This is a topic that is very important to anyone wanting to develop a refined technique on the piano. It is very important to practice the piano without using the pedal – the pedal should be something that enhances your music and not simply a crutch for making mediocre playing sound better.

Pedals on the piano are actually a modern development. When the piano was fist invented it didn’t have pedals, so connecting notes had to be accomplished with the fingers. Believe it or not, Johannes Brahms didn’t even have a sustain pedal on his practice piano!

The sustain pedal does just as its name implies – it holds (sustains) all the notes. When you hold the pedal down, the dampers stay hovering over the strings, when you release the pedal the dampers fall back onto the strings and dampen the sound.

The pedal is not just a tool for connecting notes; it’s capable of adding expressive elements to your music. The real challenge of the pedal is knowing when and how to use it. The only way to accomplish this is to practice your music without the pedal.

In the video included with this article I demonstrate how depending upon the pedal to connect notes instead of using your fingers can lead to sloppy playing and bad technique. But how can you avoid this?

The secret to connecting notes without the pedal is to develop a legato technique with both hands – not just with the melody but even repeated chords in the left hand. But why is this important?

If you can learn how to connect your notes just using your hands, you will be able to use the pedal to enhance your music tonally and make your melodies sing – you will find the best fingerings for passages, and rely on the pedal not as a crutch, and most of all, you will improve as a pianist.

Three pedals on a piano is the accepted norm on most pianos. Virtually all new grand pianos sold in the United States contain three pedals. Two pedal pianos are an increasingly rare breed but they do exist and we actually have some of them here in our showroom. The real question is, do you really need three pedals?

Today we have a question from Umberto, who asks, “How do you approach pedaling in the Moonlight Sonata? Do you pedal throughout all of it?”

These are excellent questions. In fact, yes, you use pedal in some parts rather sparingly, other parts very generously, but you use it throughout the whole piece in different ways. Of course the different movements have different requirements, but we’re going to focus today on the first movement, the famous melodic first movement.

So first of all, just a little primer. Whenever you’re using the pedals on the piano you want to keep your your heels firmly on the floor. You never want to put your pedal like this because it’s noisy. So you keep the heel on the floor, and then the ball of the foot is how you control best. Always keep it in contact, because if you go from above, once again you get noise. All pedals are very different on pianos. You have to experiment to find how you could play it quietly and effectively, because they all release the dampers at different points. One of the first things you want to try out when you’re playing over a concert is how the pedal responds on the instrument.

So getting to the Moonlight Sonata. As with any music, the pedal changes wherever the harmonies change. So if you were to play this piece in chords, each time the chord changes . . . and notice the pedal always comes up exactly on the beat but goes down right after the beat. So that’s the secret of pedaling. The pedal always comes up exactly on the change of harmony and goes right back down again. So if I play it now not in chords, but as it’s written, and with the soft pedal, the una corda pedal, depressed the entire time, you get this.

The reason for changing the pedal, coming up on the pedal exactly on the beat, is otherwise harmonies blur. If you were to play the pedal and put it down on the beat instead of up on the beat, you’d end up with this.

I can’t even do it. It’s so hard. I’m so trained. I’m gonna try it again. I’m gonna try to play the pedal wrong for you.

Yeah, that’s also not connected. I haven’t experimented with playing pedal wrong. It’s a hard thing to do. Any of you who are a pianist accustomed to using the pedal, try it how hard it is to play it wrong. So get in the habit of always coming up at the change of harmonies and right back down again so you get that smooth transition, and if you’re not sure where the harmonies change, break the music down to chords and it becomes very obvious for you.

You probably know that pianos generally have 3 pedals. You may have seen pianos with only 2 pedals (mostly older European and Asian pianos). But have you seen any pianos with 4 pedals? Believe it or not, there are pianos with 4 pedals and it’s very interesting how this works.

One example is the piano company Stuart & Sons from Australia which builds pianos with 4 pedals. Before we get into what the fourth pedal does, let’s do a quick review of the functions of the standard 3 pedals.

The right pedal (the sustain or damper pedal) enables all the notes to carry their sound even after you lift your hands off the keys. Virtually all modern pianos (even digital pianos) have this pedal and your piano almost certainly has one.

The left pedal (the soft pedal or una corda pedal) shifts the action to the side slightly – which you can actually see on grand pianos when you depress the pedal. The hammers strike only two of the three strings directly producing a more mellow tone.

The middle pedal is a selective hold (sostenuto) pedal in that it only holds the dampers up for the keys you press and hold down just before pressing down the middle pedal. Yet, any additional notes you play after, will not sustain without holding the keys down. If this sounds confusing you can watch my video on What Does the Middle Pedal on a Piano Do?

The above descriptions of all these pedals pertain to the actions on grand pianos. Upright pianos have pedals that typically don’t have the same functions as pedals on grand pianos with the exception of the damper or sustain pedal on the right.

On upright pianos, the right (damper) pedal still functions the same as they do on grand pianos in that it holds up the dampers on all notes allowing all notes to sustain without holding down the keys. The middle pedal on a upright pianos is typically a practice pedal which places felt over the strings for quiet playing. Some middle pedals on upright pianos sustain only low notes which mimics the use of sostenuto pedals (middle pedals) on grand pianos. The left pedal though is where things get really interesting.

The left pedal on upright pianos sets the hammers closer to the strings instead of shifting the action to only strike two of the three strings as in grand pianos. This doesn’t change tone, but it does change the touch of the piano making it harder to play loud because it lessens the momentum of the strike of the hammers. This is what the fourth pedal does on Stuart & Sons pianos.

This may be useful because you still have the availability of the una corda pedal for tonal change, but you also can change the response of the action making it easier to play softly with the fourth pedal. While not a requirement for your music, but it’s a nice option to have.

You might wonder if there is a difference between the pedals on upright and grand pianos. Not only is there a difference, but there are actually no upright pianos with pedals that function the same as pedals on fine grand pianos!

Let’s discuss each of the three pedals and see how they differ from one-another:

The Sustain Pedal or the Damper Pedal (The Right Pedal)

This is the most commonly used piano pedal and it is the one pedal that functions the same on uprights and grand pianos.

The Right Pedal releases all the dampers so that the tone lives on after you release the keys.

The Sostenuto Pedal (The Middle Pedal)

On a grand piano, the middle pedal functions as a selective hold pedal. It will release the dampers only on the notes that you depress and hold before pressing the pedal. To put it simply: You play some note – while holding them down, press the middle pedal and hold it down to keep the dampers of the held notes from going back down again after releasing the keys. Only those notes continue holding, but new notes played will not hold after you release the keys.

On upright pianos there are a couple different functions for the middle pedal but they rarely perform the function of a sostenuto pedal that a grand piano offers.

Older Upright Pianos

Some older upright pianos have a bass sustain for the middle pedal function. This will only release the dampers on the bass section of the piano and leave the other notes in the middle and the treble alone.

The reason for this is that most pieces of music that utilize the middle pedal have low notes that hold while other notes are played in the upper register. So, it functions almost like a sostenuto pedal in many musical contexts.

Newer Upright Pianos

The trend in recent years has been to move away from a quasi-sostenuto (bass sustain) pedal in upright pianos and replace them with what is referred to as a “practice pedal”

The practice pedal is designed to allow someone to practice the piano while reducing the volume of the piano substantially. It accomplishes this by placing a piece of felt between the hammers and the strings. The hammers then strike the felt and the volume of the notes is greatly reduced. This pedal will “lock” into place by pushing it down and to the left and will enable you to still utilize the right and left pedals on the piano in addition to utilizing the practice function.

This is a very useful pedal for homes or apartments where the sound of the piano could be bothersome to neighbors, parents or other members of the household.

Una Corda or Soft Pedal (The Left Pedal)

This pedal is important because it changes the tone of the piano. On a grand piano this pedal will shift the entire action – you can actually see the keys move from left to right – and the hammers will strike the strings off center making for a softer sound.

Una corda means “one string” because originally pianos only had two strings for each note and this pedal would shift the action so the hammers hit single strings instead of both. Modern pianos have three strings for each note (through most of the piano) and shifting the hammers makes it so they don’t hit the strings squarely. Not only that, the hammers will hit the strings where they aren’t grooved which produces a warmer tone since the felt is softer than the compacted, grooved part of the hammers.

On upright pianos the left pedal does not function at all like it does on grand pianos. It does not shift the action from left to right but typically will move the action closer to the strings.

By placing the hammers closer to the strings, the left pedal will change the touch of the piano but does not change the tone. It is much more difficult to gain momentum with the hammers closer to the string making it harder to play loud, but not change the tone.

There is a little trick you can try with the left pedal on upright pianos. Because it shifts the action closer to the strings, if you hit the pedal quickly, it can make the hammers strike the strings and produce a sound. On some older pianos if you hold down the right pedal and pump the left pedal you can produce some very weird sounds! It’s certainly not meant to function this way but it’s something fun to try sometime.

I hope that this solves the mystery of the pedals on upright pianos. There is a lot of misconceptions about how these pedals function when compared to grand pianos and my hope is that this article has shed light on this subject.