ABSTRACT
Switzerland was founded in 1291 as a confederation of the three waldstatte Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwaiden. Switzerland comprises four distinct cultural and linguistic areas: Swiss-German, French, Italian, and Romansh, the last a collection of Rhae to - Romanic dialects, spoken in canton Graubunden and adjacent parts of Italy. The rural economy of Switzerland gave rise to a repertoire of songs associated with agriculture, herding cattle, calendrical events, and life-cycle stages. Artifacts found in Neolithic sites point to the use of musical instruments in the geographical area of Switzerland, where archaeologists have unearthed bark trumpets, bull roarers, flutes, ratchets, and snail-shell shakers. Though archaic vocal styles have been widely replaced by newer ones, Switzerland's musical past maintains a presence, despite changed contexts. Literate music education rapidly replaced the oral transmission of musical traditions, song structures were narrowed to strophic forms, Swiss-German dialect was sometimes replaced by standard German texts, and vocal style became standardized.
