Piano - the “Right Pedal”
It’s really very common, within the first few lessons I’ll hear from most of my students. “What are these pedals for?” Of course, most of the time we really don’t discuss the pedal for quite a while in the method books, but I like to take that opportunity to open the lid of the piano and give a couple minute peak into what happens when notes are played and what the “right pedal” (sustain or damper pedal) does. For those that haven’t wondered about the pedals and even for some that have, I thought I’d spend a few minutes on the topic. You might come across something new or something to think about.
So, by now you’ve noticed that pianos have anywhere from 1 to three pedals. (Usually at least two although the cheaper keyboards sometimes come with an addon for at least 1 pedal.) The bottom line is this, if you have 1 pedal you likely have a sustain pedal. In other words it holds notes out as long as the pedal is down and the string is still vibrating. If you have 2 or three pedals, this will be the one on the right. So how does this work?
On an acoustic piano, the sound is made when we press a key by a fairly clever mechanism. Most of the strings have what’s called a damper that keeps them still until we press a key. As the key is pressed, the damper raises off the string and a hammer strikes the string. (Really most notes have 3 strings tuned to the same pitch.) When the key is released the damper returns and stops the sound.
High notes, don’t have the dampers, which is why the highest notes continue to ring out after releasing the key.
One neat thing about the physics of all this is that without the dampers, even if you just played one note, some of the other strings would start to vibrate “sympathetically”. The greatest sound would follow a harmonic progression which is beyond what we’re talking about here. So, bottom line, that right pedal makes things sound a bit different by letting other strings ring out in sympathetic vibration to what’s played.
Did you know that the pedal is not just an on/off switch? At least on an acoustic piano there are many shades of gray between no pedal and pedal all the way down. Sometimes you don’t want the “swimming in pedal” sound that is the easiest to come by. You should use your ear when using the pedal to try and find the best sound for the music. Instead of an on off switch, think of it as a careful control and practice using just a little instead of always stomping to the floor each time pedal is called for. Experiment and use your ears to guide what sounds best.
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