New yodel army The feminists who have dragged Alpine music into the 21st century

Lena Kaiser just wanted to yodel and, living in central Switzerland, that didn't seem too much to ask for. "But as a woman you couldn't yodel in a choir unless you were already a professional; there were simply no options," she says.

- Kaja Šeruga

Lena Kaiser just wanted to yodel and, living in central Switzerland, that didn't seem too much to ask for. "But as a woman you couldn't yodel in a choir unless you were already a professional; there were simply no options," she says. There were also the words to the songs, portraying an idyllic Alpine life, the men in charge and the women either naive girls, self-sacrificing mothers or nagging wives.

So, in 2022, she founded Switzerland's first feminist yodelling choir, and Echo vom Eierstock ("echo from the ovary") has been rewriting traditional songs and dragging the Alpine folk music scene into the 21st century.

While they have no qualms about changing the words, they remain lovingly faithful to the musical tradition. Yodelling is characterised by rapid changes in pitch, alternating between a low-pitched chest voice and a high-pitched head voice. While yodelling calls - such as the "Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo" - were probably used by cowherds over millennia to communicate from one hill to another, the Jodellieder, or yodelling songs, developed in the 19th century, combined verses with a yodel refrain.