Understanding the Piano #2: Pedals

Piano Pedals 

My Piano Pedals

Along with the 88 black and white keys on the piano, pedals are another major component that you will find on any piano. They are foot-operated levers that change the instrument's sound in various ways. This allows a musician to provide more variety in his or her playing by making the music more dynamic and interesting.

As you may have noticed already, the piano also comes with three pedals positioned right where your feet should be. The one to the far right is the damper pedal. After you press it, "the damper for [the key you play] moves away and allows the strings for the key to vibrate until you release it" (Neely 33).

To the far left, you have the soft pedal. This pedal "shifts the entire set of 88 keys and hammers ever-so-slightly to the right. This shift causes the hammers to strike a key's string, or set of strings, in a different spot and create a softer sound" (Neely 34).

In the middle there is a third pedal creatively named the middle pedal. It allows you to "sustain a specific note, or group of notes, while you continue playing other notes normally." On some upright pianos though, the pedal has an entirely different function. It "inserts a layer of felt between the hammers and strings to make the sound much softer and more muffled" (Neely 34).

Electric Keyboard Pedal

Electric Keyboard Pedals 

Electric keyboard pedals are slightly different from a regular piano because they "don't move any dampers or shift any keys because there are no real strings inside an electric keyboard" (Neely 34). The most common electric keyboard pedals, though, are the sustain pedal (which does the same thing as the one on an acoustic piano) and a volume pedal that makes your music softer and louder. Most keyboards come with one or the other.

Overall

Remembering which pedal was which was relatively easy after I played around with them for a bit although currently I have little use for them, Still, with this information I now know how to incorporate them into my playing in the future, which will be relatively easy since I will already be accustomed to them.

Does this information make learning the piano any more of an intimidating task for you by any means? If so, how much harder?

Neely, Blake. Piano for Dummies. New York: IDG Books Worldwide, 2009, Print.