Yodeling (also jodeling or yodelling) is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch chest register (or "chest voice") and the high-pitch head register or falsetto. The English word yodel is derived from the German word jodeln, meaning "to utter the syllable jo" (pronounced "yo"). This vocal technique is used in many cultures worldwide. Recent scientific research concerning yodeling and non-Western cultures suggests that music and speech may have evolved from a common prosodic precursor.
Alpine yodeling was a longtime rural tradition in Europe, and became popular in the 1830s as entertainment in theaters and music halls. In Europe, yodeling is still a major feature of folk music (Volksmusik) from Switzerland, Austria, Southern Germany, the Eastern French regions of Alsace and Savoy and the Northern Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and can be heard in many contemporary folk songs, which are also featured on regular TV broadcasts.
History of Alpine yodeling
thumb|upright|Viennese yodel singer Agnes Palmisano performing a traditional “Wiener Dudler” (Viennese yodel)
Most experts agree that yodeling was used in the Central Alps by herders calling their flocks or to communicate between Alpine villages. The multi-pitched "yelling" later became part of the region's traditional lore and musical expression. The earliest record of a yodel is in 1545, where it is described as "the call of a cowherd from Appenzell". Music historian Timothy Wise writes:
<blockquote>From its earliest entry into European music of whatever type, the yodel tended to be associated with nature, instinct, wilderness, pre-industrial and pastoral civilization, or similar ideas. It continues to be associated with rural and folk musics or to connote those in other contexts. Because of this original folk connection, yodeling remained associated with the outdoors, with rustic rather than sophisticated personae, and with particular emotional or psychological states or semantic fields. Sir Walter Scott wrote in his June 4, 1830, journal entry that "Anne wants me to go hear the Tyrolese Minstrels but ... I cannot but think their yodeling ... is a variation upon the tones of a jackass."
In 2025, Switzerland’s yodeling was recognized as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO.
Yodeling around the world
thumb|upright|Indian playback singer [[Kishore Kumar (1929–1987), one of the greatest and most popular Indian playback singers, notable for his yodeling]]
Apart from the Alps, yodeling can be found in the Solomon Islands, Hawaii, Madagascar, the US, Romania, Bulgaria, and Africa.
Although associated with the Swiss Alps and Austrian Tyrol, ethnomusicologists believe that the origins of yodeling can be traced back tens of thousands of years to ancient African nomadic hunter-gatherer societies.
In Scandinavian folk music, the oral-song tradition Kulning (), also called huving, is a form of signal song, a shout to make themselves known over a long distance, especially used in the mountains. Usually it is linked to a transhumance tradition. The cry could be individually designed so that it was not just a cry for contact, but also a signifier used to identify the singer. The cry may have a form of text, but is just as well without words. Laling is related to yodeling in Switzerland and Austria. The overture Hjalarljod has a background in the phenomenon of yodeling. Laling is a mix of yelling and singing, and is closely related to lokk. Huving was spent in the woods and mountains to call the animals, and get in touch with other people, such as other shepherds or people on the neighboring mountain farm and to give messages over long distances.
In Persian classical music, singers frequently use tahrir ("tremolo" in English), a yodeling technique that oscillates on neighbor tones. It is similar to the Swiss yodel, and is used as an ornament or trill in phrases that have long syllables, and usually falls at the end of a phrase. Tahrir is also prevalent in Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Turkish, Armenian, Afghan, and Central Asian musical traditions, and to a lesser extent in Pakistani and some Indian music.
At the same time, there is an ancient rooted vocal style among Kurdish people of central Zagros of Iran, Known as Hoore[h], based on mocking the sounds of birds such as quail or partridge, mostly among the Ghalkhani and Kalhor tribes, much nearer to technically correct “yodeling”.
In Georgian traditional music, yodeling takes the form of krimanchuli technique, and is used as a top part in three- or four-part polyphony. Yodel-like shamanistic traditions are also seen among the Turkic Sakha people of Siberia, the Inuit of the Arctic regions of Greenland and the Saami of Scandinavia. Among the Irish and Scottish peoples hints of yodeling-like sounds are also evident. In Sakha Yakutian, yodeling plays a very important role in the way to address nature and to plead for the continuance of life.
In Central Africa, Pygmy singers use yodels within their elaborate polyphonic singing, and the Shona people of Zimbabwe sometimes yodel while playing the mbira. The Mbuti of the Congo incorporate distinctive whistles and yodels
into their songs. Living from hunting and gathering, they sing hunting and harvest songs and use yodelling to call each other. In 1952, ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey recorded their songs and they have been released on compact discs.
In Romanian traditional folk music, yodeling takes the form of hăulit and "horea cu noduri". "Horea cu noduri" mostly used as a way of expressing sorrow. "Horea cu noduri" (knots singing style) is a particular manner of "doina" interpretation acquired through a guttural vocal technique, the knots being strikes of the glottis through the neck muscles contractions.
Many Hawaiian songs feature falsetto. In Hawaiian-style falsettocalled the singer, usually male, emphasizes the break between registers. Sometimes the singer exaggerates the break through repetition, as a yodel. As with other aspects of Hawaiian music, falsetto developed from a combination of sources, including pre-European Hawaiian chanting, early Christian hymn singing and the songs and yodeling of immigrant cowboys, called "paniolos" in the Hawaiian language, during the Kamehameha Reign in the 1800s when cowboys were brought from Mexico to teach Hawaiians how to care for cattle.
Yodelling arrived in America in the mid-19th century and was propagated through travelling entertainment shows.
Technique
Human voices have at least two distinct vocal registers, called the "head" and "chest" voices. Most people can sing tones within a certain range of lower pitches in their chest voice and tones within a certain range of higher pitch in their head voice. Falsetto is an "unsupported" register forcing vocal cords into a higher pitch without any head or chest voice air support. The range of overlap between registers, called the passaggio, can be challenging for untrained singers. Experienced singers can control their voices in this range, easily switching between registers. Yodeling is a version of this technique in which a singer might change register several times in only a few seconds and at a high volume. Repeated alternation between registers at a singer's passaggio pitch range produces a very distinctive sound. For example, in the famous "Yodel – Ay – EEE – Oooo", the "EEE" is sung in the head voice while all other syllables are in the chest voice.
Bart Plantenga, author of Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World, explains the technique:
<blockquote>The basic yodel requires sudden alterations of vocal register from a low-pitched chest voice to high falsetto tones sung on vowel sounds: AH, OH, OO for chest notes and AY or EE for the falsetto. Consonants are used as levers to launch the dramatic leap from low to high, giving it its unique ear-penetrating and distance-spanning power.</blockquote>
The best places for Alpine-style yodelling are those with an echo. Ideal natural locations include not only mountain ranges but lakes, rocky gorges or shorelines, and high or open areas with one or more distant rock faces.