The song has a high-pitched vocal technique, i.e. a loud call using head tones, so that it can be heard or be used to communicate over long distances. It has a fascinating and haunting tone, often conveying a feeling of sadness, in large part because the kulokks often include typical half-tones and quarter-tones (also known as "blue tones") found in the music of the region. Linguist/phonetician Robert Eklund, speech therapist Anita McAllister and kulning singer/speech therapist Fanny Pehrson studied the difference between kulning voice production and head-voice (sometimes also somewhat erroneously referred to as falsetto voice) production in both indoors (normal and anechoic rooms) and in an ecologically valid outdoor setting near Dalarna, Sweden.