Pedal point

A pedal point is the music the name for a long sustained or repeated in a certain rhythm the same tone to the other voices move harmoniously free.

The term has its origin in the Organum, in which the vox organalis moves freely over a long sustained note. The pedal point may occur in different voices or at various points a piece. Often it is found even in the bass at the end of a piece as the dominant bass note, which is then dissolved in the final tonic, or as the root of the tonic. The fact that the term " pedal point " is often associated with the organ, is based not only on the term itself, but also in the fact that occur frequently conspicuous organ points in compositions for organ.

On the piano, and even more on the harpsichord, a long of sustained sound must be resolved by rhythm due to the short decay time of these instruments. At long sustained chords happens usually through arpeggios ( "broken " chords).

Examples

Pedal points can be found in early baroque battle music " alla battaglia " (especially extended with Heinrich Schütz, It stand on God, SWV 356, and Claudio Monteverdi Altri canti di Marte, SV 155).

The pedal can also stand at the beginning of a piece, such as in the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach, BWV 244 Here's to the basso continuo composed by beginning a pedal point over five bars, which in the course of the movement on different again step is repeated. Due to the instrument technology violone and organ, it would be no problem to play a sustained note. But Bach composed repeated notes in 12/8-Rhythmus.

In the aria Sleep, my darling, the JS Bach's first set to music in the secular cantata Hercules at the crossroads, and later in the Christmas Oratorio, both possibilities of an organ point are compared. The pedal point with repeated notes in octave jumps symbolizes the weighing of the child, the sustained pedal point the rest of sleep.

The Fantasy & Fugue in A minor BWV 561 begins with a long pedal point over many cycles.

Other interesting examples of recent music history are the long pedal points at the beginning of Richard Wagner's stage drama Das Rheingold, and Richard Strauss's tone poem Thus Spake Zarathustra (op. 30, 1896) and in the Intrada by Witold Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra (1954).

There are also examples of pedal points in rock music. Here, for example, the piece on the album Starless Red the British progressive rock band King Crimson.