One, two, three.
Hi, folks, and welcome to Texas Music Video's unique video, How to Yodel.
My name is Rusty Huddlecyn. And I'm Tanya Moody.
We're here to help you learn to yodel, or at least to enhance the yodeling of those who may already know how a little bit.
We'll be teaching yodels in a couple of different keys, one for the female voices and low male voices, and then another key to accommodate the male voices and high female voices.
It's important to know that there's only a certain area of your voice that's equipped for yodeling.
Somewhere in the middle of the upper part of your range is a place called the voice break.
For males who have experienced the voice, you know all about this subject, but sometimes it's a bit more difficult for females to locate their voice break.
Let me demonstrate a method for finding your break.
Using an E sound, start at the top of your range and descend until your voice breaks naturally from your upper or head voice to your lower or chest voice.
That, I found my voice break right in that particular area, and I'll just kind of work around that particular area when I want to practice my yodels.
So I want you to try that, and we'll take a little pause and we'll let you practice that so that you can find your voice break.
And we'll be right back.
If you found your voice break, then you found the center point of your yodel.
In other words, yodeling will take place by singing notes in your chest voice below your break and connecting them to notes in your head voice above your break and vice versa.
Let me show you what I mean.
Now find your break again, and we're going to start right there in that break.
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh.
Sometimes we hear people doing what they think is a yodel, but really it isn't.
Just because you can sing from low note to a high note and hit the right pitches doesn't necessarily mean you're yodeling.
If the voice doesn't break between the two notes, then it cannot consider to yodel.
Let me show you the difference between the two, the improper way.
Eh, eh, eh, eh.
I'm just singing two separate pitches.
Even though it is on pitch, there's no break.
Now this is the proper method.
Eh, eh, eh, eh.
You can hear that there's a break now, and that is what is considered yodel.
Let me take you guys through a similar process now,
and it may be a little easier for us to find our voice break by ascending instead of descending like Tonya showed the gals to do.
So get down on the bottom of your range, and let's go with an E sound like a siren,
and we're going to go up and relax your voice, allow the break to happen when it comes to that point.
Here's how it will sound.
Eh, eh, eh, eh.
Now you hear me operating on both sides of my voice break, the low side and the high side,
which is exactly what a yodel is.
It's bouncing from chest voice to head voice and back like this.
Eh, eh, eh, eh.
Now I'm operating over the distance of about an octave right now,
but usually a yodel will take place over the interval of a fifth or a sixth, and normally the sixth.
That's probably the most prominent yodel that there is.
It would sound something like this.
Eh, eh, eh, eh.
Notice how I connect the two pitches.
When I connect them together, there's no gap in between.
There's a break in between, but that's your voice break, and that's what we need in order to call this a yodel.
So try this with me a couple of times.
Eh, eh, eh, eh.
Just continue to push more air.
Don't let the tone disconnect at any point,
continue to push air all the way through the pitches that you do, and you'll be having a good yodel.
You know, Rusty, they still might be having a little trouble at this point.
Why don't you demonstrate a Cajun yell?
That might help them out.
Okay, you might be having a little problem, and I know everybody out there can do a Cajun yell,
and of course we do that on the syllables A-E,
and you're going to have to just stand up and let it go,
because sometimes a Cajun yell gets pretty loud.
It sounds something like this. Eh-ee, eh-ee.
Try that a few times, and you'll be yodeling. Eh-ee.
Now take those same pitches, that same feeling,
and try to control it a little more without the slurs in there like this.
Eh-ee, eh-ee, eh-ee, eh-ee, eh-ee, eh-ee, eh-ee.
Let's pause right now and let you all practice this a little bit,
finding your voice break and doing some Cajun yells,
and some controlled yodels, and then we'll come back and continue.
Tony's going to show you gals a basic yodel now that will fit in your range.
We're going to use the vowel sounds A and E.
And this particular yodel will be done in the key of G
if you've got a guitar or a piano and want to play along.
And by the way, those of you guys out there who have low voices,
you might want to try yodeling along with Tonya on this,
because it might just be compatible with your range.
You ready to teach them this yodel, Tonya?
Let's see how it sounds.
Let's teach them this yodel now, and maybe in real slow motion,
maybe that's a little bit better.
All right, let's slow it down here,
and we're just going to take it syllable by syllable here.
We'll do the A and E, and we'll start out real slow,
and then we'll pick it up just a little bit,
and then maybe try it a little bit faster.
Okay, so here we go.
Here we go.
Let's try it just a little bit faster now.
Okay, and I want to tell the folks out there
that if you don't get your breath support,
those little mistakes happen in there
where you don't get your full breath support,
then your breaks aren't there,
just like I demonstrated a little bit ago.
So let's try it again. I'll try to take good breaths.
Get a good breath. Here we go.
One more time.
I'll tell you what we might do, Tonya.
We might give them a little track to play along
or to sing along with here.
They might be able to play the guitar or keyboard
or may not have access to one.
That's a good idea.
Let's kind of start slow,
and we'll play through it about three or four times
and gradually speed it up
so they can start slow, about this speed.
Here we go.
Now, Rusty, let's take a little break.
Is that all right with you?
And we'll just let them pause their tape at this point
and practice what we've taught you so far.
Now, Rusty is going to show you guys a yodel in the key of G
that will complement the one I just taught the gals.
You'll be using the same vowel sounds, A and E,
and you gals with higher voices
are welcome to try this yodel as well.
It just might fit your range.
Rusty, would you like to demonstrate this?
I'm ready.
We're going to start off real slow on this one in the key of G,
and actually we start on G.
So here we go, guys, using A and E.
A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A.
As you notice, I about ran out of breath there,
so why don't we speed it up a little bit.
It's a little easier to sing the faster we go.
Here we go, a little faster.
A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A.
One more.
A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A.
Well, you know, the great thing about male and female voices
being in different ranges is that we can combine these two
now to make harmony.
And Tonya and I are going to demonstrate this now using
the yodels we just taught.
And whether you're male or female, choose the yodel that
best fits your range and then see if you can stay with us.
We're going to start slow and then gradually speed it up.
You ready, Tonya?
Here we go, about this speed.
A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A.
One more.
A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A.
Just speed it up a little bit.
A little faster.
Alright, I'd like y'all to practice this right now, so let's turn the tape off and see what you can do.
Now that you've had a little practice harmonizing, let's do the same yodel again, but this time, let's add to the end the E the word odle.
It's going to sound like this.
Our second yodel is a traditional one that found great popularity back in the early days of country music.
Specifically with a man named Jimmy Rogers who had a whole slew of yodels similar to this one.
He named them the Blue Yodels and I think this one will remind you of those beginning country yodels.
Once again, we're going to do this in the key of G and here's Tanya to demonstrate yodel number two.
And this is at full speed.
Let's teach that one now, Tanya.
Okay, now the syllables that you're going to say are i-d-o-le-e, odle-le-e, odle-le-e.
Sounds like foreign language, doesn't it? Here we go, a little bit slow.
You'll notice that on each one of those the voice break takes place in the word le-e between le and e.
Every time it does that, that's where the voice breaks, so that will help you people learn how to do this particular yodel.
This is a very important yodel, by the way, in country music.
It's used in so many different songs, in the choruses, at the end of the songs.
So I'm going to teach first of all a harmony part to what Tanya just did and then we'll sing it together for you.
And then I want to transfer this to the key of C so that those of you who can't sing in this particular range can also learn the melody to this yodel.
So first of all, the harmony part would sound something like this.
I-d-o-le-e, odle-le-e, odle-le-e. I-d-o-le-e, odle-le-e, odle-le-e.
Why don't you join with me now and let's do this together about that speed and then we'll gradually speed it up.
Maybe three or four times.
And you know, we can also do something else with that yodel if we wanted to swing it.
Let's say if we had a western swing song that we wanted to apply this yodel to.
All we're going to do is just get a swing rhythm going, which would be something like this.
I-d-o-le-e, odle-le-e, odle-le-e. I-d-o-le-e, odle-le-e, odle-le-e.
I'll transpose this over to C now because it is such an important yodel.
And the chords, if you're playing along, are just going to be 1-5-1, which will be C-G-C.
And it will sound something like this. Now this is the melody. Here we go.
I-d-o-le-e, odle-le-e, odle-le-e. If we were to swing it, it would be like this.
I-d-o-le-e, odle-le-e, odle-le-e. I-d-o-le-e, odle-le-e, odle-le-e.
Rusty, let's give them a little practice track so they can sing along with it.
This will be in the key of G, and we'll do it about four times through.
Tell you what, let's do a practice track in C, too, okay? Four times, about the same way.
Here we go.
Here's yodel number three.
Boy, what a great yodel there, and I know this is one that you folks are dying to learn.
I think the way to do this is to slow it down considerably,
and the words we're going to be using are odle-le-e, odle-lo-o, over and over again.
So let's try it real slow, Tonya, okay? About like this.
I'll tell you what, let's speed it up just a little bit,
and I'm going to go ahead and add a harmony part to this,
and those people out there with great ears, they can just join that in with me.
It might be good to tell the folks, too, that it may look like it's harder singing it fast,
but it's actually easier because, boy, trying to get those breaths to stretch out over that space,
it's a little bit harder, so that'll be a good thing for them to know
that it's really not as hard as it looks going fast.
Well, let's speed it up just a tiny bit, about like this.
Let's speed it up a little faster.
Do you want to do it one more time?
Well, that's a good one. I'll tell you what, I know there's some of you that want to learn this yodel
that can't sing it in this particular key, so let's transpose it one more time up to the key of C,
and I'll run through it a couple times with you in the key of C.
Starting out kind of slow, it's going to sound like this.
Let's speed it up a little faster.
A little bit faster.
Faster.
One more time.
The yodel that Tonya's going to do for you now is a great western yodel.
It works real well in songs like I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart or Out on the Texas Plains
and so many others that it's too numerous to mention.
So learn this yodel well and see how many songs you can apply it to.
This is going to be in the key of G.
Make a patch of Montana Friend, okay Tonya? Here we go.
One more time.
Very nice.
And let's give them a little practice track on this and work along with.
You all can back the tape up and listen to all those syllables and write them down
and jam along with us while we play this practice track.
Here we go. Get us started on this Tonya.
Adio.
Second time.
Tell you what, let's put that in C for the rest of you folks out there that have a different range
and I'll do something very similar to what she just did.
Adio, le, ti, oh, adio, le, ti, oh.
Adio, le, ti, oh.
Here's your little practice track in the key of C.
This yodel I'm going to do for you right now was taken from one of my heroes of my youth.
One of my favorite all time cowboys, Roy Rogers, did this style of yodeling.
I think you'll really get a kick out of this.
It's a lot of fun.
The syllables are a little bit different.
They're edel, lay, eep, E-E-P.
And that P serves a purpose to bring the thing to a real sudden halt.
And the next syllable is a low ope.
So we also have a P in that syllable for the same purpose.
I think you'll get a kick out of this.
It goes like this in the key of C.
You'll also notice there at the end of that yodel, when I go.
That's the first time that we've used 16th notes instead of 8th notes.
So you have kind of a quick little yodel there.
It's the same blue yodel style that Jimmy Rogers did that we learned earlier.
It's just a little bit different time frame.
It sounds like this.
So you might want to isolate that and practice it a little bit.
So let's back this up now and take it a couple of bars at a time, real slow, so you make
sure you get all these words.
Here we go.
Starting on the F chord in the key of C.
One more time.
This yodel that we're going to do right now is one of my favorites that Tanya has ever
done.
It's actually taken out of the middle of a couple of cowboy tunes that we've done in
the past that she yodels really well.
And I love the syllables on this one, Tanya.
Before you even sing this, you might tell them what the syllables are so they can be
listening to them.
Okay.
All right.
It's I diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, E-T-A-T.
So we'll do this a little bit, we'll do it up to speed and then we'll maybe slow it down
a little bit.
Oh, okay.
Okay?
So we'll do it up to speed and then we'll maybe slow it down a little bit.
Let's do it one more time.
I diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, E-T-A-T.
Yeah.
I'm going to teach you to them a little bit slower now.
A little bit slower?
About like that.
Okay.
I diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, E-T-A-T.
Keep singing about that speed.
I'm going to harmonize with you.
I diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, E-T-A-T.
Faster.
I diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, E-T-A-T.
Faster.
I diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, I diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee, oh diddle-lay-ee,
E-T-A-T.
Yeah.
Boy, isn't that a great yodel.
Boy, that's a fun one.
All right.
Well, what shall we do next here, Tom?
Well, Rusty, why don't we do that yodel, that really difficult one that you wrote that's
really fun for advanced yodellers.
I know the one you're talking about, the key of G. Go something like this.
I'll do that next.
I'll do that.
This is fun.
This is so fun.
I don't know if it was up there.
This is fun.
Hi, do you?
Do you?
Hi, do you?
Do you?
Join with me. Oh, I'd love to.
All right.
Harmonize with me a little bit.
Here we go.
Do you?
Tell you what, we'll let them back
the tape up and get the words
off this, because I don't want to have to say all
There's just too many of them, but I'll tell you what, we could slow this down just a little
bit and maybe try to give everybody a chance to really learn it.
This is a difficult yodel, very advanced, and we go to the flat seven in this, so if
you're playing the guitar, you want to go down to the F from the G to the F at the end
of each line.
So it sounds something like this.
Ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie,
ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie, ollie.
Oh, they're going to enjoy that one.
Let's pause the tape right now and y'all back that up and I know it's going to take you
a while to learn that one.
Our next yodel is going to be split into two parts and I'm going to teach you each part
in the key of G and then I'm going to turn it over to Rusty and he's going to teach you
each part in the key of C. So here it is in the key of G and I would say this is a kind
of an advanced yodel too.
Let's do that a little bit slower and we'll see if you can sing along to this one.
I want you to break down that last lick there because that's the fastest one in there and
you can just sing that real slow.
And what I'm doing there is I'm just taking different vowel sounds and alternating them
between the A and the I and the E and so forth and if you're ever watching me you'll probably
notice I never do the same thing twice so you will too once you learn all these yodels.
We can back the video up and check it out.
You want to go ahead and do the rest of it now in the key of G also.
The second part actually starts on the C chord even though it is in the key of G.
So are you ready for it?
And it's really fast.
We'll do it fast first and then we'll slow it down.
Do you want to start with that last lick of that yodel?
We'll start with the last part of the last yodel.
Here we go.
All right, well that's a great yodel.
You want to do it again now a little bit slower maybe?
We'll just start with the T part this time, the second part.
Here we go.
Two, three.
All right, that's great.
Why don't I do it now in the key of C and hopefully it'll sound something like what
you just did.
It's pretty close.
Really close.
But it is in the key of C, for those of you who need that particular yodel, it is in the
key of C.
And I'll go back and slow it down a little bit now, see if you can sing along with me.
Starts off with the Cajun yodel by the way.
Here's that last lick again.
Notice that time I added the I sound in there, so I got all the vowels in there.
The rest of that yodel, the same one that the second part that Tonya did while I go
in the key of G, will now do in the key of C. See if I can get into it now.
All right, y'all have fun with that and back the tape up and practice a lot.
one of the greatest examples of western music of course is the waltz and we would
be amiss if we didn't include one in here.
There are some waltzes that you can yodel.
This particular one we're going to do now is sort of a modern day cowboy song and it's
a beautiful yodel.
Tonya's going to do it for you in the key of G and the first time through we'll let
her sing it by herself.
I'll join in the second time with some harmony.
Ready?
One, two, three, four.
I think that one's pretty self explanatory, you can understand the words real easy and
the voice breaks are real easy to be heard.
So just back your tape up and run through there a couple of times and practice with
it.
And I might add if there's some of you out there, and I'm sure there are, who have great
harmonic ears then put a third part harmony in there, sing along with me and Tonya because
that's a beautiful yodel when you do it either by itself or two part or three part.
So have fun with that one.
Here's a practice track for the cowboy waltz.
You ready?
One, two, three.
One more time.
On behalf of Texas Music Video, I want to say thanks to you folks out there who have
purchased this video. I know you're going to have a good time with it because Tonya
and I had a good time making it. It's a very difficult thing to do, I can tell you that,
but if you'll stay with the exercises we gave you, study the tape closely, stop it every
once in a while, write down all those syllables, you're going to have all the tools you need
to yodel. Well you know, and Rusty, they can take what we have put on this video and they
can mix and match the yodels and create their own and put them in all kinds of songs that
they might want to include a yodel on. Absolutely. Well let's give them a good time to go out
on here, okay? One, two, three.
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