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A sustained or repeated bass note (usually tonic or dominant) held while the upper voices move through changing harmonies.
Tonic pedal creates stability and closure — use it in final passages. Dominant pedal creates tension and expectation — use it before climactic arrivals. The pedal anchors the tonality while upper voices move freely, creating simultaneous stability and dissonance.
Bach's Fugue in C major, WTC Book I — ends with a long tonic pedal while the upper voices weave through a final series of harmonies.
Pedal point is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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