Pedaling for beginners

Ernst,

I had special organ shoes with leather soles and heels so I could slide easily (when used for walking up hills in San Francisco I once fell down). Nowadays they seem to be using suede leather:

http://store.organmastershoes.com/

I'm not promoting this website but it certainly looks like they have some products of potential use.

James Pressler

Sorry James,

I do have comparable shoes with heels of 1" and soft soles.
But I was referring to the distance between the shoe heels of the player and the pedal keys - he needs to point his feet really down to press the natural pedal keys. My question is: when your legs and feet are at rest, and you don't actually play a pedal key, what distance would the heel of your shoe have to the pedal keys? From what I see on the video I estimate that distance to be between 1 and 2 inches and I thought that should be a lot less - but as I don't have much experience at all with pedal playing THAT is my question: what should the distance be between your shoes and pedals in rest.

Ernst

Ernst,

At one point (just before 0:59) he rests his feet on the wood above the pedals and below the swell pedal. That varies from console to console, but it's dangerous to have the feet anywhere near the pedals or toe studs, or to forget to push Cancel when standing up. One has also to watch the knees lest they accidentally push GC or a divisional piston. Hope this helps.

James Pressler

This was an issue when I first started lessons. I am led to believe that your heels and soles should just 'graze' the tops of the pedal naturals when you are sitting at the correct height. However, there is also the issue of how far forward your bottom is on the bench and what the ideal position is for that.

Richard

This is an interesting discussion though no one has posted to it for some time.

I haven't found, though they may be there, any reference to positioning one's self on the bench in relation to the manuals and pedalboard.

I was taught, whether correctly or not I do not know, to place my left foot on center C, right foot on upper G, and squirm around until my body was fairly centered overall. This places my body's midline at about F above Middle C.

Michael

I wrote some articles about pedal technique which you may find useful:
How to Develop a Perfect Pedal Technique by Playing Pedal Scales on the Organ?
How to Avoid Lower Back Pain When Playing Pedal Exercises on the Organ?
How to Change Position Correctly With Your Feet on the Organ to Avoid Lower Back Pain?
How to Develop Both Feet Equally in Organ Playing?
How to Play Good Notes on the Organ Pedals Without Looking?
3 Tips on Playing Good Notes on the Organ Pedals Without Looking
How to Look at the Organ Score and Play Good Notes with the Pedals?
How to Develop Speed in the Organ Pedal Technique?
And many many more articles concerning various problems in organ playing.
Here is the link to the articles:
http://www.organduo.lt/1/category/pedal ... que/1.html