Complaints Choir

A group of complainants who exorcise their grievances through communal singing.

Reporting for The Times, Phyllis Korkki revealed:

Recently a group of about 100 Tokyo residents put their complaints into a pile and a composer, Okuchi Shunsuke, turned them into a song. About 80 of the complainers (accompanied by an accordion, a bass cello and a tambourine) then performed the composition at various sites around the city, becoming the latest example of what has become known as a complaints choir.

The idea started in Finland, where there is a word for people who complain simultaneously, valituskuoro, which translates ascomplaints choir. About six years ago Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen and his wife, Tellervo Kalleinen, both visual artists living in Helsinki, began discussing the possibility of turning this metaphorical concept into something quite literal. People spend so much energy complaining, they reasoned, so why not harness all that energy into something positive?

Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen and his wife arranged their first complaints choir in Birmingham, England, in 2005. Since then, the couple and others have organized more than 60 such events around the world.

Below is a video of a performance by the Complaints Choir of Chicago in 2007:

According to Korkki, many find complaining in unison cathartic, although “while some complaints are universal (lack of sex appears to be a problem everywhere), others are colored by the particulars of a culture.” In Tokyo, work was a common gripe; in Helsinki, chorists were frustrated by mobile phones; and in St. Petersburg, many participants were experiencing existential crises.

For those interested in further reading (or singing), the Complaints Choir Web site has enumerated nine steps for forming a chorus of complainants.