Community as a discursive construct in contemporary Danish singing culture

Abstract

Community singing—the informal practice of collective singing at social occasions—has traditionally served various societal purposes. Recently, however, new types of community singing events have emerged in Denmark that make the singing act itself the central purpose for gathering rather than an appendage. Such events indicate that community singing is becoming more about participating in a performance and less about consolidating an ideological common ground. On the basis of an analysis of present public discourse, this article pursues the questions of how singing is perceived to construct community, and what kind of community can be formed when the importance of semantic song content fades. In conclusion, it is proposed that modern singing events, rather than merely reinforcing existing communities, now produce self-reliant, musically imagined communities.