Anastasia Rege
I enjoyed this video on pedaling technique!
Huilin Shen
Practice repeatedly in fragments. This advice is very important. Whenever you play a challenging pedal line and make a mistake, try to resist the temptation of going all the way through the composition without stopping. Instead, force yourself to pay attention to details and work in smaller fragments. This is a great way to get used to the pedal board and stop looking at the feet. Practice smaller units, correct your mistakes, and make your pedal playing automatic.
Do not lift your feet off the pedal board. As you practice your fragments of pedal lines, make sure that your feet stays in contact with the pedals at all times. When you have to move your feet to the next position, slide them while slightly touching the pedals with the toes. This way of playing is like reading books by touching the pages written in Braille language with the fingertips for the blind people. They can feel the shapes of the special signs which then convert to words in their minds. By the way, there are many blind organists who manage to play the organ successfully because they feel the keyboards. The same applies in pedal playing – feel the pedal board and you will know the right position of particular notes.
Stay close to sharp keys when playing naturals and play on the edge of sharp keys. When you play the pedals and stay in contact with the pedal board you can try another technique which will help to make your playing very precise without the need of looking at your feet. If you need to press a natural key, stay close to the sharps. In fact, you can almost touch the sharp keys when you play the naturals. When you play the sharp keys, do not go too deep with your toes, just place your feet on the edge of the keys. This way it will be easier to orient yourself on the pedal board and gradually the need of looking at your feet will diminish.
Jingyi Xu
Positioning the Body
When preparing to play the organ, adjust the bench height so that your heels are at the same height as the pedals, with the feet roughly parallel to the keys. The feet should graze the white pedals as you move your feet around under the organ. You should have to lift your toes up off of the pedal board in order to reposition the feet, not stretch to press the foot pedals. Adjust the bench position forward or backward until both feet are just shy of the black pedals. When playing, keep the ankle and knee in line, and allow the knees to move right and left to follow the foot and ankle, but do not let the knee bob up and down.
Positioning the Feet
Most organ players place the right foot slightly ahead of the left foot, although you can play with the left foot ahead of the right and still maintain good organ pedal technique. Position the right heel next to the left arch, with feet forming a V that varies in size depending on the interval you are playing. When you need to change foot position, pivot the foot on the heel, repositioning the toes to play the next note. If you need to cross the feet to play additional notes, cross the right foot in front of the left to avoid one foot getting in the way of the other. When playing the black organ foot pedals, do not cover more than half of the key with your foot.
Playing Organ Foot Pedals
Economy of motion is the most important organ pedal technique, and using only slight movements will help you avoid wrong notes and missteps. During rests, reposition the feet and hold the toe over the next note to be played. Press the organ foot pedals with all of the toes, but don’t play with a flat foot. Keep the ankle flexible, like the wrist in keyboard technique, and roll the foot to the left or right to play the black organ foot pedals. When you need to play multiple notes, use the inside edge of the foot. Practice the foot position of different intervals until you get used to the motion of adjusting your feet and can judge where to place your foot based on the contact between your right heel and left arch. Practice both pressing and releasing notes cleanly, and keeping the feet from pressing any pedals unintentionally.
Pump Organ Foot Pedals
Pump organ foot pedals function differently, and instead of playing notes, they operate the air bellows that produce the organ’s sound. Pump organ pedal technique simply requires that you alternate pressing down the left and right pedals, and that you avoid pumping the pedals too hard. The force applied to the pump organ foot pedals can control the volume of the organ sound, but too much force can damage the bellows mechanism.
Qianqian Xie
Yingying Xia
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