Appendix VI - Lesson 24

Practical Use of Pedal Point

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Appendix VI - Lesson 24 TEF's

Notes to Appendix VI - Lesson 24

In Lesson 23, I spilled the beans about retuning to get a pedal point.  Here in Lesson 24, Mickey states in the very first sentence that retuning is just not practical for playing in public.  If you don't believe me, take a nonguitarist friend to a classical guitar concert by a really good guitarist.  Classically trained guitarists like using new strings for concerts.  We guitarists are a bit too lenient about waiting for the guitarist to get those strings in proper pitch.  But your friend will surely let you know how annoying it is.  Some guitarists have good stage presence and like talking to the audience.  They use that to hide their tuning.  But tuning, especially to and from alternate tunings really annoy the audience.  If you like to use alternate tunings in public, try bringing a second guitar already tuned to that particular tuning.

Lesson 24 uses Exercises 58 and 59 from the previous lesson as examples of having one's bass player play the pedal point.  As you listen to these two examples, you probably won't hear too much difference from the original exercises in Lesson 23.  But play them, and you'll see there are much easier for the guitarist, especially in the keys Mickey chose to arrange the tunes.

About the Exercises: 

  1. Exercise 60 is a re-arrangement of the introduction to "I Dream of You" from Exercise 58.  There are three parts, Voice, Guitar, and Bass.  The voice part will use a clarinet to play the notes in the TEF.

  2. Exercise 61 is a re-arrangement of the introduction to "Just As Though You Were Here" from Exercise 59.  There are also three parts and they are handled as in Exercise 60.  There were a few errors in this exercise, as there were in Lesson 59; however, they were in different places.  Using the two, we can figure out the errors.

In Summary:   We can use pedal point with the guitar, or with the bass playing the pedal.  Don't forget that one can always transpose, for any reason, especially if he's the leader of the group.

Always make sure to transpose the fun to an even higher level!