Yodelling. The sweet sounding, “variations upon the tones of a jackass”, (according to Sir Walter Scott.) What is it and why do we do it? The Collins dictionary defines it as, “the practice of singing with an abrupt change in register from the chest to falsetto.” Basically, switching between your chest voice (low pitch) and your head voice (high pitch) very suddenly, producing two contrasting tones. Isn’t that just singing? No. Normal singing doesn’t usually make such big melodic leaps so quickly and often. To yodel properly is actually quite difficult, even if it sounds silly. And why do we do it? To communicate with cows. And for fun. Obvious really.
When you think about yodelling, as I’m sure you often do, most of us will probably think of dudes in lederhosen up in the Swiss Alps. Or maybe cowboys round campfires gently yodelling underneath the stars. And there is some truth in these cliches but the roots of yodelling are likely much older and from farther afield. Some have suggested that yodelling possibly began around 10,000 years ago when humans began to domesticate animals. But we’re not ready to go back that far. Yet.
Yodelling in America.
First, let’s deal with the cowboys as it’s one of the most recent and famous yodelling incarnations. When Jimmie Rogers released ‘Blue Yodel no.1’ in 1928 he set off a craze for yodelling in the States. Yes, a craze. If you think the last 20 years of autotune has been bad, imagine how it must have felt living through a yodelling pandemic. Travelling minstrels had been yodelling for a long time but after the famous Blue Yodel it remained popular amongst country musicians up until the 1950s. There were many influences on Country Music as it evolved – blues, folk and even Hawaiian Music. Interestingly, the Hawaiian style of slide Guitar was a major influence on Country and Blues musicians and Hawaiian traditional Music also features a type of yodelling called ‘leo ki’eki’e’. Hawaiian Music was very popular in America in the first half of the 20th century i.e. when Country Music was in its infancy so it’s possible that’s where yodelling was taken from. But the country cowboys may have also been influenced by folk music brought over from Europe in the preceding centuries. (A famous example being how the Music of the Scotch Irish took root in Appalachia and evolved into Bluegrass.) People from all over Europe came to America, bringing their songs and culture with them. By 1820, roughly 30,000 Swiss people had made it to (then) British America and began settling in Pennsylvania and then moving on to North and South Carolina and then other places. Which, thank goodness, gets us back to lederhosen.
Swiss Yodelling.
Wikipedia states that yodelling can also be written, “jodelling” which means, “to utter the syllable, jo.” Which seems very German. Slightly more inspiringly, “jodel”, could derive from the Latin, “jubilare” which means “to shout with joy.” Apparently it became popular as a kind of entertainment style in the 1830s where it was performed in Music halls around Europe. But again, this is yodelling once it became a form of entertainment. The earliest written mention of Alpine yodellers is from the 16th century. But even this is recent. This is when herders were starting to spend more time in villages and towns and the yodel was taking on a more recognizable song-like form. Before it got to this stage in its evolution, old school cow herders used the vocal technique to 1) guide their animals through the mountains 2) to communicate with other cow herders across vast distances and 3) just to pass the time. Bart Platenga (who is the man when it comes to understanding the history of yodelling) hypothesises that the intensity and volume of the vocal technique would mean that yodellers/herders would hear their voices echoing back to themselves off the mountains. Hence they could call animals over long distances. Furthermore, they could possibly harmonise with themselves by using the natural reverb of the mountains and by playing with the contrast of their head and chest voices. A high pitch tone bounces back across the valley to reach the yodeller just as they’re sending out a low tone – you hear the two notes simultaneously, thus creating harmony. (All sarcasm aside, that actually sounds pretty cool.)
Cool fact, in Switzerland today there are around 20,000 official yodelling society members and a triennial festival which attracts up to 150k people. There are two broad types of Swiss yodelling. One is the ‘naturjodel’ which has no words and is used to express the feelings of the mountain people. The other is the ‘yodel song’ which has stanzas of words and is more song-like.
Now that we’ve dealt with the original reverb masters, it’s interesting to note that there are other cultures that have similar vocal practices which are also related to herding animals. One example from mediaeval Scandinavia is Kulning.
Kulning and Scandanavian style cow song.
The word Kulning is a contraction of ‘kul’ (cow) and ‘lock’ (call/coax). It’s a vocal technique dating back to the middle ages and is found in several nordic regions. Mainly sung by women (as they were the ones who were usually in charge of looking after the livestock) Kulning was a way of bringing grazing animals safely back from a far. It can reach 125 db+ and cows and sheep can hear it from up to 5km away. (Just for reference, 120db is the same as a shotgun blast.) Nowadays it’s more of an art style of singing but the original form was probably more raw. Less hippy opera and more rough animal noises. Apparently, different animals respond to different sounds. Cows are more biddable to long melismatic melodies whereas sheep and goats are more enticed by rhythmic guttural sounds. But that’s not all. Kulning would have been used for relaying messages to other farmers in the area. For example a certain sound may indicate a specific danger, e.g. a bear being spotted nearby. But it’s not just functional. Kulning songs are, well, songs. The words may tell of love and heartache or things affecting the community like losing livestock or fear of forest spirits. (A note for the Yodelling purists here, Kulning doesn’t switch between the chest and head voices so probably can’t technically be considered yodelling.)
It’s hard to trace Kulning back before the middle ages but it’s possible it has even older roots. John Horton, in his History of Scandinavian Music, suggests that it could have ties to pagan prayer calls. Herders who would have been using long (and very loud) calls to herd animals may have also been warding off evil spirits. As Christianity slowly absorbed the pagans of northern Europe did the women herding the animals start to adapt their prayer calls into more song-like forms and thus Kulning evolved out of something that came before? Maybe…
Yodelling in the ancient world.
In the 4th century AD, Roman Emperor, Julian, wrote of the “wild shrieking songs” of the northern people. So, there is the possibility of some kind of Celtic/barbarian yodelling going on on the fringes of the Roman empire. And it could have been going on for who knows how long before the Romans started complaining about it. Nils Walen suggests that areas outside of Scandinavia where singing styles similar to Kulning have been kept alive include – the central Europe Alpine region (your classic lederhosen yodeller), the Pyrenese (a form of yodelling called ‘irrintzi’ exists which sounds absolutely mental and may have been used for calling horses) and the Caucasian regions.
These regions may have once shared some kind of common culture and hereditary links with each other going back to the Upper Pleistocene, i.e. the last ice-age. On the Eastern fringes of the Roman Empire there was the Persian Empire which has a rich Musical heritage dating back into prehistory. Alexander the Great apparently witnessed many melodies and instruments upon his invasion in 334 BC. In Persian Classical Music there is a vocal technique called ‘tahrir’ which is, ‘a rapid succession of glottal strokes over a series of notes.’ Or, ‘an ornament of the melodic line which consists of producing one or more short frequency jumps – called tekye – towards higher pitches.’ Probably not your classic yodel but definitely similar and probably very ancient.
We digress, it’s high time we mentioned that there are forms of yodelling that (still) exist in some of the most ancient cultures known on earth to this day. And for that we have to go back to where humans first appeared. Africa.
Ancient African forms of yodelling.
First up, the Kalahari San from southern Africa, who are still living traditional lifestyles in countries as widespread as Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They are one of the oldest cultures on earth and are direct descendants of the original settlers in this region. To give it some context, a set of tools found in 2012 appear to be identical to the tools used by San people today and were dated to 42,000 years ago. What?! That means yodelling could be super ancient. From before humans started domesticating animals, which was a mere 10,000 years ago. The San have a style of group singing where each member of the group sings their own melody, creating overlapping parts, or many voices superimposed on top of each other. (Contra-puntal polyphony, if you’re into posh Music jargon.) From these divergent voices emerges a yodelling procedure which alternates between chest and head voices. Classic yodelling basically but done in a group setting, not by lonely mountaineers.
This singing style is very similar to the Music of the Aka of central Africa or the Baka of Cameroon. They too have polyphonic yodelling. Groups of singers all performing individual melodies which create complex harmonies which then echo around the canopy of the forest. Imagine many voices playing not only with the other members of the group, but with the echoes of the combined voices off the forest floor. In-fact the natural soundscape of the forest probably directly influences the Music these ancient societies make.
Some of the sounds and melodies are likely recreating the sounds of the forests. In some specific contexts there is also a religious/spiritual element to this vocal practice. The ‘sound envelope’ which is created wards off evil spirits or harmful forces. It is usually women singing to create a soundscape to protect the men going on a hunting expedition.
So, there you have it. Yodelling could be one of the first ever human vocal techniques. Used for entertainment, animal domestication and religious ritual all at the same time. Before we go I’d like to give a couple of quick honourable mentions to more recent yodellers who adapted it into surprising places. One, the Bollywood singer Kishore Kumar, who was a master vocalist who fell in love with the American style yodelling in Country Music and made it his own on many a bollywood soundtrack. And two, this recent entry into the Eurovision song contest from Romania. (You can thank me later.)
Sources for this article:
collins dictionary
musicgateway.com
wikipedia – yodelling
“The secret history of yodelling around the world” – Bart Plantenga
shs.hal.science – “diyei and jeli – yodelling in two musical cultures of central africa” – Susanne Furnis
culturalsurvival.org
bbc.com – kulning
thekidshouldseethis.com
ancient_origins.net
bigmouthchorus.com
colorado.edu – “will there be yodelling in heaven?” – Bart Platenga
medium.com – “the world of yodelling and kishore kumar”
eurovisionworld.com
tribalmind.blogspot.com
walkonthebasqueside.com
history.stackexchange.com
“listening to ululation in the levant in the 16th and 17th centuries” – Carl Zecher
nationalgeographic.com