Hodl-ay-ee-dee-ho! Just a click away.

Thanks to modern technology, it’s no longer necessary to don a pair of Lederhosen and buy a ticket to the Alps to experience the joy that is yodeling.

Norm has brought it to your very own PC.

The Norm in question is the author of The Internet Yodel Course, to be found at www.yodelcourse.com. Here, in ten lessons, future yodelers can learn their craft, this ancient means of communication amidst the peaks of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Start with the Basics

Norm has made yodeling seem almost as easy as falling off a mountain.

Lesson one begins with an introduction of the basic consonant and vowel sounds that are used to create the language of yodel. For those who can read music, he’s included the musical notation of the various exercises for you. For those who don’t, you need not fret, there are sound files waiting to be downloaded.

A quick click on the sound file, a close listen to the short example, then just imitate what you hear. Presto! You’re yodeling.

Hodl-oh-ooh-dee. Hodl-ay-ee-dee

Becoming a Pro

While the first few lessons might be a snap, they do get progressively more challenging. You build on what you’ve learned and before long your voice is skipping all over the place. You’re jumping from "chest voice" to "head voice" (falsetto), skipping octaves, trilling out streams of 16th notes, all accompanied by those magic syllables: yo-dl-la-dee-yo-dl-la-dee-yo

And your partner’s probably packing a suitcase and considering how to divvy up the china.

By lesson five you’re working with new intervals, slurring notes, and having to yodel out four-bar phrases without taking a breath. No easy feat.

By lesson ten, if you get that far, you’re doing some serious yodeling. You and a partner can engage in some high-speed duets, which Norm says will "amaze your friends."

Or make your neighbors call the police.

Once you’ve completed the course, just write Norm. He’ll send you a data file containing your very own "Certificate of Yodelology", suitable for framing, if you’ve got a good printer.

The site also has information on Norm’s own inspiration, "Yodel King" Franzl Lang, as well as other links to yodeling-related sites and places. Norm includes a link that tells us more about himself, unfortunately it was broken at this writing.

Yodel for fun

And since yodeling has gone multi-culti, the site links to versions of the course in German, French, Dutch and Japanese.

Norm even admits on the site that yodeling is quite a silly activity, and come to think of it, in our largely urban environments if a lot of people started belting out hearty Hodl-oh-ee-dee-a-dee-a’s on a regular basis, chaos could ensue.

But he writes, it’s good clean fun and can elicit smiles and laughter. It also brings a little bit of the Alps right into your living room. So, click over to the course and start yodeling to your heart's content. Just make sure your walls are soundproof, or you could well start an avalanche of complaints or worse from your neighbors.