Sunday, 25 November 2018

Finest Sounds in Music & Media 2018


The 29th Music and Media in Tampere in October, from Thursday 4th to Friday 5th, was a huge international event with more than 650 participants from Finland and abroad. Finest Sounds was an essential partner in the event, inviting Japanese delegation of music professionals and festival organizors and organizing three panel discussions with themes like Japan listens!, Sub-Publishing in Japan and Branded Japan. 

Finest Sounds University partners get together for a kick-off meeting on Wednesday evening before the event. From Tallinn University / Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School arrived a group of 15 students with professor Andres Jõesaar and project manager Ele Arder. From TAMK attended six students with lecturers Harri Karvinen and Sohvi Sirkesalo. Katja Pyykkö, student from HUMAK, took the role of coordinating all groups working with Estonian and Finnish artists. Three teams were formed: Team Tampere, Team Tokio and Team Tallinn.

During Music & Media days all teams had the opportunity to meet managers or people from music companies of the musicians or bands. Team Tallinn even enjoyed the concert of PK Keränen & Valtteri Pöyhönen.


The teams and artists
Finest Sounds Students’ teams planning the programme and tasks for Music & Media.
Japan listens!
And students listen...
The Networking Session was a real success! The students met Japanese music professionals and they got to know each other. The seminar room was full with lively and effective face-to-face meetings.
November 13-16 in Tokio was the Hokuo Music Fest, where Nordic delegates brought Finnish and Estonian Music for Japanese music business to find Japanese audiences.

Text & photos by Sohvi Sirkesalo 2018
Photo & text edits by Carita Forsgren

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Monday, 20 November 2017

Finest Sounds Autumn News Vol 2.

Autumn news from Finest Sounds, part 2: Music & Media 05 - 07.10.2017


Finest Sounds hosted several sessions focusing on Japanese music business during Music and Media Conference in the beginning of October. Delegation from Japan brought 10 experts to Tampere. The intensive days offered a unique opportunity for professionals and business people as well as to the students to get insight information about Japanese market. For the students, this was an awesome chance to get direct feedback about their concepts and demos.

On Thursday morning the students and teachers from Tallinn University, Humak and TAMK got together, checked and confirmed the timetable for coming three days – it was tight but not too much. The first open session was Folk, World and Jazz Music Market in Japan, panel discussion with four Japanese representatives, moderated by Tapio Korjus. Right after that keynote Marc Wesseling, the co-founder of UltraSuperNew aggregated big audience into the lounge with fascinating examples of how their gallery works and how they combine brands with artists – cases included, ao. Heineken, RedBull and Supercell’s Clash of the Clans. Wesserling’s key words were the opinion leaders from different communities: skateboard, rap, heavy music – how to make them to work for the brand and make successful campaign, both within social media and in live events.



After Wesserling started the Matchmaking session, where 15 Finnish and Estonian brands and bands pitched their music and products, famous brands like Kyrö Distellery, Nokia Technologies, Ivana Helsinki and Festivality, and artists and bands from different genres, like Elifantree, Lieblings, Tuuletar, Steven Seagulls’ and Mokoma – the session was followed with active discussions and sharing cards, contacts and ideas among the participants.

Thursday evening was filled with gigs around the city – Lost in Music festival made students and teachers go from club to club listening and enjoying old favourites and exploring new artists.

On Friday, Finest sounds presented two sessions: “Big in Japan?” and “Still a Goldmine?” – both were full, students were active and the Japanese delegation was busy. In the afternoon students worked in a workshop to prepare their ideas for the hackathon on Saturday.



Music and Media had only three sessions on Saturday, conference rooms in Hotel Torni were not busy and most of the participants had left. But Finest students were working hard in their Hackathon. Ideas and concepts were developed and sharped, with the tutoring help from the teachers. Some concepts get really wild and crazy, many of the groups had visions for environmental, interactive campaigns. They get tutoring and feedback also directly from the Japanese experts, personal guidance for each group. Five hours work and then it was time for final presentations and feedback from Japanese delegates and Finnish companies – like this:
  • Kyrö Distillery & Mokoma & Visit Tampere: limited edition of Kyrö’s spirits, own bottle for every band member and augmented reality on the bottles – Feedback: interesting, “yeah!”
  • Kyrö Distillery & Moomin Museum & Elifantree: Moomin Garden Party in Japan, activities for adult Moomin lovers.. – Feedback: looks great, this could happen, but how about the Moomin characters with licencing alcohol?
  • Morrow Games & Tuuletar: four different elements with relaxing rooms & landscapes, combined with Koti-cabin or Lingvist (the language learning platform) with Mokoma – Feedback: crazy enough!
  • Kyrö Gin & Cranberry floating in the icepool, with music of Joonas Widenius Trio – feedback: Great Idea!


-Text by Sohvi Sirkesalo

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Finest Sounds Autumn News Vol 1.

Autumn news from Finest Sounds, part 1: Logomo sessions 07 - 08.09.2017


FinEst Sounds project has reached the Demo season 2, with new activities and first cases with bands and brands, artists and companies. In the beginning of September 33 students and 7 teachers from Tallinn University, Humak and TAMK get together in Logomo, Turku. The programme started on Thursday 7.9. with a short introduction of all the students. It was truly an international group, since the students of TAMK and Tallinn were not only from Estonia or Finland but from 10 different countries, including Venezuela, Mexico, Latvia, Russian among others.

Most of the students joined the project for the first time, so lecturer Jyrki Simovaara from Humak started the session with overview of Finest sounds and explained the roles of universities and students. Assignment number one was free brainstorming for ideas for demos. Combining any Estonian or Finnish artist with one creative industry brand, so that they can support each other in order to reach Japanese market successfully.

Even though the students met each other for the first time and working time was short, in the end of the day we could see creative, crazy and potential combinations like Estonian artist Noëp combined with Ivana Helsinki; Finnish vocal group Tuuletar with Saana and Olli; heavy rock band Mokoma with Morrow Games; Finnish artist Suad with Gemmi; The Lieblings with Lingvist, among others. Intensive afternoon with inspiring ideas!



On Friday 8.9. Finest teams had the opportunity to listen to two lectures about Japan, Japanese culture and consuming habits. First speaker, Jenny Moberg from 07design. She has been working in the Japanese market for several years as an agent for Finnish design and has broad a knowledge about the culture, values and habits in Japan. She underlined the importance of IPR process and also reminded that the “old media” should not be underestimated channel in marketing.

“Japanese people appreciate high quality, fairness and loyalty”, she told and said that Nordic lifestyle has great value.


Tuomo Saikkonen from Sakara Records told us the good story how a Finnish heavy rock band Mokoma ended up to play in Loudpark, one of the biggest festivals in Japan. Ichiro Aono, from Japanese Creativeman, visited Tuska festival in 2012 and got enthusiastic so next year Music Finland organized Mokoma to a showcase gig at Studio Coast for an entranced audience of 1500 people. Couple of years silence, negotiations and then 2016 Mokoma was in Loudpark. About the differences in business culture Tuomo told that it was impossible for the Japanese business people to believe that one artist of the band is also the CEO of the record company. It is important to learn in advance the hidden meanings and metaphors of things, like the case “Stam1na and Hawaii shirts” educated.

Two intensive days in Logomo ended with the new presentations of student groups and feedback from the companies. The representatives from Bafe’s Factory and Vita Pictura were surprised about the visual demos and creativity of students. Next step is Music and Media, groups will continue their work online and results will be shown to Japanese delegation in Tampere in the beginning of October.


-Text by Sohvi Sirkesalo

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