It's very exciting. I've just started to use the sustain pedal. My teacher showed me the inside of the piano and what happens. We've started with "Flying above the clouds" by Alan Bullard, a grade 1 piece. It makes a lovely sound.
Bev.

How nice,
I am now at about grade 3 and I have only just learnt how to use the pedal about 2 weeks ago Before this stage I was just 'mucking about' with it for fun, now that I am learning how to use it properly (especially in between chords etc) it's much more fun!

I usually get pulled up for over use of the pedal..... my teacher says I use it like a comfort blanket.

There have been threats to nail my foot to the floor......

The pedal is also very good for masking small hands. I can jump and sustain a note with it. *chuckle* I remember I once did that when I was about 8 because I couldn't reach the interval.

I had no idea how to use the piano a few months ago, but I really liked Chopin's prelude in C minor; so I had to learn to use the right pedal or it sounded awful!!! It's surprising how quickly you get used to it.

Good luck!

Good for you! :-)

I've got grade 5 and I still can't use the pedals. Had to choose my exam pieces with that in mind, which meant I had a much more limited choice (did 2 that didn't need it at all, and one that needed only a little).

Getting to grips with it now means that you won't be limited in your choices later.
And you'll be able to play a much wider range of non-exam pieces too. :-)

T.

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Pedalling is an art

I realised lately I ALWAYS overuse the pedal and muffle the sounds!

Me too - it's my safety grab-rail to get nicely from one chord to the next. I use the clutch pedal in my car in much the same way

When are the circumstances when you use Half, and quarter pedals?

What pieces can I play for building up my pedalling skills? My pedalling is very bad.

You can't use half or quarter pedal, it's a mechanical switch,it's either on or off.
You have to make sure that when pedalling you always allow the pedal to come back completely or you unintentionally blend unrelated bars together. Pedalling can be harder/heavier on a grand as the mechanism is different and on a grand you get an extra pedal! the sostenuto.

If you want to try music with pedal in it try some from the romantic period or perhaps something like Einaudi as he uses a lot of pedal and it's an easy way to get to see how the pedal can add expression to a piece.

Oh yea, and remember legato pedalling. It's along the lines of play the next chord/note before you re-pedal to allow a smooth transition instead of a sudden stop then start.

Enjoy your pedalling

McMan

Do you have a teacher? my teacher showed me a simple exercise I can do, I am sure there must be more than one!
Maybe one of the teachers here will know how to explain one to you? I am dashing off to work, when I have time if no one else has been able to help, I will give it a go

Arthur Rubinstein mentioned something about using the pedal to cover up that bad areas of the piece heheh. When learning the Rach prelude in C#m, I learned how to use the middle pedal, it was really tricky not to use the sustain pedal at the same time.

My teacher never showed me how to the use the pedal or anything like that.

But I already basically knew how and when to use it, and when it came to it, she just said on one of my pieces "you might want to use the pedal there".

Bit weird i suppose.

Well, I think you can get a different effect by only putting the sustaining pedal down a little bit, rather than the whole way. I agree that it's basically on or off, but presumably you can with practice get the dampers just eased away from the strings so as to give a slightly less sustained effect.

The first pedal exercise I usually give my students is to play a scale (any scale - C major will do) with ONE finger. You have to use the pedal to make the notes legato.

Play note - pedal down - release note - hold pedal - play next note and release pedal just as it sounds (this is the tricky bit) pedal down and so on.

Hope this is moderately clear. Is the same as yours, Jo ? Remember you pedal with your EARS more than with fingers and feet.

In my humble opinion, I would say the suggestion that the use of the pedal must be reflective is really good advice. I've tried slavishly to use the pedal on a few pieces in accordance with the book, and it hasn't sounded as I wanted it at all. It may be my piano, which isn't very good, but I find that sometimes I miss a pedal mark and it sounds better, or only press the pedal half-way. I don't know if this is good practice, or whether I'm being shoddy but sensibly pragmatic!

I have real difficulty with the sustaining pedal....I cannot coordinate my feet and my hands. My teacher I. think has given up.

Half and quarter pedalling gives different degrees of sustaining effect. The deep bass strings take longer to fully damp, so can continue to sound even though higher notes have been effectively damped by half/quarter pedalling. You can achieve a similar effect to the middle pedal on some grands (sustains only the note played immediately before pedal is deployed - thus you can play clear chords/melody etc while sustaining a long bass note for instance)

I'm definitely guilty of over-pedalling a lot of the time, but am trying to be a lot more careful nowadays. Less is more and all that...

Bartok's 6 Roumanian Folk Dances are relatively easy to play, which leaves you free to give more attenion to the pedal. If you have been brought up on a diet of baroque, classsical, and romantic music they will at first seem a little "alien", but they soon begin to seem quite normal.

They are actually quite tuneful and harmonious (for Bartok!) and, most importantly, 5 of the 6 have very precise pedalling instructions - the sort with a horizontal line showing exactly where to hold the pedal down, with little verticals showing the precise spots to press and release.

There is a wide range of techniques covered, from long holds, washing everything in sympathetic vibrations, to tiny touches to add richness to the sound of a single chord.

The most beautiful of the pieces, with the most effective pedalling effects is No. 4 Tanz aus Butchum. Perversely this is the only piece in the set with old-style Ped * style pedal markings!

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This is how I start pupils off with pedalling - and there are some good exercises in the Schaum blue book along these lines.

Nobody ever taught me to pedal at all. I figured it out for myself between teachers as a child, and just spoofed that I'd been taught. She never argued with me, so I suppose this gives weight to the argument that you pedal with your own ears! When I'm 'teaching' pupils to pedal now, I don't really dictate much; I get them to play really slowly and LISTEN - and get them to make their foot respond accordingly. It usually works okay. And then we get into the finer points of the music; a relative of mine used to say about life in general that the secret of life was knowing when to hold and when to let go - and it stands as much for this as for anything - as long as you're listening!

If, therefore, you're playing a piece on an upright piano, which is sustenuto, should one only half or quarter pedal to prevent just a mass of notes?! I've been having a little bit of a problem with Chopin's 'raindrop' using the pedal. Despite trying to follow the pedal markings to the letter, it just often sounds muffled and unpleasant.

Maybe that's just piano

It's probably not the piano, but the left hand harmonies clashing, it's not as straightforward to pedal as it appears.

My pedal squeaks like mad when I press it down. Even slightly. It drives me mad.

Job for your piano tuner!