The Steel Guitar Forum

When, in some form of music instruction, the term "pedal" note or 'pedaled notes' is used, is there a relation to the pedal harp, or just the piano? Has anyone compared the copedent of a pedaled harp to a pedal steel? Has anyone tried to emulate a pedal harp onto a pedal steel rig? (maybe for the sake of being able to play classical music or style, and/or "read" the music. I believe there are only 6 pedals (three on each side of a pedal harp).
Guess I will work out a possible copedent for myself sometime with a maximum of six raises total, but any input would be appreciated.

I dunno, but Lloyd Lindroth (deceased) was a pedal harp player, and did a pretty good job of emulating steel licks on it. He was the featured soloist at the Opryland Hotel for many years.

My C Scale Tuning idea was modeled after the pedal harp. It eventually evolved into the F Diatonic Tuning. It's not something I would recommend, but there it is as a curiosity.

In traditional harmonic analysis, a "pedal" is a note that is sustained through several changes of harmony, including some chords in which the "pedal note" does not fit. "Pedal" here doesn't refer to something that you hit with your foot, but rather a note which might be played by any instrument in the orchestra, or sung by any voice. I think the term originated from organists holding down a bass note with a pedal while they played various chords, but it doesn't necessarily have to be in the bass. A pedal note would probably be either the tonic or the dominant note. You hear pedal points in pop music as well as serious music from just about every era.

What Earnest says. I have generally heard that referred to as a "pedal point" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedal_point

But many musicians just refer to it as a "pedal". As the wiki article suggests, when the pedal is not in the bass, it is often called an "inverted pedal point". I've heard it used in practically any position on the scale. On guitar, very useful for "speed of light hammer-ons" and other flashy stuff because figures can be executed very rapidly against the pedal point.

I just looked thru book 1 of the Well Tempered Klavier, and about half of the Preludes end with long pedal points. Here is the C minor. If your kids take piano lessons you have probably heard this a lot:




Like most of them, this one goes 1 4 1 5 1 over a tonic pedal.

Here is one of my favorites. The pedal point is high E in the violins. It's a tonic pedal while the flutes play, then when the (A) clarinets take it, the key goes to C# minor, and the same pedal note is the third degree of the scale.

My daughter's concert Lyon and Healy harp has seven pedals, one for each key:C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Each pedal has three settings: sharp, natural and flat. The pedal moves a rod apparatus that is enclosed in the hollow column of the harp. Peda; to base, base to column, column to harp assembly then to the tuning peg and possibly one of the gold plated cams that raise or lower the string. Over a thousand moving parts in all. There are arrangements which call for using the pedal to move the vibrating string, but they are not common. 47 strings. And we psg owners think we have it tough!

Dennis

Thanks Dennis for the info. I always wondered how Pedal Harps raise and lower strings. 47 strings.....whew!

My black push/pull harp plays and sounds great. I don't need an amp either.

I have a friend who plays and teaches pedal harp. As I understand it, the harp is tuned to a scale, and the pedals are needed to get the sharps and flats, or chromatic notes. For playing in different keys, the cams at the top of the strings have to be reset to give the appropriate scale. There are gut (or nylon) string harps and wire string harps. For some reason many harpists are women. But the harp can benefit from the bigger and stronger hands of men. Harpo Marx is a good example of that. There are a lot of strings, but remember they use two hands and all 10 fingers to pluck them, not the three or four fingers steelers are limited to. And they don't have to fool with a pesky steel bar.

There is a little bit of confusion here in that two different types of harps are being described, rather like lap vs. psg.

The instrument David is describing is called a "lever" harp as opposed to the pedal harp.

The "lever" instrument can have sharpening levers attached to each string, typically on the left side so that diatonic tunings in any key can be set for a particular song, or accidentals can be added during performance. A lever player has to be pretty accurate in reaching up to these tuning levers while playing. Some smaller harps have levers just on a few strings, for example all C# and F# which then allows the harp to play just in keys of C, G and D.

The pedal apparatus was invented in France in the early 1700's as a way to make the harp fully chromatic. Each of the seven pedals will move all of the strings in one particlar note, for example all of the D's or all of the G's.

A different approach is the Welsh "double" harp, a full lever instrument but with two complete 36 string sets, one on each side of the neck. Either side can be tuned uniquely, allowing for interesting harmonies. The "double" is, as you might expct, a real challenge not only to play but also to construct correctly, and most are custom made. My daughter's concert harp is a Lyon and Healy (Chicago), but her "double" was to order by Thormalin Harps in Portland, Oregon.

A concert harp weighs about 90 pounds, the double about 60 pounds, the full lever one about forty. Most of the weight is in the top, making them very awkward to carry or move. Concert harps come with their own hand cart.

Harpists actually play with just four fingers on each hand, not the pinky. Harpo was something of a mystery as a harpist, and not a good example of playing technique. He was essentially self-taught and did many things in ways that made it more difficult for him to play well, but he did it (play well, that is) anyway. There are two schools of harp technique, elbows in or elbows out and it seems that either will eventually give you tendonitis

All through high school I kept trying to get the kid to take up the flute or piccolo, but noooooooo!

Dennis

Thanks for the clarification, Dennis, but I'm still a little confused. I never did understand exactly how my friend plays. But her harp had pedals, yet she still seemed to adjust the individual string cams for different keys, and seemed to use the pedals for accidentals. Also, I remember something to the effect that the cams can raise each string two half-steps. The unraised key of the harp seemed to be B. But the standard situation for the key of C was to raise all the strings a half-step. Then each string could either be raised another half-step, or lowered a half-step.

I suspected the pinky was little used, but I thought I saw her use hers occassionally, but maybe I wasn't watching closely. Interestingly, the strings are colored for identification. Because of that and my little knowledge of scales, I was able to sit down and right away pick out simple tunes and even some harmony. But like all instruments, the skill with which an experienced player can rip through fast complicated passages is amazing.

David: I'm trying to picture what you are describing. A pedal harp has no "user adjustable" cams. They are all moved by pedal action. On the other hand, you may have seen your friend tuning the harp while she was playing, which is common. Harpists (harpies?) have special small wrenches which can be quickly placed on the necessary peg (on the right hand side) for tuning. I just looked and only the F (black) and C (red) strings are colored, though the heavier wrapped strings are sometimes bronze or silver colored. I know that they teach the harpists to quickly tune by fifths, especially after the harp has been moved out onto the stage, which typically puts it out of tune due to temperature change and minor flexing of the instrument itself. What you describe sounds right for the pitch of the standard tuning.

My kid is out of the country, but I'll ask her about pitch next time we talk. Her harps are taking up about half of my music room until January. For one of her recitals, she played a well-known (to harpists, that is) piece by Handel, and some transcriptions she did herself of Bach pieces. I couldn't believe how fast her fingers moved. Harpists get large callouses on the ends of their finger pads which sometimes tear off, exposing the inner layers of bleeding skin. They have various chemicals which supposedly toughen the skin, but eventually it just wears off as well.

We complain about moving our "heavy" psg's but as you point out most harpists are women who have learned how to quickly and safely move around their 90 pound very fragile instruments.

Dennis

David: I just received a response from my kid about the question of standard pitch of the pedal harp. According to her, all orchestrational harpists tune to C and work from there, but Baroque players usually work from the lower pitch of B for various reasons having to do with the pitches of period instruments. Your friend may have her own reasons for wanting to use the B standard.

Of course, with the lever and double harps, all of those issues of temperment can apply as well, depending on the ensemble.

I even saw a contemporary composition that called for the use of a "slide device" on a string while using the pedal to change the pitch. After some discussion, my daughter decided that a metal guitar slide (from my guitar case) that fit over her finger was just what she needed.

Dennis

The "open string" scale of pedal harps is Cb major (sounds like B major, of course).

Move any pedal up one notch, and all the pitches are raised one half step, so if you move them all up to the first notch, you're in C major. To play in D, for instance, you'd move the F and C pedals up to the second notch form there. Usually they tune the instrument in the "all naturals" (C) position, but they're always touching it up.

Many Baroque players and ensembles tune to A=415 instead of A=440, I did myself for years when I lived in the early music ghetto. Your C scale would then sound the same as B (or Cb) at A=440, but it's like transposing winds - you don't think of it as B major.

Classical-era harps have only single action pedals (one semitone raise on each note), so they often tune the "open" strings to an Eb scale and retune if they need enharmonics like A#. A lot of lever harp players do that too.

In traditional harmonic analysis, a "pedal" is a note that is sustained through several changes of harmony, including some chords in which the "pedal note" does not fit.

A good PEDAL example from the "modern era" is Jumpin’ Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones.
The bass sustains a B PEDAL throughout the verse, while the power chords change from B5 to A5.

5 indicates a power chord (root, 5).

So if a musician tells you "pedal B", it does not necessarily mean step on "pedal B"!!