Organ Technique: Avoid These Pedal Playing Mistakes to Facilitate Your Progress

Are you struggling to take your pedal playing to the next level? Or perhaps wondering why your performance is not stylistically appropriate. Chances are you are making common mistakes which might slow down your progress and do not allow to make your playing sound convincing. Please read on to find out the solution.

Looking at the feet when playing the pedals. This can happen quite often, especially at the beginning stages of organ playing. Since the pedal board is unfamiliar to the beginner organist, there is always a strong temptation to locate the keys by looking at them. However, it is always better to look at the music and try to feel the pedal board with our feet. If we insist on not looking down, then after a very reasonable time we will begin to feel where any specific pedal is. Pedal preparation also helps to achieve that.

Not using the entire leg in early music. In order to depress the pedals we usually use the motion from an ankle which is the correct way to play music written after around 1800s. However, not every organist knows that for early music, and especially on historical instruments or replicas of old organs the depression of the pedals should be done using the entire leg.

This theory is debatable whether or not it is applicable to the performance of early music on modern instruments. We should at least try to adhere to it when playing old instruments or instruments that are built in old style.
The technique of playing pedals using the entire leg comes from the clavichord which was popular stringed keyboard instrument at that time and an instrument of choice of practice for many organists. It was the clavichord technique which became the basis of organ technique (at least in German-speaking lands). On the clavichord, the depression of the pedal keys is achieved mainly using the weight of the leg. Otherwise the string of the clavichord would not make a deep and reverberating sound. In consequence, this technique was applied to the pedal playing on old organs as well.

It is really important that you develop the right practicing habits early on in your pedal playing. Being strict with yourself and paying attention whether or not you are making the mistakes in your performance can save much precious time. However, it is never too late to start fixing the mistakes and forming the right playing habits. If you follow my suggestions carefully, you will have more chances to perform difficult organ music with confidence.

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