Lower pedal points can provide a great sense of suspense through harmonic tension. Commonly used for intros, endings, and interludes, lower pedals can aid the musician in finding rich chord substitutions.

Comping can become more interesting when pedals are employed and chord melody playing can sound fuller while adding spice to both contrapuntal and chordal approaches.

Guitarists will find pedal points easy to play when utilizing open strings in the bass register but much trickier when fretted pedals are desired. In this in-depth class on lower pedals, specifically designed exercises will aid in developing a legato technique through utilizing pedals often beneath contrapuntal upper lines in contrary motion.

Written examples outline important chord progressions such as I, VI, II, V, Blues progressions, Rhythm Changes, and an arrangement of John Coltrane’s Naima transposed to allow the use of open lower pedals. The examples prominently feature clusters, triad pairs and quartets, diminished, augmented and melodic minor sounds and quartal harmony.

George Van Eps and Jimmy Wyble were my inspiration for putting this class together. They were both masters at holding down fretted pedals while the upper voices were at play (and masters at much more!) It’s my hope that this class will provide insight into working with lower pedals and help build the technique necessary to get a step or two closer to improvising in this style.

• 18 pages of written materials notated in both TAB and standard notation with fingerings.
• Running Time: 162 minutes