Diatonic Accordion World Championship

Published on 03 June 2019

Some of you may think that our northern friends are the heroes of the most weird world championships but read this story carefully and you may change your opinion. Yesterday, in a small village about 60 km north of Graz, a world championship went into its finals and guess what? This was the world championship in playing the Diatonic Button Accordion or – as it is called in Austria – the “Steirische Knopferlharmonika”. What a coincidence that many a world champion happens to be born in “Steiermark” which is the local name for the province of Styria.

If playing the accordion is not within your reach why not try yodeling? No, we don’t mean the “hyperlocal community” nor the “parcel manager” but the traditional vocal technique of Alpine Yodeling. What a wonderful way to make yourself heard (and understood?) in Austria. There is a nice self-taught course implemented as a smartphone app which can be downloaded by clicking on the yodeling alien below:

Or you plan for a yodeling course in Austria. Well some people still have to try harder, they don’t manage more than a monotone “Jo-Jo”: