Pedals

Omigosh1 · Little Guppy Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 39

I once heard that after a man had attended an organ concert by Bach he wrote about the experience. He described Bach's skill by saying, "Bach can do more with his feet than most people can do with their hands." This is amazing since the "heel-toe" technique was not developed by Lemmons till much later.
This brings me to my question. Is there anyone out there who prefers playing on a traditional, flat, pedal board like the ones that Bach played on? I have not yet had the oprotunity to do so. I would also like to know what types of registration was available to Bach. Im positive he would not of had as many choices as we do now.

Rexmager · Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 5:32 pm Post subject:

OK, there was an article in the Diapason about 5 years ago, in which the author showed some written out pedalings of Bach's contemporaries. They were not toe-only. In fact, if memory serves me well, the E major scale was shown, with pedaling that looked almost contemporary i.e., toes on the black pedals, heels on the white pedals - not throughout, but close enough. Here is another clue: one of Bach's contemporaries (again, I quote from memory - check facts in Mendels' "Bach Reader") describing Bach playing double trills in the pedal, that were very even and effortless. OK, how did he do it using only toes?? Most of the oldest pedal board have awfully high black pedals. Well, check the size of those shoes on the olden paintings! Men wore shoes with heels as high as a modern Manolo Blahnik high heel runway model's equippment. Playing those organ must have been quite an endeavour!