).To sing or call using a rapid alternation of vocal register.
The older designation for the contemporary German verb jodeln (to yodel) is without doubt the Middle High German verb jôlen, which appears in numerous sources from 1540 with the meaning ‘to call’ or ‘cry’ and ‘to sing’; jôlen remains in use in Alpine dialects to the present. According to Grimm and Grimm (1877), the verb jo(h)len or jola is derived from the interjection jo and may have gained the additional ‘d’ for vocal-physiological reasons. Jo(h)ha, jodle(n), jodeln and jödele are all forms that evolved from so-called jo and ju(c)hui calls and they are closely related in meaning to other regional expressions such as juchzen, jutzen, ju(u)zä, juizä in Switzerland; lud(e)ln, dud(e)ln, jorlen, jaudeln, hegitzen in Austria; johla in the Allgäu region of Germany; and jola, zor(r)en, zauren, rug(g)us(s)en, länderen in the Appenzell region of Switzerland. Other languages have created their own derivations from the German jodeln as borrowed translations: in French, jodler (iouler) or chanter à la manière tyrolienne; in Swedish, joddla; in Japanese, yōderu etc. The Italian gorgheggiare and the Spanish gargantear refer to the throat (garga), that is, to the actual larynx technique with glottal stop.
In most definitions, the following features are generally understood under ‘yodelling’: 1) singing without text or words, in which the play of timbres and harmonics is emphasized in the succession of individual, nonsensical vocal-consonant connections (such as ‘jo-hol-di-o-u-ri-a’), which are also 2) connected in a creative way with the technique of continuous change of register between the chest voice and the (supported or non-supported) falsetto (or head) voice. 3) The tones, often performed in relatively large intervallic leaps, are either connected to one another in a legato fashion during the continuous change of register (register break), or are additionally broken up in traditional styles with the use of glottal stops. Well-trained yodellers have available to them a vocal range of three octaves. Through the change of different yodelling syllables, but also through the change of vocal register, a continuous transformation of timbre emerges which is a result of the shifting number of overtones and stress of fundamental tone and overtones. According to Graf (1975) the falsetto voice that alternates with the chest voice has in almost all cases fewer partials; the partial row of the chest voice is as a rule richer. Colton's evidence (1972, p.339) shows that the chest voice usually has a continuous row of (15–20) overtones of relatively strong intensity. However, the inconsistencies that emerge from sonographic and acoustic-phonetic investigations of yodelling sounds can be traced, according to Frank and Sparber (1972, p.165), to a differentiation in yodelling that should be made between a supported and an unsupported falsetto voice. Of particular significance for the timbral spectrum of individual tones in yodelling are the relationships between open (bright) vowels and deep registers as well as between closed (dark) vowels and high registers.
When yodelling, air is not discharged in spurts, as a rule, but rather gradually released through abdominal (or diaphragm) breathing, whereby the yodelled tone uses a deeply positioned larynx (‘yawning position’) and expanded resonance space. There are many different concepts of ‘register’. Many authors differentiate between not only the falsetto and chest register but also the middle register of the head voice (as hybridization of chest and falsetto voice), since both kinds are available in a voice of mature quality. The differences in quality are often not easy to determine.
In
contemporary Alpine yodelling practice, intervallic leaps are usually performed
legato. This involves above all leaps of a 4th, 6th or a 7th, and more
unusually of a 9th or 12th. Also chords from dominant 7ths to dominant 9ths are
broken up in relation to a change of register. In the Alpine region, the
yodeller is predominantly major scale-orientated, building upon the Western
tone system and very rarely yodelling in minor. In the Muotathal and Appenzell
regions of Switzerland, the fourth level of the major scale is still sung as a ‘natural
f’ (Alphorn-fa) and is jokingly called the ‘Alpine blue note’ (with
reference to the C major scale, this tone lies at the fourth level between F
and F).
In his film Jodel und Jüüzli aus dem Muotathal (1987), Zemp examines the issue of yodelling melody in relation to the neutral third and seventh levels and in his analysis contrasts the fundamentally different aesthetic interpretations of the traditional regional yodellers with those of the trained, transregionally active yodelling associations.
Formally, traditional yodel melodies have two to six sections or even more, quite often with parallel repetitions of phrase (AABB), or else a repeated two-part yodel (ABAB). But AAB and BAA, as well as AABA forms can be encountered, in addition to other melodic forms. The slow natural yodel is often metrically free, but it can also be performed more quickly with a regular or irregular beat.
In the Alpine region one- to five-voice yodels can be heard. The Muotathal Jüüzli has two- to three-voices. The Zwoarer is a two-voice yodel in the Austrian district of Scheibbs; by adding a bass voice, a Dreier (three-voice yodel) is created. Canon-like voice-leading or crossing of voices often occurs. In Austria, a secondary Überschlag (an upper voice) is added to the main voice and a third voice sings below in harmonic steps to the evolving melody (Drüber- and Druntersingen).
By the beginning of the 19th century, the yodel had gained popularity and had been introduced to the cities by travelling ‘natural’ and ‘Alpine’ singers and by national singing societies and singer families from the Tyrol (Zillertal), Styria and Carinthia. Travelling entertainers spread the ‘yodelling style’ in presenting a combination of songs and yodels in popular Viennese theatrical plays. Owing to international cultural contact, the presence of enthusiasts in different cultures and especially the influence of various forms of disseminating media, Alpine-like yodelling can be found in the most diverse countries, including Japan and Korea. In Tokyo the Japanese Jodler-Alpen-Kameraden enthusiastically cultivate this special vocal technique. In Seoul the first yodelling club was established in 1969, and the Korean Yodel Association was founded in 1979.
In America groups of immigrants and their descendents yodel in Bavarian, Austrian or Swiss fashion. Numerous traditional cowboy songs of the 19th century end with a yodel refrain, such as the well-known song The Old Chisholm Trail, sung by cowboys as they drove herds on the trail between Texas and Kansas. The image of the yodelling cowboy was spread by musical events at rodeos, radio shows (such as ‘Melody Ranch’ featuring the Oklahoma Yodelling Cowboy, Gene Autry), records and Hollywood westerns. Among these yodelling cowboys, Jimmie Rodgers (1897–1933) became an important figure. Known as ‘Mississippi Railroad Man’, ‘Yodeling Ranger’ and the ‘Blue Yodeler’, he developed (more than any other) the fine points of the yodel song: the change of timbre according to register, abrupt glottal stops and gentle slurring. Accompanying himself on his ‘round-up guitar’, Rodgers became known as the ‘Father of Country Music’ and his influence stretched from the West to the East Coast of the United States. Yodelin’ Slim Clark (b 1917), who was born in Massachusetts and lives today in Maine, regards himself as a direct successor to the tradition of Rodgers (and Wilf Carter) and calls himself the ‘last real singing cowboy’.
This can be found not only in Central European Alpine regions, but also in many mountainous and forest regions of other geographic areas. In the polyphonic songs of the Tosks of Albania, two yodel-like voices are accompanied by a sung drone. In Georgia, vocal polyphony as a harmonic basis to a higher ‘yodelling’ voice is known as krimanchuli (see Georgia, §II, 1(ii)).
Related vocal techniques can also be found in different African countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zaïre, Angola, Burundi, Gabon and others. Among the Khoisan and the ¡Kung, hunters and gatherers of southern Angola, for example, a canon-like technique of imitation using one to four yodelling voices is used during which the relative positions of the voices vary and contrapuntal-like effects are produced. The Aka yodellers stand out in that they produce four to six or even 13 overtones in the ‘high register’. In the ‘deep register’, on the other hand, the tones display a sound spectrum of homogeneous overtones with greater intensity; however the fundamental tone is hardly existent or only very weak (Fürniss, 1992, pp.79–83)
Yodel-like melodies and songs can also be found in Asiatic countries and in the boundary region between Melanesia and Polynesia. In the southern highlands of Papua New Guinea, the Huli have two kinds of yodel-like songs: the soloistic and alternating falsetto song (u) of the men and the repetitive and yodel-like singing with fixed timbre (iwa) performed during work. On Savo in the Solomon Islands, in reference to the solo voice it is said that one takes the song deep (neo laua) when singing with chest voice and one uses a high voice (taga laua) when changing register and singing with falsetto. In addition to three-voice polyphony, the sudden register change of two solo voices is quite characteristic. These are also supported by a vocal drone (see Melanesia, §5(ii)).
Falsetto and calls, screams and ululation that alternate between the normal register and falsetto are important among most Indian groups found in North and South America. Among the Bororo in Brazil, the ‘o-ie o-ie i-go’ vocalization found in hunting songs is characterized by additional elements of a yodel-like larynx technique. With additional comparative research in the future, perhaps the concept of yodelling will be extended in its details. It has already been established that yodel-like singing need not necessarily be tied to large intervals. As sonographic research has shown, two ‘different’ pitches (one in chest register and the other in falsetto register) can have a common fundamental tone and still belong to different registers (Fürniss, 1992, p.90).
MGG1 (‘Jodel’; W. Wiora)
MGG2 (‘Jodel’; M.P. Baumann)
J. and W. Grimm: ‘Jodeln’, Deutsches Wörterbuch, iv/2 (Leipzig, 1877/R)
A. Tobler: Kühreihen oder Kühreigen, Jodel und Jodellied in Appenzell (Leipzig and Zürich,1890)
J. Pommer: 444 Jodler und Juchezer aus Steiermark und dem steirisch-österreichischen Grenzgebiet (Vienna, 1902/R)
E.M. von Hornbostel: ‘Die Entstehung des Jodelns’, Deutsche Musikgesellschaft: Kongress I: Leipzig 1925, 203–10
T. Lehtisalo: ‘Beobachtungen über die Jodler’, Suomalais-ugrilaisen seuran aikakauskirja: Journal de la Société finno-ougrienne, xxxviii (1936), 1–35
H. Pommer: Jodeler des deutschen Alpenvolkes (Leipzig, 1936)
W. Sichardt: Der alpenländische Jodler und der Ursprung des Jodelns (Berlin, 1939)
R. Luchsinger: ‘Die Jodelstimme’, Lehrbuch der Stimm- und Sprachheilkunde (Vienna, 1949, enlarged 3/1970; Eng. trans., 1965, as Voice, Speech, Language), 222–6
W. Wiora: ‘Juchschrei, Juchzer und Jodeln’, Zur Frühgeschichte der Musik in den Alpenländern (Basle, 1949), 20–38
G. Kotek: ‘Über die Jodler und Juchezer in den österreichischen Alpen’, Jb des österreichischen Alpenvereins, lxxxv (1960), 178–90
W. Senn: ‘“Jodeln”: eine Beitrag zur Entstehung und Verbreitung des Wortes - mundartliche Bezeichnungen’, Jb des österreichischen Volksliedwerkes, xi (1962), 150–66
W. Wiora: ‘Jubilare sine verbis’, In memoriam Jacques Handschin, ed. H. Anglés and others (Strasbourg, 1962), 39–65
K. Horak: ‘Der Jodler in Tirol’, Jb des österreichischen Volksliedwerkes, xiii (1964), 78–94
W. Graf: ‘Naturwissenschaftliche Gedanken über das Jodeln: die phonetische Bedeutung der Jodelsilben’, Schriften des Vereins zur Verbreitung naturwissenschaftlicher Kenntnisse in Wien, cv (1965), 1–25; repr. in Ausgewählte Aufsätze, ed. F. Födermayr (Vienna, 1980), 202–10
H. Curjel: Der Jodel in der Schweiz (Zürich, 1970)
W. Deutsch: ‘Der Jodler in Österreich’, Handbuch des Volksliedes, ii, ed. R.W. Brednich, L. Röhrich and W. Suppan (Munich, 1975), 647–67
W. Graf: ‘Sonographische Untersuchungen’, Handbuch des Volksliedes, ii, ed. R.W. Brednich, L. Röhrich and W. Suppan (Munich, 1975), 583–622
M.P. Baumann: Musikfolklore und Musikfolklorismus: eine ethnomusikologische Untersuchung zum Funktionswandel des Jodels (Winterthur, 1976)
A. Lüderwaldt: Joiken aus Norwegen: Studien zur Charakteristik und gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung des lappischen Gesanges (Bremen, 1976)
G. Thoma: Die Kunst des Jodelns: Alpenländnische Jodelschule (Munich, 1977)
H. Hummer: ‘Der Jodeler in Salzburg’, Die Volksmusik im Lande Salzburg, ed. W. Deutsch and H. Dengg (Vienna, 1979), 136–50
M.P. Baumann: Bibliographie zur ethnomusikologischen Literatur der Schweiz (Winterthur, 1981)
H.J. Leuthold: Der Naturjodel in der Schweiz: Entstehung, Charakteristik, Verbreitung (Altdorf, 1981)
C. Luchner-Löscher: Der Jodler: Wesen, Entstehung, Verbreitung und Gestalt (Munich, 1982)
H. Zemp: ‘Filming Music and Looking at Music Films’, EthM, xxxii (1988), 393–427
H. Zemp: ‘Visualizing Music Structure through Animation: the Making of the Film “Head Voice, Chest Voice”’, Visual Anthropology, iii (1990), 65–79
S. Fürniss: ‘La technique du jodel chez les Pygmées Aka (Centrafrique): étude phonétique et acoustique’, Cahiers de musiques traditionelles, iv (1991), 167–87
S. Fürniss: Die Jodeltechnik der Aka-Pygmäen in Zentralafrika: eine akustisch-phonetische Untersuchung (Berlin, 1992)
F. Födermayr: ‘Zur Jodeltechnik von Jimmie Rodgers: the Blue Yodel’, For Gerhard Kubik: Festschrift, ed. A. Schmidhofer and D. Schuller (Frankfurt, 1994), 381–404
MAX PETER BAUMANN