By PHYLLIS KORKKI

Life in Tokyo, as everywhere else, is annoying and unfair. The good men are all married. Co-workers clip their fingernails at their desks. Laundry comes back from the cleaners still dirty. Society is too competitive.

Recently 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 as complaints choir. About six years ago Oliver Kochta- Kalleinen and his wife, Tellervo Kalleinen, visual artists living in Helsinki, began discussing the possibility of turning this metaphorical concept into something quite literal. In 2005, the two organized their first complaints choir, in Birmingham, England.

The Tokyo choir, which performed last month, is the eighth that the couple have worked with. But others have formed choirs in other cities, and, Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen said, more than 60 performances have occurred worldwide . People of differing ages and backgrounds are encouraged to participate. Singing experience is not required. “If you demand a certain amount of singing skills it would exclude a lot of people,” Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen said. “Anyone who has a complaint should be able to take part.”

At the start of the performance last month, many choir members were wearing surgical masks, which are common in Tokyo these days because of swine flu (another thing, perhaps, to complain about). They started by humming to the music, then took off their masks and started singing.

Videos of choirs around the world show that 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 complaints about work were more common than in other cities, Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen said. (“I cannot say no to work on holidays.” “My boss made his mistakes mine.” )

In Helsinki mobile-phone complaints were high on the list. (“The battery on my mobile is always going flat.” “Ring tones are all irritating.” )

And in St. Petersburg, Russia, the complaints were more reflective of “deep existential trauma” and unfulfilled love, Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen said. (“Why are we always dissatisfied with something?” “Why do we keep loving when love is so painful?”)

Regardless of the complaint and where it is sung, being able to sing it while standing alongside others is apparently often cathartic.

Frank Mauceri, who owns a record company called Smog Veil in Chicago, helped plan and was a member of a complaints choir there two years ago. He also helped make a documentary on complaints choirs that is now on the festival circuit.

A self-described loudmouth and curmudgeon, he said singing about his complaints made him feel better. The Kalleinens “took a simple act and made it transformative,” he said.

But the Tokyo choir is the last one that Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen and his wife plan to assist directly. “I think we have listened to enough complaints,” he said wearily.

A complaints choir in Tokyo. Their grievances focused more on work than those of choirs in other countries. / KO SASAKI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES