Pedal

(Fr. pédale; Ger. Pedal; It. pedale).

Any of several types of lever, operated by the foot and used for a variety of purposes on musical instruments: (1) to change tuning, as in the pedal harp (Harp, §V, 7 and Timpani, §V, 7).

(2) To operate the bellows of a chamber organ, Reed organ or the like; to operate the bellows and playing mechanism of a Player piano, Barrel organ or other Mechanical instrument.

(3) To sound the bass drum and high-hat cymbals in the performance of popular music. See Drum, §II, 1 and Drum kit.

(4) To produce expressive effects, to change the tone-colour, or to alter the volume, as on the Pianoforte, types of Organ and Harpsichord, the vibraphone and some electronic instruments. On the modern piano, the pedal at the right (the ‘loud’, ‘sustaining’ or ‘damper’ pedal) acts to move all the dampers away from the strings so that notes being played continue to sound even after the keys are no longer depressed; strings for other notes may also vibrate sympathetically with those being played. The pedal at the left (the ‘soft’ or ‘una corda’ pedal) on grand pianos acts to shift the entire action sideways so that the hammers do not strike all of the strings provided for each note (on upright pianos this pedal moves all the hammers closer to the strings so as to shorten their stroke, producing a sound of less volume). The middle pedal, where present, on grand pianos is a ‘sostenuto’ pedal. Notes already being produced when this pedal is depressed continue to sound after the fingers have left the keys. On upright pianos the middle pedal is sometimes a sostenuto pedal and sometimes a ‘muffler’ or a ‘moderator’ pedal that mutes the sound of the instrument by interposing a strip of cloth between the hammers and the strings. On pianos of the 18th and early 19th centuries a variety of hand stops, knee levers and pedals were used (see Pedalling). On some modern harpsichords the jack slides, buff battens and coupler are connected to individual pedals by means of which all changes of registration are effected without removing the hands from the keyboard. Pedal control of volume is found on both pipe and electronic organs.

Pedal-operated signal processor units may be used to enhance, distort or change the electrical signal produced by an Electric guitar or other electro-acoustic instruments (see Electronic instruments, §I, 5(i)).

(5) The term is used most widely for a series of pedals, arranged somewhat like the keys of a piano, to form a keyboard played by the feet rather than by the hands. This has been provided at various times for the harpsichord, clavichord, piano (see Pedal clavichord; Pedal harpsichord; Pedal pianoforte), carillon and, above all, for the organ. On this instrument, the pedals are either keyboards for the feet (pedal keys, contained in a pedal-board) or levers operating an accessory device such as that to change stops (e.g. Composition pedal). Pedal-boards are sometimes also applied to the harpsichord and clavichord. The term is a direct equivalent of certain Latin phrases (for example, the keys ‘pro tastandi cum pedibus’ at S Maria Novella, Florence, 1379), although early vernacular usages are not at all clear (for example, the pedalen at Delft in 1483); the word does not seem to occur in England before c1525. Like ‘organum’ itself, pes (pedes) is a word belonging as much to medieval music as to medieval instruments (see Pes(i)).

The early history of the pedal suggests that key levers for the feet could serve many musical purposes. Despite traditional stories, there seems to be no reason to think them a German invention. The protruding sticks for the feet at Halberstadt Cathedral (c1361) played a type of large Blockwerk, while the little positive organ at Norrelanda, Sweden (c1370), had them to play the bass pipes. Many 15th-century organs (e.g. those at Troyes, Haarlem, 's-Hertogenbosch and Utrecht) had a group of large open Bourdon pipes (usually ten) placed on a separate chest on the wall to the side of the organ supported by a pendentive or trompe (hence their name, trompes) and played in most instances by pedal keys which probably worked by admitting wind along conduits running to the pipes. The Ileborg organ MS of 1448 refers to ‘pedale seu manuale’; and the Buxheim Organbook (1450–60) to playing the ‘tenore inferius in pedali’, probably at written pitch. From 1450 to 1550 pedals were of several types: pulldowns to manual keys or pallets with or without a rank or more of chorus or solo pipes (8' Trumpet and 2' Flute were common in the Netherlands by about 1540); pedal-boards playing transmitted stops from a manual; or a pedal organ with independent stops, often including reeds. The compass was ideally up to c' and down to the lowest note of the main manual (F to c' according to Schlick, 1511). By 1600 pedals in some areas had immense versatility, for example, the 26 stops on four chests at Grüningen Schlosskirche.

During the 17th century instruments like those at Grüningen and in the big Hanseatic town churches encouraged the development of alternate right–left toe-pedalling (Scheidemann, etc), and the writing of both bass and solo lines for the pedal. Praetorius noted that pedals were rare in England and Italy; but composers in northern France, the Netherlands and Germany developed the idea of pedals taking cantus firmus or solo lines, generally en taille, that is, with accompaniment above and below. Moreover many of Schlick’s recommendations of 1511 are still valid: the pedal should have separate stops, a compass to c', a tolerable length of key (c30 cm for naturals and 6 cm for sharps), a bench high enough to allow quick passage-work, and keys narrower than the space between them to make two- and even four-part playing easy.

While the 17th and 18th centuries saw variety in the shape, size and playing technique of the Pedal-board, nothing new could be added to the musical use of the department. French organists continued to emphasize en taille textures; Italian organists kept pedals for ‘organ points’; in England pulldowns were rare before the 1790s; and in the Iberian peninsula pedals were largely reserved for pedal points in certain tonalities (C,D, E and F).

In the fully-fledged Werkprinzip organ of Hamburg (c1690), the pedal was very important and versatile, both aurally and visually; ideally it sounded an octave below the Hauptwerk Prinzipal, itself an octave below the Rückpositiv. ‘German’ pedals, that is, straight pedal-boards with independent stops and a compass of C to c' became the norm from about 1820 in northern Europe, not least because J.S. Bach’s organ works were then becoming increasingly available. On the grounds that organists’ hands needed more than one keyboard for quick changes of sound, E.F. Walcker and others sometimes made double pedal-boards, more admired by such theorists as Töpfer than by players. The desire to extend the expressive powers of the instrument also led some builders (e.g. Walcker, Boston Music Hall, 1863) to practise, and some theorists (e.g. Audsley, The Art of Organ Building, 1905) to advocate, the enclosure of some of the Pedal registers in the swell box with the manual registers. Composers continued to exploit the traditional alternate-foot technique even in chromatic music, long after such travelling virtuosos as G.J. Vogler had introduced toe-and-heel pedalling.

EDWIN M. RIPIN, PETER WILLIAMS/DAVID ROWLAND (4), EDWIN M. RIPIN, PETER WILLIAMS/NICHOLAS THISTLETHWAITE (5)