, Germanized as Ischi, is a Japanese

yodeler Yodeling (also jodeling) is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch chest register (or "chest voice") and the high-pitch head register or falsetto. The English word ''yodel'' is derived from ...

active in Germany.

Biography

Ischi was born and raised in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, Japan. In high school, he was a loner, but it was during this time that he first heard yodeling on the radio. Following his father, Ischi went to university for mechanical engineering. In his spare time he became engrossed with the

zither Zithers (; , from the Greek word ''cithara'') are a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat bo ...

and the

hammered dulcimer The hammered dulcimer (also called the hammer dulcimer) is a percussion-stringed instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more trad ...

, and learned to play these instruments. Using Franzl Lang's records, he taught himself to yodel, and began performing on Japanese television. During a six-month period where he studied abroad in Germany, Ischi went to Switzerland, where he sang at a beer hall in Zurich. He soon started earning money from this. From there he sang in front of Franzl Lang, his idol, and Lang took him under his wing. He performed on television with

Maria Hellwig Maria Hellwig (22 February 1920 – 26 November 2010) was a German yodeler, popular performer of volkstümliche Musik (Alpine folk music), and television presenter. Life Maria Neumaier was born in 1920 to Heinrich Neumaier, an electrician, an ...

, and after that became known in German language circles as the "Japanese yodeler".. Ischi met his wife Henriette in 1981 and proposed to her three years later at an ''

onsen In Japan, are the country's hot springs and the bathing facilities and traditional inns around them. As a volcanically active country, Japan has many onsens scattered throughout all of its major islands. There are approximately 25,000 hot ...

'' (hot spring) in Japan, where he yodeled his proposal to her. They married in 1985 and had five children, four sons named Maximilian, Michael, Andreas and Lukas, and one daughter named Julia. A collaboration with <