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 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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Sunday, 12 August 2012

Exchange in Japan


This fall is once more the period of departures for studies abroad. Along with Tia, I'll be leaving the dark-to-be Finland to the Land of Rising Sun in September.
I'll be staying a semester in Ōita, on the Kyushu Island. The city is considered small on the Japanese scale but it is still around the size of Helsinki. For various reasons, there is a blog to follow at kamioita.wordpress.com. There isn't much there yet, but with time content should be appearing. But I am not promising anything, as I am not an enthousiastic writer and I might loose my motivation mid-trip! 

There is also Tia's blog to follow at http://hiwyhi.wordpress.com/

Sayonara!



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