Yodeling

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Yodeling

Yodeling (or yodelling, jodeling) is a form of singing

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the human voice, which is often contrasted with regular speech. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist....
that involves singing an extended note which rapidly and repeatedly changes in pitch from the vocal or chest register (or "chest voice") to the falsetto

Falsetto

The term falsetto refers to the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice and overlapping with it by approximately one octave....
voice, making a high-low-high-low sound. This vocal technique is used in many cultures throughout the world.

lpine folk music, it was probably developed in the Swiss Alps

Swiss Alps

The Swiss Alps are the portion of the Alps mountain mountain range that lies within Switzerland. Because of their central position with the entire Alpine range, they are also known as the Central Alps....
as a method of communication between mountain peaks, later becoming part of the region's traditional music.

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Encyclopedia

Yodeling (or yodelling, jodeling) is a form of singing

Singing

Falsetto

History

In Alpine folk music, it was probably developed in the Swiss Alps

Swiss Alps

Music of Iran

The music of Iran or Persian music has thousands of years of history dating back to the Neolithic age, as seen in the archeological evidence of Elam, one of the earliest world civilizations, which was located in southwestern Iran....
and Azeri classical music, singers frequently use tahrir, a yodeling technique that oscillates on neighbor tones. In Georgian traditional music

Music of Georgia

Folk music Georgian folk music possesses what is the oldest tradition of polyphony music in the world, predating the History of Georgia #Ancient Georgia....
, yodelling takes the form of krimanchuli technique, and is used as a top part in three/four part polyphony. In Central Africa

Central Africa

Central Africa is a core region of the African continent often considered to include Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....
, Pygmy

Pygmy

A pygmy is a member of any human group whose adult males grow to less than 150 cm in average height or less than 155 cm. A member of a slightly taller group is termed pygmoid....
singers use yodels within their elaborate polyphonic singing. Yodeling is often used in American bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and is a sub-genre of country music. It has its own roots in Folk music of Ireland, Music of Scotland, Music of Wales and Folk Music of England traditional music....
and country music

Country music

Country music is a blend of popular American music forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. It has roots in Traditional music, Celtic music, gospel music, and old-time music and evolved rapidly in the 1920s....
. According to the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989; as of December 2008 the dictionary's current editors have completed a quarter of the third edition....
the word yodel is derived from a German word jodeln (originally Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria , with an area of and almost 12.5 million inhabitants, is a region located in the southeast of Germany and is the largest States of Germany of Germany by area....
n) meaning "to utter the syllable jo."

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

Pitch (music)

Pitch represents the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. It is one of the three major auditory system attributes of sounds along with loudness and timbre....
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. Yodeling 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

Volume (sound)

Volume is the term used for loudness in consumer electronics.See alsoCitation...
. Going back and forth over this "voice break" repeatedly produces a very distinctive type of sound.

For example, in the famous example syllable "Yudl - Ay - EEE - Ooooo", the "EEE" is sung in the head voice, while all other syllables are in the chest voice.

The best places for Alpine-style yodeling are those with an echo

Echo (phenomenon)

In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a Reflection of sound, arriving at the listener some time after the direct sound. Typical examples are the echo produced by the bottom of a well, by a building, or by the walls of an enclosed room....
. They include lake

Lake

A lake is a terrain feature , a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin and moves slowly if it moves at all....
s, rocky gorges, anywhere with a distant rock face, the outdoor areas between office buildings, in a canoe

Canoe

A canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes usually are pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be covered....
next to a rocky shoreline, or down a long hallway, and best of all, a mountain range

Mountain range

A mountain range is a chain of mountains bordered by highlands or separated from other mountains by mountain pass or valleys. Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geology, though they often do; they may be a mix of different orogeny, for example volcanoes, uplifted mountains or Fold mountains...
.

External links

, 10 step course with audio samples