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Yodeling

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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 found in many cultures throughout the world.

In Swiss folk music, it was probably developed in the Swiss 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 usually thought of as having at least two distinct vocal "registers", called the head and chest voices, which result from different ways that the tone is produced by the human body. Most people can sing tones within a certain range of relatively lower pitch well 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 often have control of their voices to the point where these ranges overlap, can switch between them easily to produce high-quality tones in either. Yodelling is one of the most developed uses of this technique, wherein a singer will switch between these registers several times within the same note, at a high volume. Going back and forth over this "voice break" repeatedly produces one of the most distinctive types of sounds in music.

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 at Duelling Yodels, Elton Britt, Wilf Carter, Yodelin' Slim Clark, Slim Whitman, the Belgian entertainer Bobbejaan Schoepen, Patsy Montana, Doug Green, Wylie Gufstafson, 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. Recently, Texan Don Walser has achieved the most recognition and commercial success of any country yodeler.
  • 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. Just recently Gwen Stefani also put herself to the task of yodeling the Lonely Goatheard at the beginning of her newest single, "Wind It Up".

[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".

An 11 year old yodeler named Taylor Ware is currently a finalist on the NBC show America's Got Talent. She learned all of her yodeling from a book, starting at age 7. She advanced to the finals on July 12, after receiving the most votes from viewers of the show.

Mike Johnson [1]is Country Music's No.1 Black Yodeler. On 1 September 2002 the National Traditional Country Music Association inducted him into America's Old-Time Country Music Hall of Fame. His yodeling song "Yeah I'm A Cowboy" is one of 18 songs featured on the Rough Guide To Yodel CD releasing on 25 September 2006. One of several yodeling projects initiated by Bart Plantenga, music historian and author of the 2004 best seller, "Yodel-Ay-Eee-Ooo, The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World," Johnson is also included in Plantenga's forthcoming book, "Yodeling In Hi-Fi." Mike Johnson is currently working on his own "40-Years of Yodeling" project.

In 1978, Korean War Veteran/Bronze Star recipient, McDonald Craig went to Meridian, Mississippi for the Annual Jimmie Rodgers Yodeling Championship. This was when the new Jimmie Rodgers Postal Stamp was about to go on sale. McDonald beat out 72 contestants for First Place, also becoming the first and only African-American Yodeler to ever win that honor. His original Cassette Album "McDonald Craig Sings My Home In Tennessee and Other Old Time Country Favorites" was re-mastered to CD in 2001 by Roughshod Records and released as "Yodeling McDonald Craig," the first of their Special Projects Promotional releases. In 2002 he was featured on Roughshod Records Special Project release "Three Country Music Yodelers, Who Just Happen To Be Black," featuring two cuts each by him, Stoney Edwards, and Mike Johnson. And in 2000 he appeared in the "1999 Sonny Rodgers Yodelers Paradise Show" Video filmed by Roughshod Records' Mike Johnson at the 1999 Avoca, Iowa Old Time Country Music Festival.

Mr. Bone, the assistant principal of Bluffington Elementry from the TV Series Doug, is a professional yodeler, and the first animated character to yodel.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

fr:Yodel nl:Jodelen ja:ヨーデル pl:Jodłowanie ru:Йодль fi:Jodlaus sv:Joddling

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