Using the sustain pedal

Three pedals

Most pianos have three pedals. The one on the right is the sustain pedal, also called the damper pedal: it is the one you will use most, and the subject of this lesson. The one on the left, the soft pedal, makes the sound quieter and a little muffled. The middle one does different things on different pianos: on a grand it sustains only the notes held when you press it; on many uprights it is a practice mute. Digital pianos usually come with at least a sustain pedal, often a single one.

What the sustain pedal does

Inside a piano, every string has a damper, a felt pad that rests on it. When you press a key, its damper lifts and the string sings; when you let go, the damper falls back and the sound stops. The sustain pedal lifts all the dampers at once. Notes keep ringing after you release the keys, and the other strings vibrate in sympathy, which gives the piano its warm, rich resonance. Lift the pedal and every damper falls: silence.

That is why the pedal is both magic and dangerous. Hold it through a chord and the chord rings like an orchestra; hold it through two different chords and their notes mix into a blur.

Legato pedalling: change after the chord

The clean way to connect chords is called legato or syncopated pedalling, and the timing is the opposite of what feels natural:

• Play the first chord, then press the pedal just after the keys go down.
• When the next chord comes, play it, and at the same moment lift the pedal.
• Press the pedal again just after the new chord sounds.

Lifting the pedal as the new chord arrives clears the old notes; pressing it again a moment later catches the new ones while your fingers still hold them. The hand and the foot move in opposite directions: hand down, foot up, then foot down. Practise it on one chord after another, slowly, and listen: there should be no gap in the sound and no blur between chords.

Reading pedal marks

Printed music shows the pedal under the bass staff. The old sign is Ped. where you press and a star-like asterisk where you lift. Modern scores use a bracket: a line that starts where you press, runs along while you hold, and has a small notch, a peak, where you change. When there are no marks at all, the pedal is left to your ear: use it to connect what the hands cannot hold, not to cover everything.

Broken chords, and when not to pedal

The pedal shines on broken chords, the notes of a chord played one after the other, like the exercise above: with the pedal down, the hand can move up the keyboard and every note keeps ringing. Change the pedal on the first note of each new chord. This is the sound of Clair de lune, of countless ballads, and of most pop piano accompaniments.

Leave the pedal up for scales and fast passages of neighbouring notes, which would turn into a smudge, and for short, detached notes, staccato, which the pedal would lengthen. Baroque music, written for the harpsichord, needs little or none. When in doubt, play the passage without pedal first, then add it only where it makes the sound better.

On the online piano

The pianos on this site have a Sustain button above the keys. Turn it on for the exercise, play the broken chords, and listen to them ring; turn it off and play them again to hear the difference. On an acoustic or digital piano, keep your heel on the floor and press with the front of the foot, all the way down.