bottles
Whatever happened to being polite?
Why can’t people use apostrophes properly?
Air Canada sucks.”
And the United States, usually so well-known for its complainers, is heard from at last. An article in The Juneau Empire by Korry Keeker tells of Juneau (Alaska) composers Patricia Hull and Tony Tengs who collected complaints for their composition “It Blows,” written for the premiere performance of The Juneau Complaints Choir. As far can be determined they performed their “skunk cabbage complaint chorale” on March 9th on the Capitol steps at high noon as part of the annual Cabin Fever Spring Arts Fest. I hope all 8 of them showed up.
Some folks in Pittsburgh are starting a complaints choir. Robert and Jen Strobel have gathered the complaints and the choir. Robert, a musician and teacher, is the composer and conductor, and the choir has been rehearsing for a month or so. Asked by phone how it was going, he replied, “Pretty well, but slowly.”
He said the song is done and the choir is learning it now. Here are some lines:
“…Bill Cowher is retired and Mr. Rogers is dead…”
“…The Pirates are everybody’s farm team…”
“…Nobody can spell Monongahela…”
The Penn State Complaints Choir video offers more than just a concert — it’s a short play with costumes, a set (a classroom, what else?) and features a kind of acting.
Though late out of the gate, Americans are catching complaints choir fever. A blogger in Boston, Massachusetts wrote, cheerily: “I and a friend of mine want to form a complaints choir for Boston, like the ones you can see on YouTube. What annoys you? Please reply with any and all Boston-related complaints! (Once we have a song composed, we’ll post again in case anyone is interested in singing. Thanks!)”
Unfortunately, the first comment she received wasn’t exactly encouraging:
“The only thing that really annoys me is large groups of people singing. Oh God, the irony.”
It’s enough to make you cranky.
