I can just see you shaking your heads. Yup, she's gone off the deep end. I think some of my girlfriends thought that about a month and a half ago when I told them I was "trying" to learn to yodel. It came about like this. One day I was singing the song Lonely Goatherd, from The Sound Of Music, to my goats and they stood stock-still staring at me. Really, they were entranced. Either that or they thought I was crazy too. I got on the computer and looked up yodelers. I'm sure everyone has Googled "Yodeling", but I was serious about this. I found a CD by Kerry Christensen that would teach me to yodel. He tells you up front to practice this where no one else can hear you because it will drive people mad and they'll tell you how bad you are. I'm sure James can attest to that. Mostly I practice in the car. No one can hear me there and I can keep singing the same thing again and again at the top of my voice, and not get on anyone's nerves.
The whole trick to yodeling is learning to make your voice break. It has taken me about a month but I think I can do it no problem now. I was brave enough to practice in the house the other night where James could hear me. He didn't run away screaming and even seemed amused that I would do that. I think it's only fair since I listened to him practice violin early on. It's very similar to that - listening to someone practice an instrument that's new to them. It hurts the listener.
Here's a link to the U 2 Can Yodel CD. http://www.kerrychristensen.com/learntoyodel/index.html
Go over to the right side of the page and click on vocal styles and you can hear some yodeling by Kerry Christensen.
My mom told me my grandfather used to yodel. I wish I could have heard him. He's 97 now. Next time I see him I'm going to ask him if he'll do it for me. Last night James told me his mom used to yodel when she was young. From what I understand, yodeling was very popular in the 20's through 40's. Now you hear some country singers, like Jewel, yodel in their songs.
I want to be able to yodel to my goats while I milk them. I'm having electricity run to the barn soon so I can play them yodeling CD's if I don't get any better.
How come I didn't know about this earlier? Can't wait to hear you yodel. You have some lucky goats.
ReplyDeleteI know this is going to sound made up, but I'm still going to tell you...
ReplyDeleteI was dreaming the other morning (last week some time) that I was yodeling. I don't think I normally give any thought to the subject, so it's a little weird that you would post about it right after I dreamed it!