The Power of the Pedal

I teach choir, although music is of the lowest possible priority here, so there is no real program, funding or whatever to organise substantial performances such as for graduation, charity events etc.

We just sing and sometimes I record if it's high school-standards good. We were going to perform at Christmas but Covid once again prevented it, and by the time the performance was back on, months had passed and it no longer made sense to sing our Christmas repertoire. So we got cancelled.

Whatever.

So, to finish off the year, we're just doing a few individual 'karaoke' things combined with some fun choral pieces, the most recent of which is the beautiful Human Heart From Coldplay's latest album, featuring Jacob Collier and We Are King.

The skillset I wanted to internalise here is the use of pedal tones - a single pitch that continues over changing chords. This creates an anchor point for the ear to feel comfortable in a musical context that is otherwise quite dissonant, but our ears tend to allow it because it's stable. Think Bagpipes.

Commonly, the Root (Do) and the 5th (So/sol) are used as pedal tones and can be sustained simultaneously for extended periods. I love pedal tones. But in a choral context, it can be hard for new singers to maintain it when the harmony it flows through is exploring all kinds of different areas, up down left right and beyond.

The other harmonies and melody tends to pull you up or push you down if you're not ready to balance both ignoring other parts, and listening simultaneously, holding steady the whole time.

So this song, Human Heart, has a Do and Sol which you can sustain from start to end, unmoving, while the bass and melody roam free, with these pedal tones anchoring them in place.

This is really fantastic, as although each note stays the same, their function in each chord changes.

In this song, the chords when reduced to their basics, is a simple:

• A
• B
• C#m
• D
• E
• G#7

So, a 6-chord song. Pretty simple.

Take a listen to this simplified version I made using my APK mini keyboard and a rather robotic sounding harmonizer plugin, because I'm too lazy to individually record every part today.

andrewmobbs/human-heart-simple?si=befcc44bb9614167a3f9f4a4b3de7a47&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing soundcloud ~~~

Fairly standard. What makes it more interesting is those dissonances caused by the pedal tones. By having the Do and Sol continue, you get all kinds of fun harmonic extensions. Here's a recording of just the main melody plus the two pedal tones. You can hear moments of dissonance and tension come and go:

andrewmobbs/human-heart-pedal-tones-only?si=313388d72a814707a736bab1262d60a1&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing soundcloud ~~~

Here's the combined chords and pedal tones, re-written with those extra notes in mind:

A --------> Aadd9
B --------> Badd11
C#m ---> C#m7
D ---------> D69
E ---------> E & F#m/E
G#7 ----> G#7(#9,b13)

And for the musicians, here's the function of Do & Sol in each chord:

• A --> The 5th & 9th
• B --> The 11th & root
• C#m --> The 3rd & 7th
• D --> The 9th & 6th
• E --> The root & 5th
• G#7 --> The #9 (minor 3rd) & b13

--

Now, you might have literally no idea what any of that means, but take a listen to this second version, you'll find it's just a lot thicker and richer, with these moments of tension that resolve into something more beautiful. I panned each pedal tone left and right and emphasised a little so listen out for them:

andrewmobbs/human-heart-complete-mixed4?si=313388d72a814707a736bab1262d60a1&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing soundcloud ~~~

Of course, that's not exactly how the song is composed, obviously. There's a whole ton of other stuff going on in the original. I can't imagine how many tracks in total. But this is basically the general gist of how they created such a huge sound - combined with having numerous different singers and million-dollar mixing budgets.

The key here, something I am constantly trying to instill into my students, and talked about with @holoz0r is that tension is good. Dissonance is good, if you know how to use it. As long as it resolves and allows our ears to find a resting place, you can pretty much use any notes you want no matter how 'wrong' they are.