Songs that use Pedal Point

📌3:55 there's a small typo where I've put the Ab/C and Bb/C chords the wrong way around. Sorry for any confusion caused and thanks to the commenter who brought the error to my attention!

And, an extra special thanks goes to Peter Keller, Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇

0:00 What is pedal point?
1:41 Everybody Wants To Rule The World
3:02 Eye Of The Tiger
4:35 Indiana Jones
5:18 Why is it called "Pedal point"?
6:02 Pianote
6:54 Elton John
9:55 Pink Floyd
10:34 Dominant pedal
12:09 Hurt by Johnny Cash
12:33 Genesis
13:48 Patreon

[DavidBennettPiano]

📌3:55 there's a small typo where I've put the Ab/C and Bb/C chords the wrong way around. Sorry for any confusion caused and thanks to the commenter who brought the error to my attention!

[YouennF]

The theme of "chariots of fire" immediately comes to my mind. The sketch bit for the london olympics ceremony is based around this pedal point.

[Robobagpiper]

Also, every bagpipe tune, provided by the drones. Ours are mostly tonic pedal (tunes in Bb for Highland pipes), but often dominant pedal (for tunes in Eb), or even subtonic pedal (for tunes in Cm) or rarely supertonic pedal (for those Ab Lydian tunes).

[mpiodc]

I love how at 10:38, when David tells us that till this point we had only listened to examples of tonic pedals, the "ding" that we hear is in D and then, when he introduces the dominant pedal at 10:51, the "ding" has changed pitch to an A to become the dominant of the first one. Nice touch!

[mike]

Thunderstruck (AC/DC) comes to mind - they run a good 2 and a half minutes into the song before they unleash the tension. Cliff Williams (their long time bassist) had a habit of using pedal point in many of their songs.

[artoeditoe]

When the video introduced the concept of inverted pedal point, "Fake plastic trees" by Radiohead came to my mind. All chords throughout the entire song are strummed with the high E string in open position (yielding repeat appearances of F#m7, Dsus2 and Bm11 chords).

I always felt that the never-resolved harmonic unease this creates in the music superbly captures and complements the persistent existential tension the characters from the lyrics are experiencing ("it wears me out").

[valvenator]

I think a great example of a type of pedal point would be in ethnic instruments such as bagpippe and sitar where the melody plays over a static drone note or notes. Actually I'd love to hear you do a discussion on that subject!

[paulrobertson]

The intro to Jackson Browne's "Running On Empty" does this to great effect. Thanks for another great video helping us understand what's going on when we hear these techniques.

[cdprince]

Stevie Nicks, Edge of Seventeen comes to mind as a great example.

[davids]

One thing about the organ is that when you press a key it will sound for however long you hold it down for. It can sound for seconds or even hours if you have the stamina and patience. With the piano the note dissipates a few moments after you press down on a note. This is a big reason the pedal note concept originated with organs.

[alk]

11:15, that also sounds like "She's Gone" by Hall and Oats.

[TheMister]

One really great use of a moving and inverted pedal point is "Starless" by King Crimson. In the long instrumental section, Robert Fripp plays various pedal points over a repeated phrase. It's great because the pedal tone continues to rise chromatically every few measures, creating a lot of tension when using a dissonant note, releasing a bit when it's more consonant, and throughout, rising in intensity as the passage eventually reaches the point of release toward the end.

What makes this passage more interesting is that Fripp seems to be playing the same pedal tone on two different strings, and I don't understand how he actually does that. His hands aren't THAT big. ;-)

[grandandroid]

I really relate to this, because I adore this technique. One of the forgotten songs which featured that was Black's Sweetest Smile. That song deserves attention.

[progames]

Another few iconic examples I can think of are pinball wizard by the who and the bass in a view to a kill pedalling on C to build tension.

[stephenmcg]

Pedal point on the electric guitar keeps the tension on Sylvia by Focus.

[robr]

I just wanted to say thank you for all of your videos. I play guitar but you have helped me understand so much more theory than I ever imagined. I have tried learning more about music theory before but have always struggled. The way you explain things, and the use of your piano, makes it easier for me to understand these concepts. I look forward to your videos. Keep up the great work!

[rebeccastadie]

I was fully expecting Chariots of Fire. The Mr Bean live performance was absolutely glorious.

[MusicalRadiation]

Supper's Ready by Genesis has a 9/8 solo part that has a single pedal point throughout! But Genesis uses lots of pedal points in their music in general

[liververson]

I'm a big fan of pedal points. It's such a simple technique but very effective.

[JalenJaguar]

It is so very interesting how pedal point is quite similar to the Indian/Carnatic music concept of droning a tonal note to give almost a sonic backdrop