Ricola? French horn player delights hikers in Alberta's Rockies with Swiss sounds

If you find yourself strolling out for a morning hike in Alberta's Rockiesand discover the sounds of Switzerland cascading around the mountain rangesthere could be a perfectly goodexplanation.

You may havestumbled across Calgarian Daryl Caswellpracticinghis alphorn an ancientfour-metre long horn that evokesfond memoriesofRicolacough candy commercialsfor some.

The instrument is the genuine real dealtoo,not some prop.

"Years ago, my wife and I were in Switzerland andI saw one of these in a department store this huge thing and I thought, 'I've got to do this,'"Caswellsaid.

"Nobody was doing this in the Rocky Mountains."

A former french horn player with theCalgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the musician became thefirst french horn with Red Deer Symphony when he went into engineering.

"But in the summer, I switch over completely into alphorn and I just play for fun,"CaswelltoldThe Calgary EyeopenerWednesday.

According to legend, the cone-shaped wood instrument was createdaround 4,000 years ago as a wayfor one mountain village to communicate with another, albeit one-way. It wasused to signal the daily activities of shepherds and cowherds, to calm cows at milking time and occasionallycall the men of the valley together for war.

It's played with a cup-shaped mouthpiece, which resembles the same one as the one on a trumpet, trombone and conveniently forCaswell thefrench horn.

"What that does is create a whole bunch of frequencies.I start to be able to focus those mini-frequencies into a few that are going to be useful in the instrument," saidCaswell.

The catch, for any aspiring alphorn player, is that it's a bit tricky to find apractice venue with the correct acoustics.

"I practice at home. But ...all the vibrations and reflections of sound are completely differentoutside," Caswell said.

"So I'll start thinking I'm hot stuff in the house, and then I come outside and all the sound will just disappear when you play it. So I have to get used to that,and I'll come outside and do it."

He usually heads to a nearbychurch parking lot to get the right sound.

"The neighbours are quite good about it. They don't send me back inside."

While practicing an alphorn outsidehis homemight prevent its distinctive sound from being swallowed up bylow ceilings inside, even Caswell has to admit it's missing one important ingredient: mountains.

That's why he sometimes packs the instrument up and heads for the Rockies even if that can get kind of awkward from time to time.

"I'll go somewhere like Lake Louiseand you're kind of nervous about doing it, becausepeople are out hikingthey're out in nature, you don't want tobother them," he said.

"[But after the] first note I play, they instantly sit down.... It's amazing."

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With files from Danielle Nerman and the Calgary Eyeopener