The course › Unit 10: Play, improvise, create
Lesson 58 of 72 · The right pedal: make the whole piano ring
Look under the piano: there are two or three pedals. The most important one is on the right: the sustain pedal, also called the damper pedal.
Inside a piano, each string has a small felt pad, the damper, that stops it as soon as you let go of the key. The sustain pedal lifts all the dampers: the notes keep ringing after you lift your fingers, and the other strings vibrate along with them. The whole piano resonates.
Watch out: The app can’t see your pedal: it only listens to the keys. In this lesson, your ear judges whether the pedal is right. No pedal? Do the exercises anyway: the notes and the rhythm count too.
Rest your right heel on the floor, just in front of the pedal, and the ball of your foot on the pedal. Your heel never leaves the floor: your ankle does the work, like a hinge. Press the pedal all the way down, without a sound, and let it up completely so the dampers fall back properly.
When the chord changes, you use syncopated pedaling (also called legato pedaling): your foot is always a little behind your hands.
Why this way: Your foot and your hands have to learn a new coordination. You practice it like any new movement: separately first (the foot alone, counting), then very slowly with the hands. The next exercise waits for you at each chord: use that time to take care of your foot.
Chords in root position: your right hand has to jump from one to the next. Play the chord, press the pedal, then lift your hands: the chord keeps ringing! On the next one: new chord and foot coming up at the same time, then pedal back down.
The pedal is like a spice: a little is delicious; too much spoils everything. Rule number one: every time the harmony changes, change the pedal.
In sheet music, the pedal is written Ped. (press) and ✱ (release), or as a line under the staff, where each little peak marks a pedal change.
Did you know?: 18th-century pianos often had no pedals: you lifted the dampers with a lever worked by the knee. Mozart’s piano had one.
Left hand in 1-5-8, right hand singing. Pedal: change it at the start of each measure, with the bass (lift as you play the bass, press right back down). Listen: the notes should connect without blending.
The lesson’s finale: a gospel ballad, where the pedal works all the magic. One octave per measure, one pedal per measure. Quarter-note chords in the right hand, whole-note octaves in the left. Pedal: change it every measure, just after the left hand’s octave.
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