Saturday 28 April 2012

Yodeleyee Huu

"High on a hill was a lonely goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
Loud was the voice of the lonely goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo!"


No points for guessing. "The Sound of Music" soundtrack would be always incomplete without this catchy yodel.

One of the wacky aspects to music is Yodeling. Almost all songs with yodels have remained unforgettable.
Yodeling is a singing technique, involving alternation in pitches of a sustained note, from low to high, by switching from the normal chest voice to falsetto and vice verse. 

Here are a few popular numbers with yodels! 


Hocus Pocus by Focus has an amazing combination of rock with yodeling!

Jewel yodeling in her lovely voice, in Chime Bells
Or cute old Jimmie Rodgers singing T for Texas :-)
 And how can I forget Kishore Kumar, the best Indian yodeler of all times! Here's Nakhrewali, a Hindi song.
Although it sounds really cool, yodeling requires a crazy deal of practice plus breath. It isn't easy to fluctuate between full throat-ed vocals and falsetto. Hence kudos to these yodelers!

Yodeling included as a part of a usual song, can bring a quirky element into it. It sounds eccentric, and heightens the mood of a song. It's a unhindered form of singing with no rules to follow. Yodels could be impromptu while performing onstage!

However, it's limited to a certain audience. I know of those who find yodeling extremely annoying, or jarring to the ears( that would include most of my peers, no offense). However, imperfect yodeling  is painful to the eardrums, and can contribute to a headache, cause in such cases, the singer ends up sounding like a dog howling in pain. Ouch.

As I have mentioned before, I'd like to consider Music as a living entity, with a variety of aspects to her  nature, be it delight, or melancholy, or pain, or passion, or somberness, or wild enthusiasm, or eccentricity that is today's highlight.

Do you have a balmy side to your nature, the wacky-cum-carefree part of your self? Well, I definitely do, and it usually surfaces when I'm amongst my close friends. The time when I let myself loose, crack silly jokes, laugh hysterically or play harmless pranks on others. Or maybe improvise crazy tunes and riffs while jamming, and generally have a real good time with everyone around.

There's one point I'd like to stress on, though. Don't go nuts to such an extent that it ends up irritating those around you. That isn't cool. That's similar to a bad yodeling overdose.

Yodeling is Music's way of letting her hair down. How about you?

3 comments:

  1. Oh gosh, the moment I saw the title of your post, I thought of Kishore Kumar! Lovely post, Anjali!

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  2. Wow, I didn't know that about yodeling. Awesome post. Thanks for sharing.

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  3. I also considered yodel for my Y-post, but then decided against it because I had no fiction ideas to match it.
    Yodeling sounds fun - but in small doses!! Can be quite tiring on the ear!
    I looooove The Sound Of Music ...

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