STEP on the PEDAL - long notes to enrich your harmonies !

In this episode, guest host and composer Claire Wickes teaches you what pedal tones are, when to use them, and what kind of impact they can have on your music. Claire also classifies the different types of pedals used in compositions and gives examples of how to use them. Fasten your seatbelts, we’re putting the pedal to the metal with some long, long notes!
Virtual Orchestration is a collaboration between Berklee College of Music (Boston, USA) and Orchestral Tools (Berlin, Germany).
▬▬ Table of content ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
0:00 - Intro to pedal points
3:16 - Tonic vs Dominant pedal
4:38 - Inverted, internal, double and articulated pedals
7:26 - Pedals in screen scoring
Assets used in the video :
SFX :
The following sounds provided by: mixkit.co/
Air Whoosh
__________________________________________________
Video creation credits:
Script / video concept 📜 : Claire Wickes, Eduard Flemmer
Music 🎶 : Claire Wickes
Camera 🎥 and Editing ✂️ : Fabián Barba Hallal
Motion graphics 🎨 : Michael Logar

[@ObsessiveCostumingDude]

Excellent video, thank you for sharing. :)
"Carlotta's Portrait" from VERTIGO is a great example of assorted triads uneasily wandering over an articulated pedal tone for almost two minutes.

[@clairewritesmusic]

Nice! I'm due a rewatch of Vertigo so I'll look out for that !

[@evanseesred]

Claire’s musical sketches are always so impressive and inspiring

[@clairewritesmusic]

Thank you so much!! So happy to hear that 😊😊🙏

[@AtlasBenighted]

Awesome explanations! Thank you!

[@clairewritesmusic]

😁🙏 glad it was helpful!

[@Tanguy_Follio]

This is very interesting, thank you Claire for this explicit video! I really like the example of the double pedal 🙂

[@ShivSagar010]

Thank You Very Much!🙂🙏

[@clairewritesmusic]

You're so welcome ! 🙏

[@MooImABunny]

I'm playing in a Rush tribute band, and the lead Geddy Lee also plays the bass and synths. Absolute mad man.
He does rely a lot on bass and top pedal points to make it happen (but also does other crazy stuff)
we split his role into 3 people, and I'm still not 100% sure how to play when he has top and bass pedal points, as well as keyboard melody
just insane

[@AndromedaX8]

Thank you for these great tips Claire! I love the sound of pedal notes!

[@clairewritesmusic]

Me too! Such a good way of getting away from overused chord progressions

[@jonremimuziq]

The mockups are absolutely fire!!! And I love the double pedal

[@clairewritesmusic]

Ahh thanks so much!! Had fun writing these 🙌🤓

[@BCE-111]

Thanks Claire. Great info! 👍🙂🎼🎵🎶

[@clairewritesmusic]

Thanks for watching! 😊

[@grobinson9352]

Outstanding! Thank you

[@clairewritesmusic]

😁🙏 glad it was useful!

[@KennethGonzalez]

Excellent ideas, Claire! I have something I'm working on right now where I'm going to use one of these! Perfect timing 😊

[@clairewritesmusic]

Ah great!! Glad it came along at the right moment 😁

[@joegrint6280]

Thanks Claire that was really fascinating!

[@clairewritesmusic]

🥳🥳 always happy to hear that!

[@richardmillingtonmusic]

Lots of great ideas to try here - thanks Claire!

[@clairewritesmusic]

Let us know how you get on with it! 😊

[@javietev89]

Wow i did not know about the double pedal, great content ! Also amazing vangelis tip 😊

[@clairewritesmusic]

😂 it's a classic!

[@davidhepworthmusic]

Great presentation. Thanks for sharing

[@clairewritesmusic]

Thanks for watching!

[@cwrango]

Thanks for a great video! - My input: Mahler symphony no 1 - first movement, intro. A beautiful example of a double pedal - high and low! :-)

[@clairewritesmusic]

That's a great reference, beautiful writing - I'm going to have to listen to that again now!

[@Lethoscorpia]

Thanks going to try this in my trance compositions

[@clairewritesmusic]

Now that I want to hear 🙌🙌🙌

[@22evan2]

Thank you😊

[@clairewritesmusic]

🙏

[@CyrilBellem]

Very interesting, as usual 🙂

[@clairewritesmusic]

😊🙏

[@yaroslav_kniazev]

Hi, guys.
Thanks, very interesting lesson topic! It would be great if in the future there will be videos with different compositional techniques and methods.
Regards, Yaroslav.

[@clairewritesmusic]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@AndrewCalleja-ws5lr]

Thanks

[@clairewritesmusic]

🙏

[@StefanoRean_FilmMusicComposer]

Olympic fanfare and theme - John Williams

[@clairewritesmusic]

Yes that's a huge one!

[@timflatus]

Great video. One crit - I think most viewers will know what tonic and dominant are and there are plenty of resources on UA-cam if they don't. We're here for your knowledge and expertise.

[@clairewritesmusic]

Thanks! A lot of people might know those terms, but I think it makes it more inclusive to quickly explain them. And those who know can enjoy being smug that they've got the music theory background 😅🤓

[@timflatus]

Fair enough, I understand your point@@clairewritesmusic. However, this isn't a case of smugness, I watch a lot of music theory videos and it gets tiring to sit through explanations of the basics every time. So I would encourage keeping revision as brief as possible. I think if people don't understand harmonic function it could be better to point them to a fuller video introduction. Pedal point being a slightly more advanced topic. That said, I look forward to seeing more of your presentations

[@clairewritesmusic]

@@timflatus just meant smug in a playful way, didn't mean any offence!

[@timflatus]

@@clairewritesmusic none taken, I'm just a bit blunt sometimes 🙂

[@Funkensturme]

For people into game music, the most memorable and iconic use of pedal is the beginning of Final Fantasy VII:
ua-cam.com/video/6CORYpK6_W8/v-deo.html

[@clairewritesmusic]

Nice one! 🙌

[@niklas3686]

I actually noticed I kinda overuse it in my opinion😅🙈

[@clairewritesmusic]

Haha yes that's easily done, sometimes I have to challenge myself *not* to use one!

[@RichardHerczeg]

I find the term "Virtual Orchestration" stupid and borderline offensive to anyone who stops and considers the concept for a moment. Or at the very least, a very poor use of the English language. As is this video tutorial.

[@snarf1504]

Why? It's orchestrating music with virtual instruments. How would you call it?

[@clairewritesmusic]

​@@snarf1504😂🙌

[@ObsessiveCostumingDude]

Rude!