Appendix VI - Lesson 23

Pedal Point

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Appendix VI - Lesson 23 TEF's

Notes to Appendix VI - Lesson 23

A Pedal Point is a note that is either suspended or continuously played against the melody.  It's a concept that is documented from the Renaissance Period and maybe be older than that.  Mickey tells us that the most popular pedal point note is the 5th or the V note, although, any note can be used.  That's all there is to it.  All the greats from the Baroque to Modern Jazz have used this technique.  With so much use, one would think it would become old, but it's still a favorite.  Here's a few measures from a well known composition by one of my favorite Jazz musicians, J. S. Bach:

A Fragment of Bach's Fugue from the Violin Sonata #1, BWV 1001

This fragment is taken from the playing of Maestro Julian Bream. 

About the Exercises:  Mickey gives us four examples.  In three of them, he has you retune your guitar.  I don't think that is either necessary or prudent and in a later lesson Mickey says so, himself!  What I've have done is to transpose those lessons so that we can use existing open strings from standard tuning.  You don't need to retune anything.  I also have written Mickey's original ideas for those of you with masochistic tendencies.  Try it my way- you're not missing anything by not retuning to a nonstandard tuning.

  1. Exercise 56:  Mickey calls this a pedal exercise, butt it's really just a bass note that's part of the harmony- a G11 chord progressing to a G13b9.  This progression is an old friend as we studied it in  Lesson 12 on Introductions and Endings.  You probably know it by heart.

  2. Exercise 57:  Mickey wants us to tune the 6th string down to a D.  You can accomplish the same musical idea by transposing the exercise to the key of A Major.   Another way of doing this is to keep it in the key of G, and make our pedal note an open 4th string D.  You have to just play the upper three notes of the chords.

  3. Exercise 58:  Mickey wants you to lower your 5th string to a G.  What I've done is transpose this exercise to the key of D Major and we can use an open A string.  Mickey has written this as an introduction to the tune "I Dream Of You."  I added Mickey's arrangement of the first few measures of this tune to this exercise.

  4. Exercise 59:  Once again, Mickey asks us to tune the 5th string up to a Bb for this introduction in Eb Major.  I have transposed it to the key of D Major, so we can use the open A.  The last two measures were from the comping example of Lesson 19 and I added the melody on the clarinet from that example.

Guitarists of all disciplines transpose to avoid awkward situations.  Why should we be different?

In Summary:  Pedal Point is another tool for our tool box.  Both plectrum and fingerstylists can use it, although it is a natural for fingerstyle playing.  Try it on some of your favorite tunes.

Are we pedaling that fun!!