Yodeling - History

History

Most experts agree that yodeling was used in Alpine folk music in the Central Alps as a method of communication between herders and their stock or between Alpine villages, with the multi-pitched "yelling" later becoming part of the region's traditional lore and musical expression. The calls may also have been endearments shepherds used to express affection to their herds. The earliest record of a yodel is in 1545, where it is described as "the call of a cowherd from Appenzell".

In Persian classical music, singers frequently use tahrir, a yodeling technique that oscillates on neighbour tones. It is similar to the Swiss yodel, and is used as an ornament or trill in phrases which have long syllables, and usually falls at the end of a phrase. Tahrir is also prevalent in Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Turkish, Afghan, and Central Asian musical traditions; and to a lesser extent Pakistani and a few Indian musical traditions.

In Georgian traditional music, yodeling takes the form of krimanchuli technique, and is used as a top part in three/four part polyphony.

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 recently been released on compact discs.

It is thought that yodeling was first introduced to the United States by German immigrants in Pennsylvania in the early 1800s. As the new settlers traveled south through the Appalachian Mountains and beyond into the Deep South they came into contact with Irish immigrants, Scandinavians (practictioners of a unique yodeling called kölning), and other nationalities including African slaves who communicated with "field hollers", described by Frederick Law Olmstead in 1853 as a ‘long, loud, musical shout, rising and falling and breaking into falsetto’. German yodeling may have converted southern field hollers into a more musical form and combined them with Irish narrative ballads, resulting in the unique form of the yodeling tradition in America.

British stage performances by yodelers were common as early as the nineteenth century. 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 1839 the Tyrolese Minstrels toured the United States and started an American craze for Alpine music. During the 1840s, dozens of German, Swiss, and Austrian singing groups crisscrossed the country entertaining audiences with a combination of singing, yodeling, and “Alpine harmony.” The success of the European groups led to the formation of many American family singing groups as well. The most popular was the Hutchison Family Singers who toured singing harmony and yodeling. Minstrel shows parodied the Hutchison's yodeling with their own, calling it "Tyrolesian business". In 1853, Christy's Minstrels burlesqued the Hutchinson Family singing 'We Come from the Hills with Tyrolean Echo'.

Other traveling American minstrels were yodeling in the United States as well. Tom Christian was the first American yodeling minstrel, appearing in 1847 in Chicago. Recordings of yodelers were made as early as 1892 and in 1920 the Victor recording company listed 17 yodels in their catalogue, many of them by George Watson, the most successful yodeler of the time. In 1897 Watson recorded the song, "Sleep, Baby, Sleep" which was later recorded in 1927 by Riley Puckett as the second yodeling record ever made (the first was "Rock All Our Babies to Sleep"). "Sleep Baby Sleep" was also the first song ever recorded by Jimmie Rodgers (at the Bristol sessions); Rodgers would eventually come to be known as the father of both country music and American yodeling when he combined the yodel with southern Black blues.