Austrian yodelers take their voices underground, turning a parking
garage into the Alps
[September 25, 2026]
By PHILIPP JENNE
GRAZ, Austria (AP) — No mountains to practice on? No problem. Yodeling
fans in Austria have moved their practice sessions to an underground
parking garage, since it produces echoes like those they can get in the
landscapes of the Alps.
“It’s not too dissimilar to the high mountains," said yodeling teacher
Anna Maria Gutschi as she led a group of 30 through an empty parking
garage earlier this week. "You have wide hallways; you have walls that
reflect a lot.”
Gutschi works for the Styrian Volksliedwerk, a cultural organization
promoting traditional folk music in the southeastern Austrian city of
Graz — which is not in the high mountains, but sits in a flat basin
surrounded by hills and low mountain ranges at the edge of the Alps.
The group has been holding a series of courses on yodeling in unusual
places to keep the tradition alive in modern times. Whether it is an
underground car park, a canal or a gas station — as long as the
acoustics work, up to 30 people are allowed to join each time for a
unique experience.
“It’s a form of communication from mountain to mountain — just like
that, without the need for a phone," Gutschi said, describing the art of
yodeling as she let her voice wander up and down the scales. "And it’s
not as boring as writing an SMS. Sounds much better, too.”
“The energy is rising, it’s rising and rising,” Gutschi said as she
explained the unique melodic tradition to her students. “Ever higher and
then it wants out on top and there it goes.”
For over an hour, the yodelers walked through the city's largest
underground parking garage, practicing their yodeling skills until they
had reached the deepest part of the garage — and the best conditions for
a great sound.
While some participants were already experienced yodelers, newcomers to
the craft also were welcome to join this subterranean class.
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A woman yodels during a public event in an underground garage in
Graz, Austria, on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos)
 Jamey Sohn, from South Korea, who is
studying sustainable development in Graz, decided to take the class
to immerse herself in Austrian culture.
“When I actually came here, it was a lot more — well, I wouldn’t say
easy per se, but it’s a lot more approachable than I first
expected,” Sohn said.
Yodeling emerged centuries ago as a way of communicating in the Alps
over long distances — not just between people, but also between man
and animal. Cattle would recognize their owner from his voice and
return to the stable from far away. Over time this primeval form of
singing has evolved into its own musical genre first made popular
internationally by the U.S. musical film The Sound of Music.
For Thomas Button, a teacher who is originally from New York state,
yodeling is “like a form of meditation. Singing meditation.”
“It’s hard to describe how much power you get from yodeling
together, the energy from within," said local yodeling fan Rudolf
Schmidhofer. “The togetherness, the polyphonic kind of yodeling
where you must listen to each other.”
"I’m still a student when it comes to this, but I like it very
much," he added.
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