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by Fuzzzy on July 18th, 2004

Fuzzzy

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What are the three pedals on a piano used for?

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  • by Andy Is Wicked Married to Penal Colony on July 18th, 2004

    Andy Is Wicked Married to Penal Colony

    Pianos have had pedals, or some close equivalent, since the earliest days. (In the 18th century, some pianos used levers pressed upward by the player's knee instead of pedals.) The three pedals that have become more or less standard on the modern piano are the following.

    The DAMPER pedal is often simply called "the pedal," since it is the most important. It is placed as the rightmost pedal in the group. Every note on the piano except for (approximately ) the top two octaves is equipped with a damper, which is a padded device that prevents the strings from vibrating. The damper is raised off the strings of its note whenever the key for that note is pressed. When the damper pedal is pressed, all the dampers on the piano are lifted at once, so that every string can vibrate. This serves two purposes. First, it permits notes to be connected (i.e., played legato) when there is no fingering that would make this possible. More important, raising the damper pedal causes all the strings to vibrate sympathetically with whatever notes are being played, which greatly enriches the tone.

    Piano music starting with Chopin tends to be heavily pedaled, as a means of achieving a singing tone. In contrast, the damper pedal was used only sparingly by the composers of the 18th century, including Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; in that era, pedaling was considered primarily as a special coloristic effect.

    The soft pedal or "una corda" pedal is placed leftmost in the row of pedals. On a grand piano, this pedal shifts the action to one side slightly, so that hammers that normally strike all three of the strings for a note strike only two of them. This softens the note and also modifies its tone quality..

    The SOFT pedal was invented by Cristofori and thus appeared on the very earliest pianos. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the soft pedal was more effective than today, since it was possible at that time to use it to strike three, two or even just one string per note—this is the origin of the name "una corda", Italian for "one string". In modern pianos, the strings are spaced too closely to permit a true "una corda" effect—if shifted far enough to strike just one string on one note, the hammers would also strike the string of the next note over.

    On upright pianos, the soft pedal is replaced by a mechanism for moving the hammers' resting position closer to the strings. This reduces volume, but does not change tone quality as a true "una corda" pedal does.

    The SOSTENUTO pedal or "middle pedal" maintains in the raised position any damper that was raised at the moment the pedal was depressed. It makes it possible to sustain a note while the player's hands have moved on to play other notes, which can be useful for musical passages with pedal points and other tricky situations. The sostenuto pedal was the last of the three pedals to be added to the standard piano, and to this day many cheap pianos—and even a few good ones—do not have a sostenuto pedal. A number of twentieth-century works call for the use of this pedal.

    Comments

    • Absolutely correct! As a professional player, I find he articulates the differences perfectly.

      Arpeggionator

      by Arpeggionator on December 17th, 2004

    • That is a very good description.

      Jack Scotty

      by Jack Scotty on February 20th, 2005

    • Nice work. I've known piano teachers who hadn't heard of the sostenuto pedal (and I didn't know its name).

      Aminor

      by Aminor on June 11th, 2005

    • Good answer, if you had more space you'd probably teach us how to play too!

      Anonymous

      by Anonymous on July 4th, 2005

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