Learn How To Yodel!Â


(to see video in page at youtube, click here)When I tried to find info on yodeling three or four years ago I found very little. Now that I’ve learned how to yodel I’ve put up an instructional video up a youtube. It’s simple, but it’s about THE fundamental skill in yodeling - the voice break. I don’t know exactly how to teach someone to break their voice, but hopefully the video will help.

While I was on the road a few tours back people kept mentioning a girl who was on America’s Got Talent. Here is a link to a Taylor Ware performance, an 11 year old yodeler. I’m not sure if she won, but I know she made it pretty far and her yodeling is some great stuff.

 How and Why I Started Yodeling

For those of you who are curious, or who got here from my bio page at the family website, here’s a little more info on how I got started. My family sang at a church up in Maine about 5 years ago and we did both the morning and night service. When we came back at night, the pastor said he was impressed, “but we can do something you can’t!” He had a lady get up to the piano and she yodeled. This planted the idea in my head, and a few years later I went online and found a video to buy. The video, available here, is more in depth than the one I put at youtube but it still is not very long. It gave me a good foundation and then I started listening to other people yodel and learned some from just listening and repeating. I also slowed one down and learned it that way. To answer the question I get asked the most at concerts, It took me about 30 minutes to get a little further than the basic yodel. I’m not sure if my voice is just sympathetic to yodeling, but it was easy to learn the break and after that it is easy to progress to more complicated yodels. If you don’t get the break at first, don’t despair! In Kentucky I was staying with a family and I taught some of the girls how to yodel but it took them a few days to really “get” the break. Just keep working at it. I’ve never forgotten how to break my voice and I don’t think you will either, so once you get past that hump you’re well on your way.

Tips and Resources

I emailed Judy Coder, National Champion Yodeler and the method she said to use for learning new yodels was to get in a car, drive down a deserted road, put on a recording, and just do it! Getting alone in a quiet room can be really important, especially if you are shy. Yodeling can sound funny at first, and you don’t want to be inhibited by thinking that people are going to think your attempts are silly. After I learned I was sitting on the front porch and the neighbors visiting asked me to yodel. I couldn’t, I laughed so hard! So expect it to maybe take a little while until you’re totally comfortable with doing it in front of people.

So get in a quiet room, close your windows (my neighbors told me they could hear me!), and be free with your voice. If this is your first time yodeling, and I assume it is, then your voice will be doing something totally new and different and it won’t feel like regular singing.

Kerry Christiansen is my favorite yodeler, his CD The Best of Kerry Christiansen happens to be one of the only two CDs I own that are yodeling CDs.

Yodel Course is one thing I’ve found on the internet that seems to be a free lesson site. However, I couldn’t figure out how to download the lessons properly and I never got more out of it than about 25 soundbytes - they are good soundbytes, however, and you could listen to those to have something to listen to and imitate.

Posted by Bonnie under world