Forum: music.stackexchange.com
Tags: <organ><keyboard-pedals>
Title: Practicing pedalling without pedals, or maximizing real practice efficiency
Question: I only get about an hour-and-a-half's access per week to practice on a 'real' organ.   Needless to say, my progress at pedalling is painfully slow.  Are there any ways to practice pedalling without the pedals (I used to practice touch-typing by shutting my eyes and just imaging)? And if not, is there a way to make my practice sessions more productive?

Answers:
sents: text: Play the manual parts on piano or keyboard while you sing the pedal part (fixed-do solfege can be useful here) and move your feet on an imaginary pedal board.
text: I have learned relatively easy pieces this way and performed them without having had much time with an actual organ.
text: Even for a Bach fugue, though, if you can sing the pedal part while playing the hands it will be much easier to add the actual foot action.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/17187/musarithmia
score: 2
sents: text: Don't know where you live, but here in U.K. the old style of organ (2 manuals, pedals), come along on occasions for little money.
text: I bought one for £10 sterling, just for the pedalboard (although the 2 12" speakers were a nice bonus).
text: If you can find room, this is a good option, as pretending won't tell you when you've hit a wrong note.
text: There may only be one octave of pedals, rather than two, and they'll be parallel, not radial, but that's got to be better than none.
text: To practise an instrument and improve, every day is the way to go.
text: Even if it goes in the garage, bedroom, whatever, it's better than the once a week you're doing.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/2808/Tim
score: 1
sents: text: I find that moving my feet as if there were a pedal board, when practicing on a piano, for example, helps.
text: It engages the learning centre of the brain - not as much as if you had the real thing, but better than not.
text: Playing the Organ is hard - it will take a long time to get proficiant.
text: Have you got pedal exercises to do?
text: working through them will teach your legs different pedaling techniques, and increase your accuracy.
text: Are there any other churches/organs in the area that you can get some practice at?
text: Many churches are more than happy to let people practice on the organ.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/9396/7thGalaxy
score: 1
sents: text: The cheapest solution.
text: Take a cardboard.
text: Draw the keys on it (of the original size).
text: At least, You can be confident with coordination.
text: I used this method (however, for hands), when I needed practicing piano pieces written for the grand piano on my upright piano (which doesn't have some keys at the top).
text: That's enough for studying a piece on the first stages, but anyway You have to practice in the real environment, especially the closer the concert / competition is to take place.
text: Actually that is sufficient even to become a laureate of the competition, if You really desire (written from my personal experience).
text: Just a side note: Sergei Rachmaninoff used "silent" keyboard ("немая" клавиатура) during traveling.
text: The Cardboard Piano : Perkins's "cardboard piano" derives from an incident (...) about the celebrated composer Sergei Rachmaninoff who practiced on a silent piano while crossing the Atlantic.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/9553/Dmytro Dzyubak
score: 1
sents: text: buy a flexible midi pedal board from china.
text: It can be folded and you do not need space.
text: Just spread it on the floor when needed and connect it .
text: You will need a midi adapter to usb and of course a computer with sound output connected to speakers.
text: Definately midi software.lots out there.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/24297/don
score: 1
sents: text: I would often just picture the foot pedals in my mind and move my feet to an approximate point on the floor.
text: The mental effort of coordinating the foot movement along with everything else is worth it even if you don't have access to a real foot pedal.
text: Keep in mind that pedal distances are not the same from one organ to the next even if they're the same type (radial vs parallel)
text: so the "muscle memory" required is different than for the hands.
text: Eventually, you should get to a point where you can sit at any organ and spend no more than 5 minutes getting familiar with the foot pedals then you're good to go.
answer_details: author: music.stackexchange.com/users/171/chabzjo
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
 Moving your feet as if there were a pedal board, when practicing on a piano may help with organ pedal practice. Alternatively,  buy a flexible midi pedal board from China.
To practise without a real organ, you could move your feet to play imaginary pedals whilst singing the pedal part. Alternatively, you could consider buying a flexible MIDI pedal board from China.