Pedal Point for Music Composers

Calling all aspiring composers, songwriters and rock stars!

Join Brennan McShane to take a deep dive into an age old musical technique seen in works ranging from Bach to Metallica to Miles Davis to Taylor Swift!

Pedal point, the use of a sustained tone or tones throughout a passage, has been and remains an integral compositional device, which adds an element of continuity and smoothness to a piece of music.

Found in pieces of music ranging from the earliest examples of human musical expression pieces, all the way to the chart-topping hits of 2024, this idea of recycling a certain pitch/pitches in a composition can springboard and open doors to endless new creative ideas.

In this class we will explore the harmonic and melodic applications of pedal point, inverted pedal point, and internal pedal point through the lens of famous musical examples, as well as trying our hands at composing our own music with this extremely efficacious technique.

Host or Publisher Stages Music Arts