Finland sings. Our nature is an acoustic treasure trove where natural sounds, cultural sounds, and our own voices come together in a whole that anyone can experience — and that all of us can nurture and respect. Even if our wilderness might appear from the outside as uninhabited and lonely, these places may have been living cultural environments for centuries. A landscape that looks untouched may carry cultural values and meanings invisible to an outsider at first glance.

Reading and understanding the environment requires calmness and a willingness to listen. A listening person also acknowledges and values silence. If we don’t listen to the land that has sung for thousands of years, we forget an essential part of our culture.

“If a place gives a song or a hum,
then you feel more a part of nature, more present in that place.”

Every area has its own cultural identity. Like sound, identity is always in motion — but to become stronger, it needs to be heard. Every area has its own acoustic environment, its own history and influences. The sounds we hear must be understood in context. Regions and their people tell their own stories through their songs and narratives. These stories hold unspoken meanings — tone, emphasis, changes in breath — shaped by the area’s acoustics and the other sounds in the environment. If we listen carefully, we come to understand our identity more deeply.

I’ve gathered in this collection a few glimpses of Finnish traditions of singing in nature — the Inkeri forest melody, the Sámi joik, and the mimicking of animal calls. This is just a brushstroke across our rich culture. Nature echoes through our songs across land and time — from runo songs and laments to lullabies and modern pop.

About Song.
Song is like a second language in humans — a way the heart speaks when ordinary language has no words strong enough. Such feelings are especially joy and worry (sorrow), and that’s why most songs divide into two main types: cheerful and sorrowful. Of course, songs can arise in other situations too, but not as naturally as in these two.
There’s no nation under the heavens that does not know and love song.
It’s unafraid of snow or frost in the northern fells,
nor of the heat and sun in Africa’s south, where even skin burns black.
Among America’s wild peoples it lives just as surely as in Europe’s most civilized circles —
dwelling in noble courts and peasant cottages alike,
thriving in royal halls and slave huts,
found in joyful gatherings and even in prisons.

But though song is known and loved by all, differences still exist:
To one person, song is dearer than to another; it comes more naturally.
This varies between individuals and even whole nations.
It depends on luck, temperament, and conditions.
Just as people differ from one another, so do cultures.
One may love war and movement, another peace and home life.
One oppresses, another is oppressed.
One feels happy and joyful, another troubled and burdened.
They say song comes from heaven — and longs to return.
Someone who has once tasted earthly joys
remembers the heavenly joy they came from,
but can’t fully forget where they came from —
so sorrow joins them with others who feel the same.

So it was with the girl of old.
As a child, she’d learned songs from an old woman —
offering a red ball of yarn and a shirt cloth in payment.
But later, as she grew older and her worries grew,
songs came to her as if from the air — she needed no teacher.
Then, thinking of earlier days, she sang:

Old woman, take back my scraps,
take back the red yarn ball!
No more need for lessons,
or to receive any words.
Now worry brings my verses,
longing brings my words,
sorrow the rest of my phrases,
my mood all its thoughts.

How closely linked are a sorrowful heart and a song…

– Elias Lönnrot, Mehiläinen, 1839–1840

“As children we’d go for evening walks
with my sister to the lake,
and there we’d sing together,
the water carrying our voices.”

“We always sang on Midsummer.”

“In the forest I just feel so amazing
I start singing without thinking.
Before you asked, I had never
even thought about this.
But now that you ask —
I realize: this is what I do.
I sing when I get to the forest
with my dog. Funny!”

The Forest Melody of Inkeri

In Inkeri, Armas Launis wrote the following field notes in 1906, published by the Finnish Literature Society in 1907:

Particularly charming forms of the forest melody can be found throughout Inkeri. It’s only natural that time spent in the forest has given rise to melodies that mirror the mystery of the wilderness. The forest melody is typically sung when a group of people is working in the forest. For instance, when villagers go to gather birch branches or feed for cattle, they pass the time by singing verses, usually starting with a forest hymn: La mie korvessa kumaelen, or Helise heliä metsä. It is both a work song and a song for leisure. A lone forest walker might also enjoy echoing the melody through the woods.

Like many Inkeri melodies, some of these end with a long note the singer aims to project with full force to make the land and forest ring out:

I sing like a slender bird,
soft though my power,
the forest rings,
the wildwoods echo
with my clear voice,
with my proud step.

The Inkeri forest melody was born in the forest, through interaction between people and nature. It was sung during work breaks or just for pleasure. Launis’s writings also reveal our relationship to natural acoustics — how sound has long been amplified in echoing places, how the land and forests have rung for centuries.

From my parents, I inherited a folk song composed to a 1938 text by Ida Maria (Maija) Konttinen. We’ve sung it in the sauna for generations:

Nimble children from the home yard
break birch branches.
With quick little hands
they tie the sauna whisks.
On the warm bench in the familiar sauna
evening brings a pleasant bath.
The child’s whisk is always soft
when Mother is doing the whisking.
The home sauna’s steam is warm,
elsewhere it is different.
Oh, if only the children could
stay safe from the cold world.

Echoes from the North

I listened to Ulla Pirttijärvi from Inari’s Angeli speak about the joik tradition at a Sibelius Academy lecture some years ago. Ulla described joik as an Arctic way of life — not performance, but interaction. A way to meet, respect, and connect. To remember a person, an animal, a familiar landscape. In joik, voice, body language, and expression meet. A person becomes their own instrument.

The Sámi word luondu, meaning “nature,” is a translation. In Sámi, there were no distinct words for Western concepts like nature, art, culture, or science. Traditionally, no boundary was drawn between humans and nature — people were part of nature.

“Life, I too would still like to sound,
sound.
And I, I sound.
If you,
play me.”

Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, Girddán, Seivvodan, 1997

In Sound with Nature

Dialogue with nature has always required sensitive listening and alertness — from both humans and animals. Since ancient times, people have known how to listen to and mimic bird calls, and they’ve used those skills. Outdoorsmen learned mating, territorial, and hunting calls and used them on their expeditions.

“My parents were great singers.
Both sang often while working:
Mother in the barn or vegetable patch,
Father in the fields and forest.
Neighbors once asked if we had a radio in the barn —
they could hear loud singing from there.
One time, Father stayed in the forest until dark.
Mother was worried something had happened
and went looking for him.
She sighed in relief when she heard his song
echoing from far away!”

“Singing in nature feels like coming home.”

“The forest inspires me to sing,
sometimes even to make up my own songs.
They’re always comforting songs.
In the forest my mind relaxes,
my thoughts take gentler paths —
and that shapes what I feel like singing.”

“Especially when I hike alone,
I sing a lot — mostly to scare animals
(especially bears).
I come from a reindeer herding family,
so I know herd calls.
I also have songs in my back pocket
that help me reconnect
to the beauty and strength
of the fells — even in noisy rush.”

“I learned campfire songs and the sense of community they bring.
Those close moments, the good mood — they still follow me
whenever I sit by a fire.”

“Dad sings in the berry woods.”

“He’s sung lyrics like this to the melody of Eldankajärven jää:
‘Picking bilberries is such a nice activity…’”

Nature’s sounds have been an endless source of stories in the Finnish countryside. I listened to recordings archived by the Finnish Literature Society and wrote down a few of the stories.

---

The raven, crow, and magpie

So in Koskenpää, there are two Porkkala farms — Upper Porkkala and Lower Porkkala — and there’s an old story from there… It’s not clear which farm it happened at, but there was a farmer named Taavetti, and his mare died. It died out in the backwoods, and, as usual, scavenger birds gathered around. First came a raven, then a crow, and they started pecking at the horse. Then came a magpie — it flitted around and asked, “Whose is it?”
“Porkkala’s! Porkkala’s!” croaked the raven.
But the magpie wouldn’t start eating until it had the facts straight: “Which Porkkala? WHICH Porkkala?”
“Taavetti’s! Taavetti’s!” said the crow.
Only then did the magpie start pecking too — now that it knew whose horse it was.
They all ate side by side. The raven pecked out an eye and called, “No more sight! No more sight!”
The crow was on the back end, digging in and saying, “This is good! This is good!”
The magpie came to check and chirped, “Well, there are two!” — it was a mare, after all.
And so they kept on eating until they were full and flew away.
It’s not a long story, but that’s how it happened.

— Jämsä

---

A tale of four Swedish-speaking crows

Let me tell you a little tale about some crows that came over from Sweden to a field in Leskelä last April. There were four of them, and they were very tired when they arrived one Saturday evening as the sun was setting. One was very old, barely seeing or hearing anything anymore.

Next to the old one sat a slightly younger crow, rustling its feathers and preening. The old crow thought this meant something, so it asked (in its limited Swedish) “VVVA?” — meaning vad (what?).
The second crow thought it meant “where” and answered “VVVAARR?”
The third crow, younger and more alert, remembered something. Its eyes brightened, and it opened its beak wide and called: “KVVAARN!” — mylly (mill), pointing to Jukola’s mill nearby.
The youngest of the group got excited, took off into flight and shouted, “BBBRRA!” — bra (good).
And off they all flapped, slowly, toward Jukola’s mill.

— Nurmes

---

The capercaillie

Back in Swedish times, a Swedish officer or cavalry commander — maybe a knight — was traveling the deep routes in the Savonian woods with his driver. It was spring, and the capercaillies were in high spirits. They’d gathered near the road and started calling out:

“Shave your beard! Shave your beard! Shave your beard!”

Then another bird joined in:

“Take the whole head! The whole head!”

The officer got spooked and told his driver to hurry.
The horse took off at a gallop — he thought Finnish robbers were coming for his beard, his head, and everything else.
This kind of tale used to be told around here, passed mouth to mouth.
How much of it’s true? That’s another question.

— Saarijärvi

---

“The forest inspires me to sing,
sometimes even to make up my own songs.
They’re always comforting songs —
in the woods my mind relaxes,
my thoughts take softer paths.”

---

“No one in my family really sang —
only my grandfather, and only when heating the sauna.”

“As a child, walking the path down to the lakeside sauna…
Dad would sing seasonal songs —
for example:
‘Snowflakes slowly falling
onto the pure white ground…’”

---

Contemporary Experiences of Singing in Nature

It’s always been clear to me that singing in nature, being such a natural part of my own life and family gatherings, must exist outside the archives as well.
At the end of presentations, I often ask the audience how many sing in nature. Time after time, more hands go up than I expect.

This intuition led me, in late 2018, to collect responses through a simple open call — a market survey shared via email and social media with people I suspected might be interested. Through them, the questions reached strangers as well. I received over 200 anonymous responses from across Finland, from teenagers to octogenarians — all nature singers.

This wasn’t a scientific study, but it still gives a sense of how quietly meaningful singing in nature is for so many people today.

Nature is a familiar environment where we calm down and become quiet. Some respondents noted that singing doesn’t belong in the forest — they didn’t want to disturb nature’s peace.

But song also creates a familiar, safe soundscape when we feel uncertain.
Hearing human voices — even just our own humming — can be calming in tense situations.
Outdoors or by a fire, humming has held family groups together, creating a sense of security and belonging.

Singing in nature has united singers across generations.
Work songs, herding calls, and dance tunes have mingled with intimate songs sung by the fire.
Even today, people still gather at midsummer bonfires to sing songs passed down from their parents.

“When I’m out picking berries, I tend to sing.
I like to think a bear will walk around me
if it hears my voice.
I feel safer in the forest
when I’m quietly singing to myself.”

“My mother’s side of the family is very musical.
Calling cows was second nature to my grandmother and aunt —
my grandmother sang,
my aunt mostly shouted the cows in for milking.
We cousins sing together once a year,
during evenings of sauna and time outdoors —
without really thinking about it.”