Pedal Point
A note held or repeated for a long stretch, usually in the bass
Related
A pedal point is a note held or repeated for a long stretch, usually in the bass, like a foot holding one organ pedal down. It does not move with the harmony above, so it forms consonances or clashes with the chords that pass over it: over a dominant pedal the upper parts may wander through remote harmonies and still resolve through the dominant into the tonic; over a tonic pedal they may stray briefly and return home. A pedal point is the art of staying put while everything else moves: the bass stands still and the harmony travels above it.
A pedal need not be in the bass. It can appear in the top voice or an inner voice (an inverted or inner pedal), but the bass is the most common and the easiest to hear. It may be played by an organ pedal, an open string on a double bass, a timpani roll or a sustained synth note. The term comes from the organ pedalboard, and only later came to mean a sustained note in any voice. Pedal points often mark openings, endings or the joints between sections, where they build tension or confirm a key.
The common misconception is to call any long note a pedal point. A long note whose harmony changes with it is still an ordinary long note; the defining point is that the pedal keeps the same pitch while the harmony changes, becoming a fixed reference for the parts above. Another misconception is that a pedal must be completely static. It can also be sustained by a roll or fast repetition, as long as the pitch stays the same. When listening, notice whether the bass refuses to move, and how the harmony above builds tension and release around it.
Sources
- 持续音的定义、类型与和声功能，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Pedal point"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.