JOSEPH — Those long, deep-toned horns that called Alpenfest attendees to Wallowa County have a rich history that is more than just for entertainment.

Phil and Gayle Neuman came from their Oregon City home to Oregon’s Alpenfest over the weekend to lend additional authenticity with their alphorns to the celebration of Oregon’s “Little Switzerland” for the second year in a row.

Long history

“They go way back even to Roman times,” Phil said, adding that the Romans had a shorter version used to call legionnaires to battle.

He said he’s seen pictures of alphorns from the 16th century, some with the curved bells like the Neumans play and some with straight bells.

Gayle said the curved bells allow the sound emitted by the horns to rise up, rather than going into the ground.

Their traditional use is in the Alpine regions of Central Europe where dairy cows graze on the high pastures.

“Some of the earliest calls we have are translated as cow calls,” Phil said.

“The farmer would play a tune that his cows would recognize and then come in for milking.”

“Cows are very smart and they love music,” Gayle said. “We took a picture for an album cover of Phil with a tuba but we couldn’t get the cows to come over to Phil. He was making mooing sounds on the tuba. And they ignored him. But then as soon as he started playing actual music, they came right up to him.”

“I experimented with that a couple of times,” Phil said. “I’d play (just sounds) and they’d walk away and then I’d play a tune and they’d come back.”

Gayle agreed.

“They prefer actual music and they’ll come right to it. They knew where their dairy was or their farm was,” she said.

Added Phil: “As I understand it, in some of those high pastures the herds were mixed up,” Phil said. “So a farmer could call his own cows.”

Not just cows

The Neumans said it isn’t just cattle who seem attracted to alphorn music. Pretty much any ruminant they’ve come in contact with acts the same. Ruminants are mammals with multiple-chambered stomachs into which they swallow undigested food and then regurgitate it later to chew their cud.

“It’s something about the ruminants; they like music,” Gayle said.

She told about a woman she knows who was out in a field practicing her cello, had her eyes closed and then opened her eyes to see a half-dozen deer looking at her.

“I had an experience, too,” she said. “I was practicing out in an apple orchard and the deer came right up to me. They like any kind of music.”

“One time we were practicing in a field and the farmer was one of the players in our band,” Phil said. “He told us to make sure to grab our instruments because sometimes we’d have more than one there and one would be laying on the ground. He said the animals would walk right over them.”

Longtime alphornists

The Neumans have been playing their alphorns for decades.

“At least 30 years,” Gayle said.

“We’ve been playing brass most of our lives,” Phil said, noting that brass instruments are similar to alphorns. They have a mouthpiece like most brass instruments.

“Some have a wooden mouthpiece,” Gayle said, though they have no reed.

“They used to cut down a small tree, about 12 feet long and slice it in half and carve out the inside of the horn and put the pieces back together and cover it with something,” she said. “Now they cover it with rattan.”

“Or birch bark just to keep it from coming unglued,” Phil added.

Gayle said modern alphorns are in the key of F, although original alphorns were in F sharp. The key of F is a little better for modern instruments, she said.

During this year’s Alpenfest, the Neumans went up the Wallowa Lake Tramway for a concert on top of Mount Howard. The horns come apart into sections that are about 4 feet long. Some 40 people accompanied them despite the precipitation.

They keep busy blowing their horns. They were planning to come to Alpenfest in 2021, but it was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They hope to return next year.

“Just this weekend we’re playing 11 different times,” Gayle said.