Shout-out for yodeling? Swiss seek recognition from UN cultural agency as tradition turns modern

Switzerland has nominated yodelling for UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, highlighting its evolution from Alpine herding calls to a modern art form. With growing popularity and academic recognition, advocates hope UNESCO recognition will preserve and promote this distinct national musical tradition worldwide

Lucerne: Yodel-ay-hee … what?! Those famed yodelling calls that for centuries have echoed through the Alps, and more recently have morphed into popular song and folk music, could soon reap a response — from faraway Paris.

Switzerland’s government is looking for a shout-out from the UN cultural agency UNESCO, based in the French capital, to include the tradition of yodelling on its list of intangible cultural heritage. A decision is expected by year-end.

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Modern-day promoters emphasise that the yodel is far more than the mountain cries of yesteryear by falsetto-bellowing male herders in suspenders who intone alongside giant Alphorns atop verdant hillsides. It’s now a popular form of singing.

Over the last century, yodelling clubs sprouted up in Switzerland, building upon the tradition and broadening its appeal — with its tones, techniques and tremolos finding their way deeper into the musical lexicon internationally in classical, jazz and folk. US country crooners prominently blended yodels into their songs in the late 1920s and 30s.

About seven years ago, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, or HSLU by its German-language acronym, became the first Swiss university to teach yodelling.

“For me, actually, in Switzerland we have four languages, but I think really we have five languages. We have a fifth: The yodel,” said HSLU professor Nadja Räss, alluding to the official German, French, Italian and Romansh languages in Switzerland. Yodelling exists in neighbouring Austria, Germany and Italy, but Swiss yodelling is distinctive because of its vocal technique, she said.

In its early days, yodelling involved chants of wordless vowel sounds, or “natural yodelling,” with melodies but no lyrics. More recently, “yodelling song” has included verses and a refrain.

The Swiss government says at least 12,000 yodelers take part through about 780 groups of the Swiss Yodelling Association.

In Switzerland, Räss said, yodelling is built on the “sound colours of the voice” and features two types: one centring on the head — with a “u” sound — and one emanating from deeper down in the chest — with an “o” sound.

And even within Switzerland, styles vary: Yodelling in the northern region near Appenzell is more “melancholic, slower,” while in the country’s central regions, the sounds are “more intense and shorter,” she said.

What began as mostly a male activity is now drawing more and more women in a country that only finalized the right to vote for all women in the 1980s, long after most of its European neighbours.

Julien Vuilleumier, a scientific adviser for the Federal Office of Culture who is spearheading the Swiss request, said it’s tough to trace the origins of yodelling, which factors into the imagery of the Swiss Alps.

“Some say it’s a means of communication between valleys, using these very distinctive sounds that can carry a long way. Others believe it’s a form of singing,” he said. “What we know is that … yodelling has always been transformed and updated.” UNESCO’s government-level committee for Intangible Heritage in New Delhi will decide in mid-December. The classification aims to raise public awareness of arts, craftsmanship, rituals, knowledge and traditions that are passed down over generations.

Also among the 68 total nominations this year are traditions like Thanakha face powder in Myanmar; Ghanaian highlife music; the fermented Kyrgyz beverage Maksym; and the El Joropo music and dance tradition in Venezuela.

The list is different from the UNESCO World Heritage List, which enshrines protections for physical sites that are considered important to humanity, like the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

Last year, Japan’s famed sake — the smooth rice wine — was one of more than 60 honorees in the intangible heritage list, alongside things like the Nowruz spring festival in parts of central Asia, and the skills and knowledge of zinc roofers in Paris.

The Rass of the Lucerne University says that candidates for the intangible heritage list are asked to specify the future prospects of cultural traditions.

“We figured out some projects to bring it into the future. And one of those is that we bring the yodel to the primary school,” said Rass, who herself grew up yodelling. She said 20 Swiss school teachers know how to yodel and are trying it with their classes.

“One of my life goals is that when I die, in Switzerland every school child will be in contact with yodelling during their primary school time,” she said. “I think it’s a very good chance for the future of the yodel to be on that (UNESCO) list.”