Why 3 Pedals On A Grand Piano?
And Why You’ll Rarely Need More Than One
Most modern grand and upright pianos come with 3 foot pedals. Many people are confused or outright mistaken about what they are for and how to use them properly. Let’s start with the pedals on a grand piano, since they are the most "real" and set the standard for what these pedals should do:
Standing in front of a grand piano, looking at the pedals from right-to-left, the far right pedal is called the Damper Pedal. It’s sometimes mistakenly called the sustain pedal, because the end result of pushing it down is that all the notes sustain for as long as you hold down the pedal. Of course, any individual notes that you play will also keep on ringing as long as you hold down those specific keys, but pressing the Damper Pedal lets the notes keep ringing even if you come off the keys.
It does this by lifting all the dampers (hence the name) off the strings. If you remove the music desk from your grand piano and look down over the strings, a few inches back from the tuning pins, you will see a row of curve-shaped wooden blocks with squares or wedges of felt hanging from their undersides, sitting on top of the strings. Now while still staring at these, press down on the far right pedal and you will see them all lift off the strings, allowing the strings to vibrate freely. Let go of the pedal and the dampers fall back onto the strings, effectively muting out any sound.
The dampers are all connected by wires to individual wooden levers inside the piano. You cannot see these levers with the piano all closed up, but if you slide the action out of the piano and look to the back of the cavity where the action usually fits, you’ll see these levers, and a wooden tray that lifts all of them off the strings when you press down the pedal. You’ll see a wooden dowel coming up from under the piano, that attaches to this tray and pumps it up and down. That dowel is in turn connected to your foot by means of a rod and lever under the piano.
The area where the tray and damper levers are secured is referred to as the piano’s "back action," the levers under the piano are referred to as the "trapwork," and the wooden frame holding the pedals and pedal rods is called the "lyre."
Now here’s an important point: In most cases, the damper pedal is the only one you need. As we go on to describe the other pedals, you’ll understand why.
The middle pedal on a grand piano is called the Sostenuto Pedal. You can think of it as a "selective" sustain pedal. The way it works is that you press it down after you hold down certain keys, and it lifts the dampers off (or allows to sustain) just those notes, while allowing you to play the other notes as short, non-sustaining notes, even staccato. So the only time you would need the Sostenuto Pedal is in the rare instance that you want to have 2-8 notes keep ringing, in the bass section for instance, while you play short notes in the treble. There are only about 30 or so pieces in all of piano music that call for that odd pairing of sound – mostly from the more impressionistic and 20th-century composers – so a pianist could go through his whole piano-playing life without ever using this pedal. This is made all the more amazing when you realize that installing this pedal and it’s connecting mechanisms inside a grand piano adds a significant cost to building the instrument, well over a thousand dollars! All that for a pedal you may step on five time in the 50+ plus years you own the piano!
The far left pedal is probably the most misnamed and misunderstood one. It is NOT the "Soft Pedal!" It’s proper name is the Una Corda Pedal; una corda means one string. That’s because when you press it down, the whole key action shifts to the right, just enough to make the piano’s hammers line up and strike just two of the three stings for each note that has a three-string unison, and just one of the two bass strings that have two strings per note. The early 18th century pianos just had two strings per note, and this pedal made the hammers hit just one of the two, hence the the name "una corda."
Now it may be natural to think that hitting only one or two strings for each note, when the piano usually strikes two or three, would make the notes a bit softer, when struck with the same key force, and it does. A bit. A very little bit. Because that’s not the purpose of this pedal. Any good piano instructor will tell you, "If you want softer notes, play softer! Don’t use the left pedal."
No, the original purpose the inventors of the Una Corda Pedal had in mind, was an ethereal sound created by striking only two of the three strings, but having the third string vibrate sympathetically, which it will if properly tuned. This dreamlike sound was their intention, not just a softening of the volume.
Still, you’d be amazed at how many pianists, including accomplished concert artists, use the Una Corda as a "soft pedal," a volume softener, probably because it does make it easier to play at pianissimo levels than simply playing with a more delicate touch…that actually takes technique
In our next post we’ll look at why you should never, ever use the far left pedal on an upright piano, and why it’s even there in the first place!
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