yodeling

Subject: yodeling
From: Andy7
Date: 26 Jan 19 - 03:51 PM

Does anyone have any tips for improving yodeling technique?

After watching various internet videos and practising a lot, I've kind of got it; but I'm not consistent, some days it works, but other days the necessary break between my chest register and head register is hardly there.

(I do have a serious reason for asking; I need to be able to yodel reasonably well, for a particular song in my repertoire to work!)

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: GUEST,Kenny B(inactive)
Date: 26 Jan 19 - 04:06 PM

Practising at full volume and a good deep breath before starting your yodel , Jimmy Rogers songs like "Waitin for a Train" are good ones to start on. Finding the key that give you your maximum range helps too.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Jan 19 - 04:42 PM

You can go on week-long yodelling workshops in Bavaria. Anyone for a Mudcat group holiday?....

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: Andy7
Date: 26 Jan 19 - 05:06 PM

Yes I'd definitely be up for a Mudcat yodeling holiday! :-)

Thanks also for your suggestions, KB. Practising at full volume sounds a good idea, I'll try that in the car on my way to work on Monday!

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: leeneia
Date: 26 Jan 19 - 11:59 PM

You don't have to have a break when yodeling. Some do it, some don't.
Don't give up if you can't master it, because yodeling is good.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Jan 19 - 03:35 PM

GOOGLE BIL HALEY an excellent yodeller

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Jan 19 - 03:42 PM

Ten Hours of Yodelling

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: Andy7
Date: 27 Jan 19 - 06:59 PM

Hahaha, pick any point of that 10 hours at random, and he's still singing the same tune!

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: leeneia
Date: 28 Jan 19 - 02:22 PM

That's true, but it's not the singer's fault. Somebody else took a video of his and copied it over and over.

Franz is a good yodeler.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: Andy7
Date: 28 Jan 19 - 03:09 PM

Oh, I didn't realise that. Yes, Franz does have a great technique, as well as having a friendly and relaxed presentation.

Melanie Oesch is another very good yodeler, she makes it sound effortless.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: GUEST,Kenny B ( Inactive)
Date: 28 Jan 19 - 06:32 PM

If I could only learn to Yodel - Sourdough Slin & Robert Armstrong

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: michaelr
Date: 28 Jan 19 - 07:39 PM

If at first you don't succeed -- yodel it over again. ;-)

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: Andy7
Date: 28 Jan 19 - 07:45 PM

I do have a bit of a problem with a lot of yodeling songs, though.

In so many of them - and the Sourdough Slim song is a good example - the main purpose of the song seems to be, hey, look how clever I am at yodeling! You can't do that, can you?

Yodeling is a fascinating and versatile vocal technique, with a long and rich history. So it really shouldn't be used only in songs where the performer is just showing off, singing about yodeling with not much other purpose to the song.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: PHJim
Date: 28 Jan 19 - 07:55 PM

Cathy Fink is a great yodeler. I recall hearing a program hosted by Artur Black on CBC radio a couple of decades back where she taught Arthur to yodel. She may have an instruction record on Homespun Tapes.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Jan 19 - 05:56 AM

Yodelling has a very wide distribution when used as the top of a trio or quartet - you get that in the singing of north-west Greece and southern Albania, in Georgia, and sporadically across to Flores in the Malay archipelago. (I have once seen a diffusionist attempt to explain that but it doesn't seem to be online any more). For all of those cultures, solo singing is not a recognized form - maybe you get lullabies but that's it. The idea of yodelling on your own seems to be an isolated spinoff from the much more ancient polyphonic tradition. Maybe the Denisovans invented it?

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: clueless don
Date: 29 Jan 19 - 07:23 AM

I heard Bill Staines back in the early 1970s - probably the best I've ever heard.

I do enjoy this young woman: America's Got Talent

Don

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: leeneia
Date: 30 Jan 19 - 12:05 AM

Hi, Don. I didn't know Bill Staines yodels. I found him on YouTube, and he's good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v11OQVRUMY

I too have enjoyed little Taylor on America's Got Talent. I wonder is she's now a yodeling teenager.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 30 Jan 19 - 11:00 AM

Male yodelers must not use their head register, but their falsetto. If you are a tenor, transpose the song upwards so that the high notes become unreachable to your normal voice. Still need advice?

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: PHJim
Date: 31 Jan 19 - 05:55 PM

Here's Roy Rogers yodeling. Great stuff

Here are the
Riders In The Sky yodeling.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: leeneia
Date: 01 Feb 19 - 12:55 PM

Thanks for the links. Both Roy and Doug are great yodelers.

Today's tip for yodelers: work out ahead of time what syllables you will be using. It's much more fun when you know what you're going to say.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: leeneia
Date: 02 Feb 19 - 12:18 PM

Sourdough Slim teaches how to make "the break." Very good video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPBWac-JFls

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Jul 21 - 02:04 PM

No one has mentioned the Frau[e]nfelder Family
from the cantons of St. Gallen and Aargau.
Amazing, really, since they made such an impact in the United States.

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," the Walt Disney feature-length animated film that did so much to make Disney a brand name,
has a "Silly Song" with yodeling in it (by the dwarves).

That song is more like a set-piece, with many moving parts, right down to
the orgasmic sneeze from, who else, Sneezy the dwarf.
And even the yodeling contribution is complicated.
Disney's sound man, a mr. McDonald, did everything but yodel
although one account says that Disney MADE him yodel on the soundstage.

And, yes, the Fraunfelder Family was involved.
So much so, that eventually the Fraunfelder patriarch
took the Disney company to court to sue them about the yodels ...
the judge threw out the suit, complaining that
he, himself, could not tell one yodel from another!
(You can't make this stuff up.)

For more about this yodeling family quartet
and the even larger family from which it came,
see the official Fraunfelder website.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jul 21 - 07:57 PM

What it takes is a glottal stop,a clicking sound produced by the larynx.

Subject: RE: yodeling
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Jul 21 - 11:11 AM

I've been doing more yodeling lately. In the OP, Andy asked for tips. Here are some tips:

Yodeling is nothing but fancy singing, with nonsense syllables, ritards, big leaps, long, long notes - whatever you want to do. If you can do the break, fine, but you don't have to.

When I followed Slim Whitman's lesson (see link above) I couldn't get the break. But when I made a bigger jump, it worked. Try that.

Yodeling varies around the world. You don't have to do cowboy yodeling if you like Swiss yodeling better.

You can use any syllables you like. I know one that goes high-ligh-ra, and another that goes hul--dee=yukka, yukka eh. As I said before, you decide on your syllables ahead of time, Yodeling is not improvised.

German has umlauts - "round vowels" where you say long a, short e, long e or short i at the back of mouth, then immediately round your lips. This produces an interesting sound which adds to the exotic-ness of a yodel. Other languages do this too.

People like yodeling. I have yet to see a video with an audience where the audience didn't show approval for yodeling.