EUROPEAN POLYVOCALITY

Yodel means a style of singing or calling by syllables without semantic meaning that involves switching the registers of the voice rapidly from head voice (or falsetto) to chest voice. To yodel is still very common in several regions of the east alpine area. It seems to be an ancient skill founded in pastoral culture which has changed repeatedly in the course of the time. Maybe – as it often occurs in folklore – certain archaic features re-mained in yodelling. My contribution deals with the problem whether we could find an ancient style of polyvocality in yodelling and whether we could recognise thereby some origins of European polyvocality in general. It was already Wolfgang Sichardt in 1939 who got down to the problem of historical layers in alpine yodelling. Proceeding from the youngest to the eldest layer, following the parameters “form ” and “tune”, he was able to find out five categories: 1. Type of “Schnaderhüpfel”. Symmetric construction, schematic change between tonic and dominant harmony and harmonic embedding of the tune in this change. No rhythmic variation of importance. 2. Type “Barock”: origin in the models of menuet and Ländler