Yodel-ay-hee-hoo: Swiss university offers yodelling degree

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Warblers can now “get a degree-he-heeee” in yodelling, according to media reports.

Switzerland’s University of Lucerne of Applied Sciences and Arts is offering a three-year bachelor degree, and a two-year master’s, in the 500-year-old singing style, says the Daily Mail. The new course, named Jodel, will be taught by yodelling star Nadja Rass, a Swiss Music Prize nominee, and Sarah Buechi, a renowned jazz and folk musician.

“The whole yodelling scene will benefit from [the students’] new skills,” Rass told Swiss newspaper Tribune de Geneve.

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The warbling singing style, traditionally used by herders in the Alps, was popularised back in the 1960s by the film The Sound of Music. It had another revival last year when Romania’s Eurovision contestants scored a top ten placing with their party song Yodel It! - a mix of rap, rock and yodelling.

The yodelling degree will be part of the folk music programme at Lucerne University. As well as learning how to yodel, students will also complete modules on the history and theory of the singing style, as well as business workshops.

Not everyone is singing the university’s praises, however.

The Daily Telegraph notes that Karin Niederberger, president of the Federal Yodelling Federation, warns that academic rigidity could undermine the regional variations and unique traditions of the art form.