28 Pedal
Modern grand pianos have three pedals. From left to right, these are the una corda pedal, sostenuto pedal, and damper pedal. The most used by far is the damper pedal, and when the term “pedal” appears in this book, it refers to the damper pedal.
Three Pedals
- Una corda pedal: on the left; sometimes called the soft pedal, it shifts the hammers slightly so they strike fewer strings per note, producing a softer sound. It is used by pianists to achieve a greater variety of tone colors.
- Sostenuto pedal: in the middle; this pedal suspends the dampers of whichever keys are already depressed when it is engaged, allowing those notes to sustain and no others. It is the least commonly used.
- Damper pedal: on the right; this pedal raises all the dampers, allowing the strings to ring freely. When this pedal is not engaged, a damper silences all the strings for each key as soon as the key is released. When properly used, this pedal is “the soul of the piano,” as Anton Rubinstein once said, deepening tone quality, facilitating richer textures, and amplifying the volume of the piano. When used improperly, it causes unwelcome blurring of harmonies that impairs musical clarity.
Composers sometimes indicate pedal with a bracket beneath the lower staff, as shown in mm. 2 and 4 below. Press the pedal down with your right foot at the beginning of the bracket, leave it down for the duration of the bracket, and raise your foot to release the pedal at the end of the bracket.
Legato Pedal
A more advanced pedal technique is legato pedal (sometimes called syncopated or overlapping pedal). This approach to pedal allows notes to continue ringing while your hand shifts to a new position, releasing only after the next note(s) have been played. This produces a legato, connected sound despite the physical release of the notes between positions.
Practice legato pedal by shifting a fifth in the left hand. Use the mantra “play-up-down” to coordinate the timing of your foot and hand:
- Play: depress the keys with your fingers
- Up: right foot raises the pedal
- Down: right foot depresses the pedal, leaving it down until the next “up”
You should hear the fifth overlap with the next fifth for about an eighth note until you lift your foot. As you become more proficient with this technique, you may release the pedal as soon as the next fifth is played, resulting in less blending of the two sounds. The combined process of lifting the pedal to release unwanted sounds and depressing it again to sustain new sounds is called “changing” the pedal.
After learning 31.3 | Etude in G Major, Op. 108, No. 3, by Ludwig Schytte without pedal, add the pedal, changing it where indicated. How does it affect the sound of the piece?