The subtleties of pedaling

twocats · 2025-04-15T15:26:27+00:00

I really like this performance of Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu and was trying to figure out how Dmitry Shishkin has so much clarity in his right hand while pedaling. I realized that he must apply a very light pedal and I've been experimenting, and there's a huge difference from using just a touch of pedal vs foot all the way down. I think I've always been aware of the difference between quickly lifting the damper pedal and gradually lifting it, but have never consciously tried to apply it lightly. I think having a well-regulated grand piano opens up so much possibility for nuance! I know the pedal response will be different on other pianos but I think that's something one figures out by listening. (Also, just love that Yamaha concert grand!) Coincidentally, I've been watching the Chopin Podcast and in one of the comments someone said there should be a whole video on pedaling and Ben Laude pointed to this video that he had made for Tonebase, where 29 concert pianists talk about pedaling. At the beginning Ben Laude said he was the product of 20 years of piano lessons and there was never a lesson on pedaling. So true! It's all excerpts from other Tonebase videos but there should be a little something useful to everyone 🙂

keystring

I wasn't able to turn on the camera to show what notes I was holding down silently, so made them present quietly. I'm holding down a G chord, GBD, and then playing G, D, G, B, D, F# G. The F# is the 5th of the B. D is both an octave from D, and a 5th from G. The 2nd time, I've released the chord. If my ears are right, the notes don't resonate as much.

Regard the "dirt" - I do believe it is indeed too clean. When two or three strings are tuned to the note G, I don't think they will be 100% in tune as purely as in a DP, and that would give the notes extra texture. (Thinking about this.)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cuqz9h1n48nmby1du1vyx/25.04.17a-sym-res.mp3?rlkey=gs988kw7i1w6aeu51w981tdso&dl=0

keystring

BartK This is useful to keep some of the bass harmony while avoiding blurring a melodic line. Bass strings are heavier and need more time to fully dampen so if you change the pedal quickly then the higher strings will stop while the bass strings will have some residual vibration.

Yes! That is indeed something I've used. In music we often have a bassline which is also often slower, and we'd like to keep that going underneath, while the upper notes are moving a lot faster, and a constant pedal would blur them. So we can use the properties of the thicker and thinner strings to our advantage. (something like that)

keystring

Some years ago I signed up for a fiddle course with Darol Anger who has superb violin skills. To my surprise, he taught handling the bow very differently than what I was used to. Instead of teaching the "right way" beginners are given, he had students experiment. Try every kind of pressure, speed, bow location - combine them, and discover the weird, wonderful, ugly and lovely sounds you have. Later when you try to make music sound a certain way, you've explored this.

So could we do something like that with pedal? The two main actors are the hand and the foot. Timing of hand vs. foot, which is probably one of the first things we learn for legato pedal so we get neither burps or unwanted blending. Or might we actually want two or more notes to blend together some amount for effect. One variable is where the dampers sort of graze the strings which is our half pedal. Another factor is the quick touch which only partially deletes the sound and shortens it. What if we just explore what effects we get ---- low strings, high strings, thick chords ---- and get to know our instrument and what sounds we can produce? If we pedal with the ear, should the ear learn to hear?

Is this too wild? Maybe some people are already doing this kind of thing?

iternabe

keystring If you play the note and then raise the dampers, then at the moment of playing that note your finger has raised one damper allowing only the strings of that note will vibrate.

This is correct. However, after playing the note, if I press the sustain pedal to raise the damper while still holding the finger down, the other string will become free to resonate. Of course because the original string's vibration begin to decay immediately, the resonance will be weaker, too. That is expected. What I didn't expect (but do hear from Pianoteq) is not only the resonance is weaker if I press pedal after play, but the resonance's sound signature is different, too. Pedal down first, the resonance has a swell/woosh in it. Pedal down later, the resonance doesn't swell and also sounds cleaner or more sterile.

My hypothesis is the "attack" phase of original string's vibration excites the other strings differently than the "decay" phase?

pianoloverus

keystring That all depends on how quickly the pedal release is and how immediately it's pressed again.

That was the point of the "quick pedal" I learned a few years ago, which turned out to be a partial thing leading to other things you can do. The weird sounding exercise was simply managing to flick the pedal so as to have the dampers touch the strings, muting all the sounds but leaving a residual sound (as in the recording). It was a matter of getting a feel for that split second time.

I think without giving specific examples this discussion of quick pedal much of the discussion on the whole thread becomes very unclear and ambiguous. My interpretation of what quick pedal means is the idea of sometimes just quick pedaling say a single chord if one wants to somehow emphasize it or make it sound richer by allowing other strings besides those in the chord to vibrate besides the strings for the notes in the chord. But I really can't tell from the posts thus far if that's what other people are talking about . But when I mark pedaling in a score I know I've occasionally marked just a single chord. I did that at least one place in this version of music from Lalaland.

So I think it would be a good idea for those of you who unlike me know how to post scores and even better scores that are marked would do that in a discussion like this so people can have a better idea what you mean. That's why all the books about pedaling are filled with pages showing scores with this specific type of pedaling discussed marched in.

keystring

pianoloverus so people can have a better idea what you mean.

What I shared yesterday was an exercise I was given 5 years ago on the way to something else. It doesn't "mean" anything, and I only had a partial understanding. I learned to get the dampers to quickly tap the strings stopping part but not all of the vibrations and sound. I now see that being aware of this aspect, and getting some control of it, could be used in different ways. It's just a colour in the paint box.

pianoloverus

keystring so people can have a better idea what you mean.

What I shared yesterday was an exercise I was given 5 years ago on the way to something else. It doesn't "mean" anything, and I only had a partial understanding. I learned to get the dampers to quickly tap the strings stopping part but not all of the vibrations and sound. I now see that being aware of this aspect, and getting some control of it, could be used in different ways. It's just a colour in the paint box.

My point was simply that there has been quite a bit of discussion of what you called quick pedal but various people had various interpretations of what this might mean or when it might be used. That's why I suggested, not just to you but to anyone who posts on this topic or other similar topics, that specific musical examples would greatly clarify the discussion. That's also why I mentioned what I thought maybe your teacher was talking about when they used the term quick pedal and why I gave an example of a piece where I had used it.

Sgisela

I’ve been thinking a lot about related things recently. I’m working on a piece that has opportunities to use all three pedals, and right from the beginning there are real questions that I found myself asking about how to use the sustain pedal.
You can see that the composer puts an indication of ‘non legato’ while at the same time indicating extensive use of the pedal.

In recordings of this piece, pianists do very different things with this, and initially I just kind of took the non legato indication as permission not to connect all the notes physically. But the ‘non legato’indication raised real questions about what the intended effect should be. Also, on my piano, I get a very very wet sound with the sustain pedal, while my teacher’s piano sounds considerably dryer with the pedal fully engaged. We talked about different options — including partial pedaling and flutter pedaling for this section. On my teacher’s piano, I tend not to think about this too much and just use the pedal, because I still end up with a relatively dry sound. However, on my home piano I’ve still been experimenting with this quite a bit. I still haven’t made a final decision about what I want to do.

Now the una corda pedal…
There’s this section marked una corda, but the composer never indicates where to take the pedal off. It’s also the only place where its use is indicated. So I’ve been playing around with where to take the pedal off, as well as other places in the piece where it might be effective to use the una corda pedal, as it seems strange to me to use it just in this one place. On my teacher’s piano, the change in tone is pretty subtle, so I just use it in this one spot and then forget about it. But on my piano, I get a pretty significant change in tone, and so it feels like a much bigger decision about where and how much to use it.

Then there’s the sostenuto, which I haven’t ever used before. There’s an extended section that starts like this:

When I started working on this, I took the staccato markings of the outer voices to be more an indication of the lightness that these note. By my teacher suggested using the sostenuto to connect the chords, and I am enjoying the effect. Anyways, pedaling definitely has lots of subtleties and complexities, which are fun to explore!

keystring

@Sgisela - I had one general thought that might get the ball rolling somewhere or might just be whatever. Stream of consciousness.

In notation, we have two elements: a) how we want it to sound; b) what we are to do. We balance these off each other. "What to do" (b) can be staccato dots, that tell us to give those notes a quick poke. We end up with the short quick sound, but simply doing the pokes strictly speaking we're doing a mechanical action per instruction. Pedal marks tell us to lower and raise our foot where the score tells us - we end up with a particular sound. In Chopin we see staccato notes in sections where pedal is held: Chopin is telling us "what to do" and we end up with a particular sound - he is not telling us he wants a staccato sound. That's one part of the equation - "what to do" as physical instructions.

In a) "how we want it to sound" we envision the sound we want. We then do the things that need doing, so as to create that sound. We are in charge of the "what to do".

In the blend of these two things, I'm thinking that the indications written into the music are hints rather than absolute directives. Your music begins with a dreamy scenario of a "palace of enchantment". Immediately I'd envision somewhat washed together but not muddy sound - so not the crisp clarity of a Bach invention. Notes can wash together. How much?

Sgisela You can see that the composer puts an indication of ‘non legato’ while at the same time indicating extensive use of the pedal.

These are sort of redundant. The minute the pedal stays down, the music is non-legato as a result. Our enchanted castle scenario "how to sound" already tells us what "non legato" and the pedal markings will give us as sound.

Those staccato marks further on - I wonder if these are our "troops of genii .... dancing grotesquely" - like, they pop out sharply from the mist and vanish back into it? Is staccato an intended staccato sound, or a staccato action that lets those sounds stand out?

The huge difference in the two pianos is interesting. That sounds like quite a challenge.

pianoloverus

keystring The minute the pedal stays down, the music is non-legato as a result.

When the pedal is down it's certainly possible and in fact very common that the music is legato.

keystring

pianoloverus When the pedal is down it's certainly possible and in fact very common that the music is legato.

If "legato" means that the notes are joined up but don't blur, how do you manage that with the pedal down the whole time? i.e. you get a blur, which is wanted here.

Or - what does "non-legato" or "legato" mean in your estimation?

pianoloverus

keystring When the pedal is down it's certainly possible and in fact very common that the music is legato.

If "legato" means that the notes are joined up but don't blur, how do you manage that with the pedal down the whole time? i.e. you get a blur, which is wanted here.

Or - what does "non-legato" or "legato" mean in your estimation?

Are you talking about the piece posted with the score several posts above this post or are you talking in general? If you think of almost any Chopin Waltz, for example, the pedal is often held down for an entire measure and that measure is played legato. So there's no conflict between playing legato and keeping the pedal down and, in fact, this is incredibly common.

keystring

pianoloverus the pedal is often held down for an entire measure and that measure is played legato.

Can you define "legato"? I gave how I perceive legato. You have notes that go one into the other (not staccato) but they also don't blur together. If the pedal is held down the entire measure, they will blur together. How do you see this? (what does legato mean? what does non-legato mean?)

Meanwhile, I was writing in the context of the given piece.

twocats

keystring If "legato" means that the notes are joined up but don't blur, how do you manage that with the pedal down the whole time?

You use the pedal to extend the notes, but "legato" means the notes are connected to each other in a smooth way. You can have the pedal down and play the notes staccato or in an obviously disconnected way, which would be non-legato with pedal applied. It's all about the attack on the notes.

iternabe

twocats I suppose if you held the pedal down fully, then whether you play a series of notes with legato finger or staccato finger would make no difference in sound to a blindfolded listener? Or am I missing something here?

twocats

iternabe it would be a completely different sound! Try it out and see 🙂

The staccato means a percussive attack, which can be clearly heard even if the notes then blend together because of the pedal.

iternabe

twocats I tried, but I couldn’t hear any difference. What did I miss?

Here’s what I did:

Pedal down and hold
Play c d e f g with legato finger
Play c d e f g with staccato finger

The only difference I could make is if the I vary dynamics.

twocats

iternabe I'll make a demo next time I get on the piano.

keystring

twocats You use the pedal to extend the notes, but "legato" means the notes are connected to each other in a smooth way. You can have the pedal down and play the notes staccato or in an obviously disconnected way, which would be non-legato with pedal applied. It's all about the attack on the notes.

Right. That's how I understood it "connected to each other in a smooth way.

Let's concentrate on "non-legato". I'd normally think of that as "not connected" - in other words, some level of staccato. But in legato I also see one note connected to the next note, but not all the notes piling on top of each other. A, B, C - the end of A blends a bit into B but then ceases; B blends a bit in to C but then ceases. We don't still hear A by the time C arrives. If the notes pile into each other, is that still legato, or has it stopped being legato from the other end?

If "non-legato" means that the notes must be separated as in some level of staccato, you'd not be able to achieve this by holding the pedal down. Therefore I saw "non-legato" as meaning that you can have the notes pile into each other.

Either that, or we have nonsensical instructions.

keystring

twocats The staccato means a percussive attack, which can be clearly heard even if the notes then blend together because of the pedal.

I remember going over this a long time ago. It seems there are some varying views. The percussive attack I understood to be marcato. Staccato being some degree of non-legato, with discretion as to how much silent space between notes, how short a duration of each note. At the extreme almost-legato end we have portato. So as I understand it, there may be some different definitions floating around about that dot.

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