I've a mature student who's about grade 3 but not interested in taking any exams, so I'm guessing her standard. I've only just started teaching so am looking for help!

Is it appropriate to start to teach the pedal (sustain) for pupils at this level or am I too premature?
I really think it would help her have a more musical edge to some of her pieces but she's struggling with it. I've tried to get her using it but she's very resistant and finds it difficult to say the least. I'm finding it hard to get across the concept of holding it down and using it effectively.

What do other people do?

Any tips or thoughts much appreciated!
Thanks

I have an adult pupil whose doing grade 2 and I'm teaching her how to pedal as "grandmother's tales" requires the use of the pedal. She's getting the idea quite well, still tends to either be tooclear or too muddy, but I'm getting her to specifically do some LH and pedal practice.

At first, I use some simple exercises to get pupils co-ordinating their hands and feet. I ask them to play something like a C major chord with one hand only and then press the right pedal. While they are holding on to the chord I ask them to let go with their hands but not their feet so the chord is still sounding. Then I ask them to get their fingers hovering over the keys ready to play the chord again and tell them to play the chord again and at exactly the same time lift their foot on the pedal up and down. Once they've got the hang of this co-ordination exercise (it feels a bit alien at first as they want to lift their hands and feet up together) we make it continuous - up down up down - until they are getting confident with it. They can then progress onto playing the C major chord as a broken chord rather than a block chord i.e. C E G, C E G and lifting the pedal up and down on C. Hope this garbled explanation makes sense!

I then try and find some easy pieces that pedal in a nice rhythmic fashion - perhaps once a bar and on the first beat of the bar. I choose pieces that aren't too difficult for notes so they don't have to concentrate on both pedal and notes all at once.

I wouldn't continue with it at this stage if she's resistant. Some pupils are certainly ready at grade 3 or earlier, but it sounds as if it's too much for this lady at the moment. Some people need more time to develop the co-ordination of the hands & including feet can be too stressful for them until their technique is more assured. I would go with the pupil - if you try to force the issue, she might feel too pressured & not want to stay with piano. Try to re-introduce it gently & gradually at a later date, when she's feeling more secure.

I think I read in the 'these music exams guide' or maybe the general piano syllabus that the use of the pedal is not compulsory until grade 5, therefore in grandmother's tales she 'could' not use the pedal, but if she is learning it and not struggling with it then there's no reason why she should avoid it.

I have a pupil who is using the pedal at grade 1 for Banges Herzelein - admittedly it is direct pedalling rather than legato pedalling but he's coping fine. I think it's never too early if they are big enough and co-ordinated enough.....teach them to listen to where the chord/LH note changes - as soon as they hear the new note, the pedal needs to "catch" it......

My adult pupil doing Grandmother's tales is making admiral porgress with learning to pedal, and this skill will set her up well for other music. I'm seriously thinking of getting and A-leg-gro for a younger pupil who I think will cope with some rudimentary pedal technique and she's working on grade 1. She's young enough to pick up the co-ordination issues faster than may adults.

As long as these pupils don't just give thing a warm bath of pedal, I see no harm in introduing it.

Just wondering, will it be possible for a very small student to play with the pedal? I have one student who is quite small and her heels are not able to touch the floor when she sits at the piano bench. When she plays with the pedal, she usually sits at the edge and depresses the pedal using her toes with her heels in the air. How should I go about teaching her to pedal properly?

I was taught to pedal with my heels in the air and have found it very difficult to get out of the habit.

My small for her age seven-year-old daughter has been shown how to pedal sitting so much on the edge of the stool that she is leaning against the stool rather than sitting on it and she manages to pedal with her heel on the ground.

I read in another post on here that it is possible to put a telephone directory (or wooden block if you have one) on the floor for the pupil's heel to rest on.

I teach my pupils to pedal way before Grade 1 - it is covered in the Level 1 Bastien book. Thing is, my only-just-6 year old daughter is rapidly approaching that stage and right now her feet dangle a good 9 inches above the floor.

I'd love one of those clever platformy things that have a pedal on them but they're hugely expensive.

I teach "catch a chord" to get the speed of foot reaction - I play a random note/chord (to start with I make it a crotchet length) for them to "catch" using the pedal before I let go. Then I successively make the note shorter until it's staccato to improve reaction time. Then I play a series of triads and they have to catch each one in the pedal waiting until they hear the sound to catch as quickly as they did in the game. Then they take over the triads and catch their own chords.........the key is really to get them to listen........they have to hear the new chord and react to that. (Talking about legato pedalling here BTW and not direct pedalling.)

[quote name='JulieCSM' date='May 27 2007, 08:42 PM' post='521702']
I teach my pupils to pedal way before Grade 1 - it is covered in the Level 1 Bastien book. Thing is, my only-just-6 year old daughter is rapidly approaching that stage and right now her feet dangle a good 9 inches above the floor.

I absolutely agree with enabling very young pupils to use the pedal as early on as possible.

My feeling is that one should pedal with the ears. This might sound odd but good pedalling is most effective I feel, when we listen to what happens to the sounds when we use the pedal. Simple improvisation can provide an exellent vehicle through which the pedal can be used. This way, the need to concentrate on playing the correct notes is removed and the pupil can focus more on using the pedal.

thanks everyone for your replies

I think I'm going to tackle the bit about the physical apect of pedalling before I move on to teaching her to use her ears. Is pedalling with the heels in the air a bad habit? I learnt to pedal with my heel on the floor, so I never knew that pedalling with the heel in the air was undesirable until I read a post here recently. My student is rather smallish and often sits with the feet dangling too. Should I continue to her use the pedal even though it may give rise to a difficult-to-change habit later on?

I saw those adjustable foot platforms for little children too when searching online last night, those look really interesting to use but they are really expensive too!

I use a similar method of 'catching' the sound using the 'going up the scale' pattern counting 4 then 2 etc. However, I really like your idea making it into a game and working on reaction time.




I would say that it is definitely very important to keep the heel on the floor to avoid too much strain on the knee, and it would be difficult to control the upward movement of the pedal if the heel is in the air. I heard a performance by a student some years ago where the foot was used incorrectly. There was a lot of noise as the foot was banged down and the pedal made a loud 'clonk' as it came up again! Also there was a thread recently about someone who had a knee injury when she pedalled sitting too close to the piano.

I've just bought an allegro ped for my small pupils, including my 6 year old daughter. She is having great fun with it, trying out scales and pieces to see if they sound better with or without pedal, then lifting the pedal in different places to get different effects. This must be a good start towards pedalling "with your ears."

I do the same as you, and for the odd pupil who find it difficult I actually get down on my hands and knees and with my hands I operate their feet on the pedal. I prefer their shoes on whilst I do this as even children can have smell feet . Only kidding - but I prefer them to pedal in shoes anyway, as they are hardly likely to ever have to pedal in an exam or performance situation without shoes on!