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Pedal keyboard

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A pedalboard is a keyboard which is played with the feet, and which is usually used to produce low-pitched notes. Pedalboards are found at the base of most pipe organ and electronic organ consoles. Standalone pedalboards such as the 1970s-era Moog Taurus bass pedals are occasionally used in progressive rock and fusion music. Pedalboards can also be found beneath pedal pianos, and some harpsichords. A pedalboard resembles a short, elongated version of a keyboard. The note pattern (C-C#-D-D#-E-F-F# ...) is the same. The pedalboard is commonly used to play the bass line of a piece of music. This enables the organist to play one less line of music with the hands, which is very useful due to the fact that organs lack a sustain pedal like that found on a piano, meaning that fingerings must be much tighter and more rigid. As its name indicates, the pedalboard is designed to be played with the feet. It thus requires a specific technique, which is part of a proper organist's training.

1 History
2 Design
3 In non-Classical music
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

History

The first use of pedals on a pipe organ grew out of the need to hold bass notes uninterruptedly in order to support polyphony. These pedals were simply pins placed at height of the feet which made it possible to actuate the lowest notes of the keyboard via a mechanical mechanism. This mechanism is found in organs dating to the thirteenth century. Separate pedal divisions appeared for the first time in the fifteenth century. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the pedals on French organs were composed of small pieces of wood projecting out of the floor. These pedalboards could be either flat or tilted. Due to this construction, organists were unable to play anything but simple bass lines or chorale melodies on the pedals. In Germany, pedalboards featured longer pedals, allowing the organist to actuate them either with the toe of the foot or with the heel. This facilitated more complex pedal lines, giving rise to the dramatic pedal solos found in German organ works of this period. At the beginning of seventeenth century, pedalboards on large organs encompassed twenty-eight to thirty notes.

Design

Pedalboards range in size from 13 notes (an octave, conventionally C2-C3) to 32 notes (two and a half octaves, C2-G4). Modern pipe organs typically have 30- or 32-note pedalboards, while some electronic organs and many older pipe organs have 25-note pedalboards. Besides the number of pedals, the two main identifying aspects of a pedalboard are: (1) whether all the pedals are at the same height relative to the floor ["flat"], or whether the pedals in the middle are lower than those on out outer edges, forming a curved-in shape ["concave"], and (2) whether all the pedals are completely parallel to each other ["parallel"], or whether the pedals are closer together at the far end than at the end closest to the organ console ["radiating"]. Specifications vary by country, organbuilder, era, individual tastes, etc. Exact design specifications for pedalboards are published in the United States by the AGO (which requires a 32-note concave/radiating board), in Great Britain by the RCO (which requires a design similar to the AGO's), and in Germany by the BDO (which allows both 30- and 32-note pedalboards, of both concave/radiating and concave/parallel varieties).

AGO-spec.: concave/radiating	BDO-spec.: concave/parallel	BDO-spec.: concave/radiating	Bdopedalrear.JPG Photo of a 30-note BDO Standard (concave/parallel) pedalboard.
Bdopedalabove.JPG Photo of a 30-note BDO Standard (concave/parallel) pedalboard.	Bdopedalsideangle.JPG Photo of a 30-note BDO Standard (concave/parallel) pedalboard.	Photo of a 25-note flat/radiating pedalboard on an electronic organ.

In non-Classical music

Electronic and Jazz organ

After Jimmy Smith popularized the Hammond organ in jazz, many jazz pianists "... who thought that getting organ-ized would be a snap ..." realized that the Hammond "... B-3 required not only a strong left hand, but killer coordination on those foot pedals to really get the bass groove percolating."^[1] Many jazz organists from more recent decades, in lieu of learning to use the pedalboard properly, perform the bass line with their left hand on one of the keyboards. Organists who play the bassline on the lower manual may do short taps on the bass pedals -- often on the tonic of a tune's key -- to simulate the low, resonant sound of a plucked upright bass string. In popular music, the pedaling style may be more varied and idiosyncratic, in part because jazz or pop organists may be self-taught. As well, the pedaling styles may differ due to the design of electromechanical organs, many of which have shorter pedalboards that are designed to be played primarily with the left foot.

Rock and Fusion

Some progressive rock and fusion bands use standalone pedalboards to produce sounds in the bass range. They are most commonly used by keyboard players as an adjunct to keyboards, but can be played in combination with other instruments, or by themselves. Several progressive rock groups such as Yes and Genesis), and the pop group The Police, used pedalboards. Often, the group's bass guitarist would play in a standing position, meaning that they could only use one foot at a time to play.

MIDI pedalboards

At the beginning of the 21st-century, standalone electronic pedalboards have appeared on the market. They are MIDI controllers, and therefore must be connected to an electronic keyboard or MIDI sequencer to produce musical tones.