science

The Lonely Goatherd

The Lonely Goatherd is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Lonely Goatherd rather than just read about it. In short: "The Lonely Goatherd" is a popular show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. The song is well known for its examples of yodeling, a part of the traditional music of the Austrian Alps, where the musical is set.

Key takeaways

The Lonely Goatherd belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Lonely Goatherd to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Lonely Goatherd from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

"The Lonely Goatherd" is a popular show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. The song is well known for its examples of yodeling, a part of the traditional music of the Austrian Alps, where the musical is set. (Maria von Trapp, however, found the yodeling in the motion picture version of The Sound of Music rendition to be lacking in authenticity.)

Background This song tells the whimsical story of a goatherd whose yodeling is heard from far off and by passers-by, until he falls in love with a girl who wears a pale-pink coat, with her mother joining in the yodeling. The original 1959 musical has this as the song Maria (played by Mary Martin) sings to comfort the Von Trapp children during a storm. For the 1965 film adaptation, screenwriter Ernest Lehman repositioned this song to a later part of the film wherein Maria (played by Julie Andrews) and the children sing it as part of a marionette show they perform for their father. The song in place of "The Lonely Goatherd" was "My Favorite Things", which was originally sung earlier in the original musical in the office of the Mother Abbess, as a duet between her and Maria. The duet occurs just prior to Maria's departure to work for Captain von Trapp as governess to his seven children. The puppets appear only once in the film, although the song appears later as Georg and Maria are dancing outside during the party. While many stage productions retain the original order as used in the 1959 musical, many other productions have also adapted the changes made in the film, shifting "The Lonely Goatherd" to another scene and adding "My Favorite Things" in its place. In the 1981 West End revival with Petula Clark, Maria and the children sing it at a fair, and in the 1998 Broadway revival with Rebecca Luker it is sung at the Salzburg Festival concert, replacing what would have been an intricate Bach-sounding reprise of "Do Re Mi", showing how exemplary the Von Trapp children were at singing difficult choral compositions. Here, the vocal arrangements were by Jeanine Tesori, giving the audience an idea of how versatile they were. In the 2013 NBC broadcast of The Sound of Music Live!, it was once again used as it was in the original 1959 production. The lively number reappears later in both the original stage version, the film version and the 2013 NBC special broadcast as a deliberately paced and very Austrian-sounding instrumental, the Ländler, a dance performed by the Captain and Maria. It then serves as the catalyst to a dramatic juncture in the film, as the young novice Maria realizes that she is in love with the Captain. The famous marionette puppetry sequence in the film was produced and performed by the leading puppeteers of the day, Bil Baird and Cora Baird. The inspiration for the "Lonely Goatherd" scene came from the famous Salzburger Marionettentheater. According to The Sound of Music Companion, Hammerstein had come up with several phrases to rhyme with the word goatherd, such as "remote heard", "throat heard", "moat heard", etc. to add enjoyment to the song.

In popular culture Julie Andrews performed this song with The Muppets as the opening number to her guest appearance on The Muppet Show in 1977. In The Nanny episode "Stock Tip" from Series 2, Brighton accidentally plays the song instead of hip hop and suggests his dad, esteemed Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield, should play his cassettes on his own stereo to prevent further mix-ups. In The Story of Tracy Beaker episode "Miss You" from Series 1, Mike is reminiscing about good times with his guitar. We later see him fantasising about taking the Dumping Ground kids camping and in this fantasy we see him singing/playing The Lonely Goatherd, albeit out of tune. In the Werewolf episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mike Nelson briefly sings the first few lines of the song during the movie's end credits. In 2006 Gwen Stefani sampled the song in "Wind It Up" on her album The Sweet Escape. The song was also used briefly in a special Shrek short/Thriller music video featured on the Nintendo 3DS, and was remixed for the credits. The song is frequently performed by The von Trapps, the real life great-grandchildren of the Captain and Maria, and appears on their Pink Martini collaboration album, Dream a Little Dream, released on March 4, 2014. Randy Rainbow posted a parody of the song about U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, titled "The Nasty Woman" on YouTube on October 26, 2016. Slovenian avant-garde music group Laibach released a cover of "The Lonely Goatherd" as part of their 2018 The Sound of Music album, featuring guest vocals performed by Boris Benko from Silence. The video for The Lonely Goatherd was released on November 19, 2018. It features Milan Fras dressed as a Christian priest guiding a flock of young girls dressed as sheep. Boris Benko appears as the goatherd.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Lonely Goatherd

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Lonely Goatherd claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Lonely Goatherd before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Lonely Goatherd ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Lonely Goatherd

In research: The Lonely Goatherd appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Lonely Goatherd in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Lonely Goatherd is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1959 songs, American novelty songs, Carrie Underwood songs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Lonely Goatherd outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Lonely Goatherd in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Lonely Goatherd means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Lonely Goatherd out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Lonely Goatherd in simple terms?

Why does The Lonely Goatherd matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Lonely Goatherd?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Lonely Goatherd.