In this country, generations know yodeling primarily from the delicious Loriot sketch about the yodel diploma. In reality, of course, everything is different. Tarzan already knew how to do it.
Geneva – Don’t try to produce sweet tones with a beautiful voice! “Yodelling is the song of the soul that expresses innermost feelings,” says yodelling teacher Héloïse Fracheboud. Like an elemental force.
With her hand on her chest and head, she lets the schoolgirls feel the vibration of their own body as a sound instrument and says: “Anyone can yodel. If a different tone comes out than expected: be happy about it.” With her unconventional style, the Swiss woman has sometimes offended those who practice pure yodelling.
Generations of Germans think of the Loriot sketch “Jodelschule” from 1978 when they yodel, in which Frau Hoppenstedt (Evelyn Hamann) takes a yodel course in order to have “something of her own”. Unforgotten how she got tangled up in “the basic motives of the Archduke Johann yodel” (“Holleri du dödl di, diri diri dudel dö”). Of course it was stupid. And with Swiss yodelling, this could not happen anyway.
What actually is yodelling?
Because there in the pure teaching only the vowels O, U and Ü are yodelled. At best, a “J” for “Jo” or an “i” for “U” is part of it. Instead of Holo-le-i-ti it should be Jolo-ou-iu in Swiss. While in Austria there is “doli, duli, du” and yodelling is often fast-paced, Swiss natural yodelling is usually more solemn, such as in the Appenzeller Zäuerli or the Muotathaler Naturjuuz.
But what actually is yodeling? “A text and wordless way of singing,” writes the Swiss Federal Office for Culture. “Yodelling opens up a broad tonal spectrum between cultivated, classical-looking beautiful singing through to archaic, calling voices.” Many peoples in practically all parts of the world have such songs.
The desire to distance oneself from the Tyrolean yodelers led to the first yodel movement in Switzerland in 1910. At that time, many Tyroleans worked in Switzerland and yodelled in their own way. “People were afraid that our customs would be watered down,” says the President of the Federal Yodelling Association, Karin Niederberger. Musicologist Raymond Ammann from Innsbruck writes in 2020 that strict experts have begun to distinguish between the “right” yodeling of the mountain people and the “wrong” yodeling on stage, with the latter being insulted in Switzerland as “Tyrolei”.
“We yodel Swiss,” Niederberger notes. “We cultivate the ancient, traditional yodeling song.” There resonates an immeasurable energy that touches the heart when yodelers yodel with memories of summers spent with hard work on the alp, a mountain pasture. Rules apply to yodelling competitions. “What doesn’t work at all is rü or holdri aio,” she tells the dpa. And attitude is also part of it: singing groups stand motionless in a semicircle, their hands in their pockets or under their aprons. Accompaniment is only allowed on the accordion or the Schwyzerörgeli variant.
Change from chest voice to head voice
Fracheboud, from western Switzerland, is downright anarchic in comparison. She has presented yodeling amateurs as a chorus, dressed oddly, at city festivals. Her yodelling course takes place on her terrace in a mountain village above Martigny in the Rhone Valley. “First let the air out, then look like a bright country bumpkin,” she says, looking around with wide-open eyes and open-mouthed. This is how fresh air flows into the lungs. “And now let out the sound from the bottom of your heart,” she says. “Imagine calling your cow in the pasture, voilà, you’re already yodelling.”
Of course, it becomes clear that there is more to it when Fracheboud starts to yodel himself and elegantly switches from chest to head voice. There are also approaches to this in the taster session. She says: Everyone can express their innermost feelings with yodelling. “Tarzan was the first world-renowned yodel,” she says. The jungle scream is also created by the skillful alternation between chest and head voice.
For the trained musician, yodelling is folklore that needs to change. She writes her own compositions that are not always about mountains. “A Bottle for the Sea”, for example, reflects the feelings of a woman who sends her loved one a message in a bottle. In doing so, she does not yodel mostly repetitive elements – as in the traditional way – but in a tension arc soft-loud-quiet. She accompanies herself on a steel tongue drum, a metallic hollow body with cracks on top, from which she elicits meditative sounds with mallets.
No strict set of rules in Austria
She cannot take part in competitions organized by the yodelling association. Fracheboud says that purists used to attack her as a saboteur. In the meantime, however, the scene is flourishing outside of the rules. There is even a major in yodelling at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
The musician Erika Stucky received the Swiss Grand Prix Music in 2020 because she combined yodelling, blues and jazz and shaped the new Swiss folk music, it was said at the time. And “Oesch’s the Third” is a Swiss family band that is successful with the frowned upon “Tirolerei”. There was also techno, rocker and rapper yodelling.
In Austria there are no yodelling competitions and no strict set of rules. “If you only stick to the rules, you don’t allow any creative processes,” says Irene Egger from the Österreichisches Volksliedwerk, which maintains the country’s musical traditions. The association is not going around with a raised index finger to say what is right or wrong. Only those who only exploit yodelling music with a view to profit caused resentment. “You can play with traditions, but the question is how careful and respectful I do it,” says Egger. dpa
