Pedal point
A sustained bass note beneath changing chords.
What it means
A pedal point is a long-held bass note above which the harmonies change. The bass stays put while chords form above it that partly fit it and partly do not. The name is explained by the organ, on which a note in the pedal can effortlessly be held for any length of time.
Musical use
Two positions are especially common. The pedal point on the dominant appears before a close or before the re-entry of a theme: it builds up tension, because the music lingers long on the dominant and the expected resolution is postponed. The pedal point on the tonic, by contrast, often stands at the end of a piece and confirms the centre while the upper voices are still in motion; it can also lay the foundation at the beginning of a movement.
The effect rests on the changing relation of the sustained note to the sonorities above it. The same bass note is at one moment the root, at another a note foreign to the chord, at another the fifth — and the frictions that arise are intended. The ear accepts dissonances over a pedal point more readily than elsewhere, because the bass remains as a fixed reference.
If the sustained note lies not in the bass but in a middle or upper voice, one speaks of a sustained tone or an inverted pedal point.
The pedal point is to be distinguished from the drone: this is a continuous fundamental sound over which the music moves melodically, often without harmony changes; the pedal point is usually limited in time and stands under changing harmonies.
Other names
Pedalpunkt is a German coinage in common use, not an English designation; in English it is called pedal point or, for short, pedal. To be distinguished is the drone, which, as a continuously sounding note, is more a quality of sound than a compositional device at a particular point.
Performance practice
Keep the sustained note even and alive, without accenting it — it is ground, not figure. Listen to the frictions above it and take them seriously instead of smoothing them over. And shape the resolution at the end of a dominant pedal point distinctly; there the accumulated tension releases.