Pedal Point

[james0tucson]

> drones are pedal points

bingo!

All pedal points can be called drones, but not all drones are pedal points.

[rachmiel]

> all pedal points can be called drones, but not all drones are pedal points

example of drone that is not pedal point please?

[tee boy]

Perhaps he means like inharmonic drones? You know, like your 'rumble' drone, that kind of thing?

TB

[mistertoast]

A pedal point is usually the bass part. Drone is often not. In pop and rock, the pedal is often played by the bass player.

Wikipedia isn't too bad...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedal_point

[VicDiesel]

For a pedal point you need pedals!

(Come to think of it, didn't ELP once play this?)

Victor.

[Dragonslayer]

It might be a good idea to refresh this topic a little with this educational video ...

[Ambiphile]

I don't want to dive too deep into a semantic discussion about if it's called a Pedal Point or Drone...to my understanding they would both describe a composition technique where you have one note, no matter if its in the bass, the mids or the highs, that will continue throughout a whole song to provide a context for the rest of the (continuously changing) notes and evoke a certain mood. One of my favorite songs from my favorite artist uses a mid-frequency (somewhat bandpassed sounding) drone throughout the song which is a very big part of the magic of the song for me


Oh and btw i think a drone can also contain multiple notes, not just one. Like the root and the fifth of the scale you're in, played somewhere in the midrange through the whole song.

[Dragonslayer]

@Ambiphile

I don't want to dive too deep into a semantic discussion about if it's called a Pedal Point or Drone...

--------- Drone VS. Pedal point---------------------------------------------------------
You may hear musicians use the term pedal point and drone almost
interchangeably. Technically, there is a difference, although the distinction
is not always that clear. A drone is a note that is repeated or held
throughout a piece of music or entire song. Unlike a pedal tone , which usually
appears for a short section, a drone continues on and
usually does not change notes.

[jancivil]

I wouldn’t call the drone in Indian Classical Music pedal point, because the term connotes polyphonic treatment, part-writing, where there is none. Also, yes, here it’s tonic, fifth and tonic at a higher octave.

There are inner pedals, so it cannot be defined as a strictly from bass thing. I would think a pedal almost never occurs in the top voice. Drone when present will tend to continue throughout a piece, def not a defining feature of pedal point.