Word of the week: kulning

It's a beautiful, haunting Scandinavian high-pitched, very musical vocal style, designed to resonantly call in herds of cows or goats from high pastures and long distances, sung out particularly by women. The sounds are designed to carry large distances to attract the animals, but also theoretically to scare away bears or wolves. Also a formal musical style, it can convey a feeling of sadness, in large part because the lokks, or kulokks, or calls, often include typical half-tones and quarter-tones (also known as "blue tones") found in local, traditional folk music. The notes are sung with the head-voice, mainly by women, but if by men, then with falsetto. 

The sound is designed to reverberate around valleys, and cause the cattle, who often wear bells around their necks, to respond and begin to move, the bells indicating their whereabouts and then direction.

Kulning is very much part of music traditions used in northern Scandinavia, such the joik form. It is variously known in different regions with alternative names laling, lalning or lålning in Norway and neighbouring parts of Sweden, also kauking or kaukning in Norway, in the provinces of Dalarna and Hälsingland in Sweden and , Jämtland and Härjedalen, also kulokker, kyrlokker or a lockrop. 

Here’s short first burst by folk artist Myrkur Øksemorder, from band folk/metal band Myrkur, aka Danish musician Amalie Bruun:

Decided to do a little short kulning in the snow

Swedish artist Jonna Jinton has also demonstrated it in several videos, not just pastures but also lakes, mountains and other places:

During the summer the young cows (heifers) comes to my village to spend some months eating fresh grass from the fields by the lake. As some of you know, I actually bought one of these cows last year.

And in this example it is integrated in a church song performed by Swedish singer Åsa Larsson:

Have you heard this beautiful song "Veni Emmanuel" before? It's a melody that has been sung in churches for centuries, it's been found in a manuscript dated to the 15th-century. And people still sing it! Amazing how music can travel through time. Here performed without words with a traditional Swedish singing technique called kulning, an ancient herding call.

Here's an example in a track by Canada's Saskatchewan singer and wintry specialist Jenna Nash: 

A traditional herding call used in parts of Sweden and Norway. With prairie winter nature sounds. Jenna Nash. Jan 2017

As a demonstration and learning technique, as shown by Maria Misgeld, it can be a little more shrill and challenging:

Introduktion till kulning Technique By Maria Misgeld www.mariamisgeld.se So many of you have asked me to create a Kulning tutorial in English. It's really 10 minutes scratch on the surface of the art of kulning, but I hope you can find inspiration and the way to more knowledge.

More tuneful now, here’s Finnish folk group Gjallarhorn, whose music seems to also feature didgerdoo and violin:

Uploaded by Lyzdekiel on 2012-08-06.

The best known kulning singer is Norwegian vocalist Christine Hals, who has appeared doing it in 2018 Marvel's super hero film Ant-Man and the Wasp, and  Disney's 2013, animated film Frozen. Many of her videos see her apparently impervious to the cold. As well as goats and many other animals here's a song in which she's calling the aurora borealis:

Click to Subscribe here: https://goo.gl/LrhE4n 💕❄️✨💕❄️✨ How to call the Northern Lights with #kulning - the Scandinavian Herding Call technique from Disney's Frozen. With Northern Light photographer Ole Salomonsen "Frozen" - vocalist Christine set out to call and catch the northern lights in -15C or -5F it was pretty cold to be standing in a river for almost 2 hours, but what won't you do for art?

A more war-like version of kulning regularly appears on the TV series Vikings, and in a softer form, Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's film Offret ("The Sacrifice” 1986).

Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg was inspired by kulning, or kulokke, for many of his classical works, not merely songs , for example, but also instrumental pieces, such as The Cow Keeper's Song:

Edvard Grieg 1843-1907 - Famous Norwegian composer, conductor and pianist. The most lovely and lyrical of his 'Nordic Melodies' - 'The Cow Keeper's Song' (OP.63) inspired like so much of Grieg's music by Norwegian folk song. On this video - images of a sunny, springtime and verdant landscape with the inevitable grazing cattle.

Or Solveig's song from on his opera Peer Gynt, here sung by Julia Zhu:

Julia Zhu is a Chinese born Belgian soprano. Julia Zhu is a coloratura-lyrics soprano but also can take the function as Dramatic soprano in occasions. Solveig song is an soprano aria from Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg's opera Peer Gynt,it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays.

Can you hear any more kulning calling out? Do any other videos, songs, or images come to mind? Feel free to share other examples from songs, instrumentals, on albums, or other contexts in comments below. You can also get in touch the contact page, and also visit us on social media: Song Bar Twitter, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube. and Song Bar Instagram. Please subscribe, follow and share.

New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...