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[sounds of yodeling]
I'm so happy and glad to see that all the people of all age groups, especially the young
people, are joining to keep on with the tradition...and I've been singing for the last twenty years
and it's so nice to see this happening...
[sounds of yodeling]
Okay, I'll try to explain what yodelling means...in my bad Swiss English, of course...
Yodeling is normally one part of a song, is some text, where we explain something, something
very traditional about our mountains, about our flowers...and the second part is yodeling...that's
real yodeling, where it is no text, actually.
The yodelling is something that you do with your neck. It's not just the stomach or something.
It comes from the neck, and it's quite hard to train to get to the high tunes. And for
this competition here, the Swiss competition, you have to get into the province competitions.
Not every yodeling club can come to this competition here.
The Swiss organization has around...I'm not sure, but I think about 18,000 members and
here in the National Yodeling Festival which takes place every three years, are about 11,000.
Yodeling songs have been developed in the mountains. The funny thing is that our club,
we're twenty people altogether, we are from the industrial area, from Switzerland, not
that far from Zurich and Basel... And we love it. We train very seriously for such a competition
here but on the other hand, we enjoy to sit together and to drink wine and to have a lot
of fun and we are very very good friends all together. I think that's it sometimes more
important than the songs itself.
It's like you have two sections by yodeling. You have the serious section, where you train,
and after it you go together for the drink and then you talk and laugh and have fun.
It's like serious and fun together, that you mix on the one hand.
And that's actually also the reason why we are here. We have already had our competition
song, around two hours ago, and now we are going to enjoy it, we are going to drink,
and we will have a nice time until tomorrow evening.
[sounds of yodelling]
I've been in the United States since 1966. And I've been in the United States since 1977.
I was actually born in this region, born in Spiez, and so for me this yodeling festival
has special meaning because it is in my neck of the woods, so to speak.
My colleague Ursula and I came to receive an award for being 25 years in the Swiss Folk
Group of Washington, DC. We dance and sing, yodel, and we're a bunch of happy people over
there. I sing bass, the fundamental part, but by yourself it sounds like being a bear
or a grouch. So, I can't really sing. I can sing "la, la, la"... but that's about as good
as I can do it by myself.
The next Yodel Fest will be determined this weekend on Sunday when they exchange the flags,
sort of like at the Olympic ceremonies when they change the flags to the next event's
city.
When it is announced, you are all coming hopefully to the next yodel fest and if you live in
the United States, we'll help you to get there...
[sound of horn]
Come to see the Eidgenössische Jodlerfest, and see how much fun it is.