The ´Tirolerei´ in Switzerland

In the 19th century Tyrolean Singing Families toured with their cultural shows including yodel in Europe and the yodel became popular even in Switzerland. During the same period the local yodeling styles in Switzerland were neglected and nearly fell into oblivion. The Tyrolean yodeling, which the Swiss called Tirolerei, was not appreciated by Swiss traditionalists and with the launch of the Eidgenössischer Jodlerverband (EJV) they aimed to support the Swiss yodel styles, alphorn and flag throwing. After the first few decades of the 20th century the yodel was exploited in Switzerland and in Tyrol together with the folk songs for political purposes and in the 1960s and 1970s yodeling was still considered musical patriotism. Today yodeling is much appreciated by a general audience. Never in history was yodeling as popular as in the beginning of the 21st century, and even a middle class urban population learns to yodel. This project focuses on a historical comparison between Swiss and Tyrolean yodel on musical and sociocultural level and will provide an important input to the interdisciplinary and international discussion on authenticity, national identity and cultural transfer in popular music. The study follows a chronological structure and analyses written texts, early musical notations, sketches and the earliest recordings. Additional field research will investigate the actual situation of the yodel in Tyrol and in Switzerland. The research results will be made accessible in a database and dissimilated by presentations, papers and articles. The final results will be published in a book. The Department of Music of the University of Innsbruck (Institut für Musikwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck) houses the project. Project leader is the Swiss Ethnomusicologist Raymond Ammann, Sandra Hupfauf (a Tyrolean Ethnomusicologist) is the project collaborator.

A look at 200 years of yodelling development in Austria and Switzerland reveals a multifaceted dynamic of the adoption processes, which took place in different ways depending on the era. The mixing and adoption of this alpine vocal music took place in many different ways and also in opposite directions, so that complex, multi-dimensional and sometimes almost unmanageable adoption processes played a part in their spread. The names, musical forms and languages of the songs, yodels and 'Kuhreihen' in the published collections of folk songs of the Alpine regions from the first decades of the 19th century clearly show the complexity of the processes. Through the process of forming 'cultural memory', however, yodelling per se became an integral part of the traditional heritage, which means that throughout history yodelling has always made a decisive contribution to the formation of (national) identity. This cultural heritage followed diverse geographical and social paths and underwent different types of transfer. This was accompanied by a repeatedly changing understanding of authenticity, which not only had a decisive influence on local dealings with yodelling and yodelling-songs, but also significantly determined the willingness to acquire and adopt foreign musical assets. At the same time 'adapted', i.e. not 'original' yodelling on the stage in Switzerland was insulted as 'Tirolerei'. In the course of the second half of the 19th century, yodelling was instrumentalized to establish cultural and national boundaries. This role increased until the first half of the 20th century, when yodelling was used to justify political ideologies based on descent and ethnicity. In Austria, after the turn of the 20th century, the instrumentalization of yodelling continued, interpreting it as a perfect expression of German superiority. The functionalization of yodelling by the German 'Nationalsozialisten' and its folklorisation after the Second World War meant that from the 1960s until the end of the 20th century yodelling was thought by the majority of the urban population in both Austria and Switzerland as antiquated and was rejected. However, with the beginning of the 21st century, the history of yodelling has undergone a fundamental reorientation: it seems that the protagonists of the 'New Yodel Movement' have succeeded, in keeping with the motto 'Jodle dich frei' (yodel yourself free), in getting rid of the legacy of this particular form of singing and giving it a new function. Thus, yodelling is no longer instrumentalised for a demarcation of cultures, but is seen as a hobby that connects people and cultures. So while yodelling was a means of demarcation and distinction in certain times, today it has a culturally unifying effect.