Yodeling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yodeling (or yodelling, jodeling) is a form of singing that involves singing an extended note which rapidly and repeatedly changes in pitch from the vocal chest register (or "chest voice") to the head register (or "head voice"), making a high-low-high-low sound. This vocal technique is used in many cultures throughout the world.
In Swiss folk music, it was probably developed in the Swiss and Austrian Alps as a method of communication between mountain peaks, and it later became a part of the traditional music of the region. In Persian and Azeri Classical musics, singers frequently use tahrir, a yodeling technique that oscillates on neighbor tones. In Georgian traditional music, yodelling takes the form of krimanchuli technique. In Central Africa, Pygmy singers use yodels within their elaborate polyphonic singing. Yodeling is often used in American bluegrass and country music.
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[edit] Technique
All human voices are considered to have at least two distinct vocal registers, called the "head" and "chest" voices, which result from different ways that the tone is produced. Most people can sing tones within a certain range of relatively lower pitch in their chest voices, and then a certain range of relatively higher pitch in their head voices. There is often a gap between these ranges, especially in inexperienced or untrained singers. Experienced singers, who can control their voices to the point where these ranges overlap, can easily switch between them to produce high-quality tones in either. Yodelling is a particular application of this technique, wherein a singer might switch between these registers several times in but a few seconds, at a high volume. Going back and forth over this "voice break" repeatedly produces a very distinctive type of sound.
For example, in the famous example syllable "Yodl - Ay - EEE - Ooooo", the "EEE" is sung in the head voice, while all other syllables are in the chest voice.
[edit] Examples
- Examples of country/western yodeling can be heard by, Rusty & Tania, Elton Britt, Wilf Carter, Yodelin' Slim Clark, Slim Whitman, the Belgian entertainer Bobbejaan Schoepen, Patsy Montana, Doug Green, Wylie Gustafson, and in early pre-rock and roll recordings by Bill Haley. The Band used yodeling on Up On Cripple Creek. The most notable country and western yodeler was pioneer star Jimmie Rodgers, who recorded more than a dozen songs under the title "Blue Yodel" with an appended number. Gene Autry was another country-style yodeler. A UK example of this style was the Glasgow-born Karl Denver.
- Some good examples of Alpine yodeling can be heard in the songs of Franzl Lang, Stefanie Hertel, Zillertaler Schürzenjäger, Kerry Christensen, Ursprung Buam, and Mary Schneider.
- Yodeling is less often seen in pop music and rock, probably because there is not much of an accompanying tradition of its use. One of the most famous examples of yodeling in popular music is "Hocus Pocus" by the Dutch rock group Focus. International pop star Jewel is another example - she can yodel, and while she does not truly yodel in her commercial music, her proficiency at it contributes to her vocal style, which features nearly instantaneous transitions between her head voice and chest voice. More recently, pop star Shakira features similar vocal stylings in some of her songs. The Sound of Music, by Rodgers and Hammerstein, contains a yodelling song, The Lonely Goatherd, in which Mary Martin yodelled to good effect in the original production on Broadway in 1959. Gwen Stefani also put herself to the task of yodeling the Lonely Goatheard at the beginning of her newest single, "Wind It Up".
- Soul singer Aaron Neville was inspired by Gene Autry's yodelling to develop his unusual vibrato singing style.
- Kishore Kumar, the Indian singer, yodelled in some of his songs. He was the best-known yodeller in Hindi cinema.
- In the Tamil film world, talented comedian and singer Chandrababu yodelled in some of his songs.
- Taylor Ware entered for America's Got Talent with singing and yodelling.
- "On the Franches Mountains" is the yodeling tune heard during the The Price Is Right's game "Cliff Hangers".
- The lead vocalist for American electro-punk band The Epoxies is known for her yodeling in a lot of their songs.
- Pop singer Gwen Stefani's hit single from her latest album is "Wind It Up", a song which involves yodeling.
[edit] Miscellany
"Appenzeller" and "Bravourjodler" are yodeling standards which are performed by many different singers.
The best places for Alpine-style yodelling are those with an echo. They include lakes, rocky gorges, anywhere with a distant rock face, the outdoor areas between office buildings, in a canoe next to a rocky shoreline, or down a long hallway, and best of all, a mountain range.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word yodel is derived from a German word jodeln (originally Bavarian) meaning "to utter the syllable jo".
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Duelling Yodels
- The Yodeling Whistler
- The Internet Yodeling Course (Ten step course with audio samples)
[edit] References
- Yodel-Ay-Ee-)000: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World by Bart Plantenga, New York: Routledge, 2004), ISBN 0-415-93990-9 --from Switzerland to the avant-garde, exhaustive survey of the field.
