Pedal point is a note held or repeated in one voice, usually the bass, while the harmony above it moves. The chords may clash with the held note, and the clash is part of the effect: it is resolved when the harmony comes round to agree with the pedal again. An ostinato is a short pattern that repeats. When the pattern sits in the bass, it is a ground bass, and the pedal and the ground bass are the two standard ways to keep the bass still while the upper parts move.
\nThe name is usually traced to organ music, where a pedal note sounded under chords played by the hands. The idea is simple: one voice holds its note while the other voices move through a sequence of chords. The held note is the pedal, and the chords above it are the harmony the listener follows.
\nThe pedal is classified by where it sits and what it does, as the table shows.
\n| Type | Where the held note sits | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Tonic pedal | bass, on the tonic | gives stability at the start or end of a section, while the chords move around it |
| Dominant pedal | bass, on the dominant | builds tension, which lasts until the harmony returns to the tonic |
| Inner pedal | a middle voice | keeps a sustained note inside the texture while the bass and top move |
| Inverted pedal | top voice | holds a note above a changing bass, often at the end of a passage |
An inner pedal is the hardest to hear, because the held note sits between the outer voices and is easily taken for part of a chord. An inverted pedal is simpler: the top note holds while the chords below it change, and the ear follows the held note as a line. Many folk traditions use a drone, a note sounded under a whole tune, which works as a tonic pedal in the simplest sense.
\nA tonic pedal gives the clearest sense of stability of the four. Its chords can wander, but the bass keeps returning to the same note, so the ear hears the tonic as the frame. A dominant pedal works in the opposite direction: the bass stays on V while the harmony above it may move through tonic chords, and the tension is not resolved until the pedal moves or the upper chords settle on it.
\nThe first example is a tonic pedal under the chords of C, F, G and C. The C in the bass is the root of the first and last chords and the fifth of F, so the F major chord agrees with it. Under the G chord the C is a fourth above the root, which is an eleventh, and the B in the chord sits a major seventh above that C. The clash comes from that one pair. When the chord returns to C major, it is resolved.
\nThe engine plays one beat for each event, so the pedal is shown as the C3 in every chord. In performance the C would sound through all four chords.
\nA pedal can also clash at a more open point in the phrase. A D minor triad over a C pedal places the D a ninth above the pedal, a second above the octave, so the clash is a sharp rub rather than a colour. When the harmony moves to C major, the D is removed and the clash is resolved.
\nThe two examples resolve their clashes differently. In the first, the leading tone in the G chord rises to C in the final chord, so the clash moves by step into the tonic. In the second, nothing moves: the change of chord removes the D, and the pedal is left alone to carry the close.
\nA dominant pedal often closes a section. The bass sits on G while the upper chords move, and the section ends when the bass moves to C. Because the bass is still for so long, the change to the tonic is the event the listener hears, which is why a dominant pedal at the end of a section is easy to recognise.
\nAn ostinato is any short pattern repeated, whether it is a melody, a rhythm or a bass line. A basso ostinato, or ground bass, is an ostinato in the bass. Baroque forms built on repeated bass patterns include the passacaglia and the chaconne. In those forms the bass is a fixed frame, and the upper parts vary over it, so the bass defines the harmony as much as the rhythm.
\nA descending four-note figure from A to E is one shape used for ground basses. In A minor it is scale degrees 1, 7, 6 and 5, a stepwise descent that ends a fifth below its start. The example repeats it twice, so the four notes are heard as one pattern returning, not as four separate notes.
\nThe pattern need not sit in the bass. Ostinatos also occur in an inner voice, in a melodic figure or in an accompaniment that repeats under a changing tune. The same test applies in each case: does the pattern return, and does the harmony above it change? If both answers are yes, the ostinato is doing structural work, whatever voice it sits in.
\nThe bass of Pachelbel’s Canon in D is a longer ground: D, A, B, F♯, G, D, G, A. It is repeated through the piece while the violin parts above it change, and the chords above the ground are built to fit it at each return. The ground is a shape the harmony must answer, not a rhythm that happens to repeat.
\nThe first error is to call any long note a pedal. A pedal stays while other voices move past it. A note that becomes the root of the next chord is a bass note, however long it lasts, and the listener hears the harmony change under it as a new root.
\nThe second error is to assume that pedals are always dissonant. Many pedals are consonant with their chords. The C under F major is a fifth, and the clash under G major is a single pair of notes. Whether a pedal clashes depends on the chord and the pitch above it, and the analysis should name the interval each time.
\nThe third error is to treat an ostinato as only a rhythmic device. A repeated bass fixes the harmony at each return, so every repetition needs chords that fit the same notes. Two versions of the same pattern can sound different because the upper parts have changed the harmony that the listener hears over it.
\nThe fourth error is to listen for the pedal in the top voice only. The held note is often in the bass, and a sung bass line is the quickest way to check. If the bass stays put while the chords move, the pedal is there, whatever the melody is doing.
\nWrite a four-bar tonic pedal on C. Keep C in the bass in every bar, choose a chord above it for each bar, and name the interval the chord makes with the pedal: third, fifth, ninth or eleventh. Mark the bar where the clash is strongest and check that the next chord resolves it.
\nThen write an eight-note ground bass in D minor or A minor, repeat it three times, and place a melody above it. Change the upper voices on each repetition and keep the bass exact. Play the result on the virtual piano, and listen for the moment the pattern returns and the harmony is fixed again. The sequences article covers the related idea of a pattern that moves by step through keys, and the common progressions article shows the progressions that most often sit above repeated basses.
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