Playing with the Piano Pedal

We're going to learn to play piano with the pedal in this next piano lesson.
Everyone loves playing with the pedal because it adds a new color and depth to their sound.

I must say I encountered two kinds of students. The kind who naturally grasped the concept of the pedal, and the other kind who had two to work for a while before their pedal technique became a second nature to them.

That's why I chose to wait until this moment before adding the pedal in our studies. So if you find the pedal technique complicated don't worry about it. Just follow the exercises and you'll be fine after a while.
It's important to understand one important guideline!

More about that later on, but it's definitely an idea you should keep in mind.

Let's talk about the functions of the piano pedals for a moment.

Pianos have their pedals located under the keyboard. There are typically two or three pedals. These pedals are operated by the performer's foot. Each pedal effect the sound in a different manner.

The Damper Pedal

The RIGHT PEDAL is called the DAMPER PEDAL.

When you hold the damper pedal down, and play a tone the sound continues to be heard even after you release the key (until you lift your hand from the pedal).

When the damper pedal is depressed a mechanism of felt dampers is raised, allowing the sound of the piano strings to be sustained. This is the most frequently used pedal of the piano.

Use the RIGHT FOOT is used in order to press the damper pedal.
Keep you heel on the floor;
Use your ankle like a hinge.

Playing the damper pedal is a bit like driving. You don't give full gas and you don't release your leg from the gas pedal when you're driving.

Instead, you learn to control the amount of sustain you'd like to add to the sound and release it gently (but quickly!) when you need to, otherwise different sounds that clash with each other will blur in your ear and we wouldn't like that to happen, don't we?

So, some students who don't yet control the pedal technique tend to leave the pedal roughly, making a terrible noise that disturbs the music.
If Chopin would have liked to hear that sound he would have composed it in the music.
He didn't!
So please, please, practice a quite lifting (yet brief lifting) of the piano pedal (in order to depress it again fast when needed).

Before I'll give you some useful exercises that will help you to gain control at the piano pedal technique I'd like to show you the sign that shows when the damper pedal is to be used.

The letters "Ped" tell you when you should depress the damper pedal and the marking that indicates the release of the pedal looks like a flowery asterisk symbol.

However, sometimes the pedal sign appears like this:

You'll see these directives often written on a musical beat, or more commonly a fraction after the beat. Why is that?

Well, that brings me to our starting point where I told you that the damper pedal provides a sustain affect. We first have to hit a key and then quickly add the pedal a fraction of a moment later.

When a pedal change is asked, we first press on the next note and than quickly but gently we lift our foot up and down to control the affect of the pedal.

So we do most of the job with our finger and our hands and we add the piano pedal a fraction later.

Piano Pedal Exercises

These handy piano pedal exercises will show you how the damper pedal causes the tones to continue sounding, EVEN AFTER YOUR HAND HAVE RELEASED THE KEYS.

Press the pedal down as you play each group of notes. Hold it down through the rests.
Play VERY SLOWLY and LISTEN.
Having a good piano pedal technique depends very much on how well you listen.

Here are the best pedal technique exercises.

The first exercise will help you to learn to replace the pedal after every 4/4 bar. The arrows tells you when it's time to replace the pedal.

This next exercise demands a faster replacement of the piano pedal since you have to switch the pedal after every three quarters.

Some pieces ask for a fast replacement of the pedal after every beat. You should ascend from C to G and back while replacing the pedal after every note In this exercise.

This next piano pedal exercise asks you to prform jumps between different chord inversions and use the piano pedal to create a continuity between these chords.

This exercise on the other hand asks you to leave your foot on the piano pedal for two whole bars while playing a chord with a different chord inversions, and by doing so to create a great echoing effect.

Now let's take it to the next level. Try to play the piano tutorial of Let It Be by the Beatles with the piano pedal.

Last but not least, here's a piano exercise that works on playing arpeggios with both hands with the pedal.

Now if you have a keyboard or a synthisizer you can buy a damper pedal from Ebay very cheaply. It will enrich your music enormously.

Why should you buy Piano Pedals on Ebay?

To sum up this issue here are a few pieces that will help you to improve your pedal technique.