Go Yodl-ay-ee-ooo with Shankar

Singer Shankar Mahadevan and the Two Tulips band will coach Mumbaikars dropping into Phoenix Mills today, on how to belt out their best yodel for an audience of millions

Singer Shankar Mahadevan and the Two Tulips band will coach Mumbaikars dropping into Phoenix Mills today, on how to belt out their best yodel for an audience of millions

The Swiss invented it in the Alps. Kishore Kumar popularised it in Hindi films. Today, singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan will teach people how to do it at High Street Phoenix. Yodl-ay-ee-oooo! We are referring to yodelling, a type of wordless singing that epitomises free spirit. To know more, we sneaked in to Bandra studio Purple Haze, where Shankar was hard-at-work with Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa, recording the music for Farhan Akhtar's Crooked.

Music composer-singer Shankar Mahadevan teaches you to yodel. pic/Nimesh Dave

"Yodelling involves singing an extended note which rapidly and repeatedly changes in pitch from the vocal register to the head register; making a high-low-high-low sound," says the singer, who works the yodel brilliantly during stage performances and in soundtracks. "In fact, I've used the yodel in the Tum Ho To track from Rock On and Tere Naina from Chandni Chowk to China," he says.

Little wonder then that Internet firm Yahoo, recognised for its signature yodel, should choose the singer to launch the first Yodel Studio in India at High Street Phoenix on October 14. The Yodel Studio comes to India just after giving the folk in New York and London, a chance to unleash their inner rock stars.

Shankar will coach 50-odd wannabe yodellers to create their very best yodels to music from their favourite genre. Host Nikhil Chinappa will emcee the event projected live on giant screens at the foyer. You can be loud, funny, serious, or seriously silly. All is fair as long as you yodl-ay-ee-oooo!

Only today at High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel, 2 pm onwards

ABC of Yodelling
According to legend, yodelling developed as a method of communication in the Swiss Alps. By yodelling in an area which could echo, the yodeler could project sound across long distances. The term comes from a German word, jodeln, which is related to a German slang word, jo, for an expression of delight. Yodelling tends to be triumphant and celebratory, so the link with words related to exclamations of happiness makes sense.