After 12 years with the same teacher, I switched to another teacher and my first lesson with her was all pedalling. She was on the floor like some crazy person with her hand on my foot pressing on my shoe. On off, on off. My mom was there too and it was such a clown show that I nearly decided to not continue with her. Thank God I didn’t. She ended up changing my life (she had actually studied with Babayan for 6 years, but back then, no one really knew who he was.. we’re talking 2005-2006). I’ve never forgotten that first lesson.
Great story! Garrick Ohlsson has expanded on his at 2:08. Rosina Lhévinne (who was in her eighties) would hold his foot while she was lying on the floor and explain "I'm really serious about this!"
But I. wished he'd followed up. What if Chopin wrote a dotted quarter note? What difference would it make between a quarter and dotted quarter if you hold down the pedal? The composers are often so painstaking with their dots -- real pains in the ykw! What happens to the dot details under the pedal?
This is very interesting…the first lesson I give to all of my students, assuming there is an acoustic piano around, is just having them look inside the piano and see how the pedals work as I press down on them one at a time. I also inevitably give ( maybe a year or two in) what I call “the pedal lecture” where I spend nearly the whole lesson explaining different contexts of pedaling and how to use your ears.
I had a very good piano teacher before I went to college who taught me all sorts of pedal techniques. Not once in college did anyone mention the pedal. Non-piano faculty used to ask me how I was creating so many different sonorities with the pedal.
You must have had a good teacher then. Most teachers focus on technique for most of the time in the early years and kind of neglect the area of music performance where you bring in dynamics, colours
Год назад+3
Maybe this channel is strong and widespread enough to teach young pianists about pedalling in baroque music. Just please do never forget that the damping in any harpsichord action is very rudimentary, to say the least. So even if all the registers are in the ON position with the dampers on the strings, there will be some amount of constant sympathetic resonance. If any of the registers is/are in the OFF position, the dampers won't even touch the strings so you get a lot of sympathetic resonance, the more registers in the OFF position, the more sympathetic resonance the instrument will produce, since the strings share the same bridge and all the undamped strings will vibrate as well. Plus in historical instruments there were often stops that just did not have any damping at all and could be used as a special effect. (N. B. CPE Bach says that the best way to play a free fantasia on an early fortepiano is if you do it on the undamped stop). So no matter what you do on an early keyboard instrument, whether they be harpsichords, clavichords, early fortepianos, spinets etc, you will always have a bit of a pedal in the sound. The amount can of course vary, but there will always be some constant "pedal" in the sound. Andras Schiff is just utter nonsense to me. Playing baroque music on the piano in a horribly flat way and then use the harpsichord as an excuse... Awful. We also know from a letter by G. F. Duarte Antwerp 1648 to Constantijn Huygens (father of Christiaan Huygens) that harpsichords were set up in a way that the dampers of the registers in OFF position did not touch the strings: "The extreme length of the large clavecimbels is 8 voeten more or less, the pitch Chorista, with 3 registers - that is, three different strings of which 2 strings are at unison and one at the octava and all three of which can be played together or each string separately, with or without the octave, like the ordinary clavecimbels that your honour mentions. But they have a better tone because the unused strings which is not played moves of its own accord, producing such a sweet quiet tone through the principal sound, which does not occur when all three strings are played together." You may be interested to check this: ruclips.net/video/MOITmxlKesg/видео.html - without dampers ruclips.net/video/t0gW5hJsZwk/видео.html - the same piece played with dampers
WONDERFUL! When I taught piano, I noticed that there were some students who used the pedal "naturally" without major problems. Others, were a disaster, and I created exercises to teach them to pedal correctly....because to begin with, pedaling MUST be within a rhythmic context.
All my years of study came rushing back during this video, forcing me to remember two things I learned along the way: 1. The ability to do and the ability to teach are light years apart. 2. Performers rarely know what composers wanted - _especially_ when handed detailed instructions on a diamond encrusted platter. 😅
Nobody really mentioned flutter pedaling... That is a very quick half pedal that can be 3-4 pedals per second that is particularly useful in more modern music that contains a lot of atonal passage work. Also useful in some of the more chromatic passage work in romantic compositions.
I can see why. chromatic fast notes after each other easily give a blurry tart sound, you cannot hear anything anymore. Only I wonder hoe good that is for the feet muscles
Bach was highly interested in new developments in the realm of keyboard instruments. It's silly to think that he'd forgo the use of the pedal on a modern piano.
@@spicy7302 No, they didn’t, but they basically did what a modern piano does. Hell, a Clavichord basically does what a modern piano does (minus the pedal).
Fascinating compilation! I find it interesting how many pianists seem not to be intimately familiar with the mechanism* of the action’s parts and the “innards” of the pedals. For example, it doesn’t take much depression of the damper pedal to have released all engagement of the strings, after which all further depression (or lifting of the dampers) has absolutely no effect. The range of pedal movement that actually spans from reducing damper pressure on the strings (which is not always equal across all sections) to no longer touching the strings, is far more limited than the full travel range of the pedal itself. This trait is usually unique to each instrument and advanced pianists adjust to it immediately and intimately as if a second nature (which it is by then).
I knew if I searched I find a treasure and your words are indeed that! Hofmann they say and Cherkassky also could take a piano apart and put it back together . Many students nowadays are required to learn about the machine itself !
Why do you think the pianists don't know it? I've never seen anyone making a distinction between the literal half way depression and full depression on the pedal. The furthest extent of half pedal indeed means you want the dampeners to be almost disengaged but still touching.
I find it more difficoult with piano pedals though, because it's more sophisticated . With the organ you just press what you have to press and surely it's hard (it's like learning to move a third arm that you never used and knowing how to finely move 3 hands together), but at least you don't have to worry about the sound.
@@simonepedrazzini7569 That is a very good point - especially artistically speaking from a pianistic point of view. Piano pedalling is much more nuanced with what is going on with the hands in terms of blending (or not blending) the sounds. However, with the organ it's not quite as simple as " ... you don't have to worry about the sound." The organ pedals have to be played every bit as articulated as the manuals, and in conjunction with the manuals -- not just bass notes, but artistically articulated and phrased contrapuntal melodic lines as well - :-)
This was awesome! As a composer, I’m always happy to learn about the myriad of techniques implemented by specialists, although it can be a bit overwhelming to choose what exactly to notate. So, I took the suggestion of a pianist friend and simply indicated “con pedale” in a new work instead of clogging the page with information. Liked and subscribed!
there is some truth in that for sure!! I m a louzy piano player but when I use pedal, I m less hard on myself, which in itself helps to continue playing and hopefully get somewhat better
Love these videos where you bring in so many different pianists for their opinions! If you could choose 3 pianists who haven't been on this channel yet, who would it be? 🙂
I love this knowledge when applying pedal mechanics that can extend to other instruments or pedal-likes. knowing your equipment when getting into pedal effects for amplifiers, expression pedals for volume or parameters on delay rates, and even other forms of modulation in glide ribbon controllers, pitch wheels and resonance knobs on synth keyboards.
I'm not a professional pianist, just an advanced amateur. I use the middle pedal in several pieces I play, usually to hold the bass while allowing my right pedal the liberty to clear the harmony when moving lines make it too blurry. Two examples that come to mind are Debussy's Claire de Lune (in the section starting on bar 15) and Albéniz's Corpus Christi en Sevilla (both in the beautiful section in the middle with lots of ppp markings and in the final section).
i just began learning and decided to tackle one of chopin’s nocturnes and immediately realized how important the pedal was to creating his somber sound and also realized how uncoordinated i was regarding pedaling. very helpful video!
The thing about this wonderful series is that because they are all pianists playing Steinways or Steinway-type pianos, they don’t discuss the history of the pedals, nor how different piano makers throughout history made different mechanisms for different things depending on the country and its unique sensibilities of the time. Dear Tone Base editors, I think your audience would gain so much by featuring the work of early piano specialists as well, so that there’s not just one perspective. It’s like asking a bunch of Italian Americans to explain the regional cuisines of Napoli vs Venezia, when they’ve never visited, eaten that food with those ingredients, or even bothered to read original recipes. Sure, Italian American has some similarities and is certainly delicious, but you should ask someone from NAPLES to explain a Margheurita pizza.
I was thinking the same thing. I feel like modern pianists miss out on so much in neglecting to give any attention to the pianos the composers themselves knew and played. Older pianos typically had much lighter dampers and damper mechanisms, resulting in a "leakier" sound where the notes would continue to bleed through as the damper struggled to dampen the string. If you were to play a loud staccato chord, without pedal, on the typical historical fortepiano, you'd hear a wash of sound still lingering after you release the notes. This might explain the premature pedal-lifting called for by Beethoven in the Appassionata Sonata example. On the other hand, those early pianos also typically had a markedly shorter or weaker sustain than modern pianos, so this wash of sound lingering after the release of the notes wouldn't be so muddy. I imagine this is why Beethoven called for the sustain pedal to be held completely throughout the entire first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. It's barely doable at half-pedal on a modern piano, but on Beethoven's 1814 Nannette Streicher piano, full pedal would very much have been doable.
I'm not sure if this is applicable for all grands, but in the piano I use, the middle pedal doesn't just sustain the lower part of the piano, but it also makes sympathetic harmonics from the opened strings, which gives an interesting effect to some pieces of music like recitative sections or Bach organ transcriptions for piano, for example. Kind of like harmonic pedal.
@@nathangale7702 This is correct. No upright that I know of has a proper sostenuto pedal. Only grands. Some have no middle pedal at all. Some of the uprights make the middle pedal a notched locking mechanism that moves a 'practice felt' between hammers and strings. And I do not recall having ever seen a notation in any work calling for the sostenuto pedal but my knowledge is mostly up until the early 20th century.
@@meyerbeer13 It's more than a starting point. There are lots of expressive choices when ten fingers and complex harmonies are involved. It takes writing orchestral scores to understand the depths of pedaling.
I teach mostly beginner and intermediate students....mostly young children. "Miss Monique what are those???". They often ask. I demonstrate what each pedal does and then say, "When your legs are long enough to reach them then you may learn pedaling..🙂. With older students, I will demonstrate the techniques of the pedal...and eventually when they need to use a pedal in whatever they are working on the technique will be taught. One student was a retired nurse who played rather well. (as long as "Arthur -itis" wasn't visiting her fingers.'). I took her to a Newport Classical Festival concert just to watch the pedaling technique of a Mr. Aneivas.(I hope I spelled his name correctly!!). What a marvellous concert....he played the entire repertoire of the Chopin Preludes. We sat so we could see his right foot on the sustain constantly .......up down up down.... constantly..... beautiful..that was probably the best lesson she had for the pedals. After that experience, she actually started listening to what her pedaling was producing....it changed the level of her ability almost instantly. I said to her after she purchased a new piano that had a sostenuto pedal and was getting closer to finishing the Rhapsody in Blue : "You now need a new teacher!!!". I couldn't do much more than that for her. Amazing what people will do....even as a piano student with Arthritis 😁🙏🌷💗🎶🎉😁🙏💗🎶🎉🎆🕊️🎉💕☺️😇 Miss Monique
When my piano technician came to work on my piano, he said “you use the soft pedal a lot. That’s good.” He noticed all the grooves on the hammers. This guy worked on the pianos for all the touring concert pianists who came to town. My piano is over 100 years and has original Steinway hammers. If I move the soft pedal just right, it hits the string kind of between grooves and get an almost electronic sound. One thing regarded using the sustain wpedal with Bach. I studied harpsichord for many years and used to be deadset against it. But the harpsichord is in fact a very resonant instrument. Even when you lift the key, there is often a slight ring afterward. You have a very small piece of felt or leather dampening the string so it doesn’t kill the sound, unlike the piano, which have thick, heavy dampers. So a harpsichord note doesn’t completely die when you lift the key. So I use pedal a bit now on piano, but not enough to blur anything. Also, having that extra ring can also help give a slightly different color to notes that are sustained over others, which helps with voicing.
how did y’all not have any pedalling lessons. every time i finish a piece, my teacher dedicates one entire hour to perfecting the pedalling. it’s of extreme importance
Thank you for all what was included into this very video. So many great comments on pedaling. ANd yes, this is so true we have never been taught how to use all three pedals.
My first piano teacher (my mother) was a superb teacher. She as a child (now 96) had studied with one of Liszt last students. As a result the study of the pedal was taught from almost the beginning. Also the was emphasis on the development of the left hand.
Very interesting. Actually my teacher spoke about pedalling at the conservatory, but it was my second instrument while harp was my first; piano was obligatory for my composition studies. He was a great teacher, even if I was not so good, it helped a lot to understand the piano technique.
Treat the dampers like the bow on a violin string. Makes a huge difference for modern repertoire like Messiaen. There are extra overtones created from vibrating strings interacting with the damper.
Golandsky and Taubman made names for themselves with relaxation technique and scientific updates on this phenomenon that was discussed as far back as Liszt and his pupils. I remember reading somewhere there were only 6 gradations for one of the pedals meaning depressing pedals is not tied exactly to how the dampers lift off the strings . So does this mean the key itself cannot as older German training taught that moving the key had an effect on the string and that one could mimic the string player's vibrato. There is a lot of nonsense involved with instrumental playing in general . 7:42 shows middle pedal being used for legato upper register chords!!!??? Thiswas completely new to me ! I can't wait to try it on that same DMSonata I played last year of highschool .O'Connor knows a great deal about music and the piano.He must know that Hadyn's small delicate pianoforte's cannot be compared to today's Steinways .Has he played Mozart's Stein.He knows holding the pedal continuously will be and was a new effect in Hadyn's daty but it won't sound the same on today's stronger pitchholding steel strings.I was disconcerted that he did not explain himself better.I've watched him teaching here and have a cd of him!Flutter pedal ? I've heard about this before . There may be some nonsense about shaking keys at bed for a vibrato sound or other things but these people have spent their entire lives many before the age of 6 at the piano and at very knowledgable teachers . This is scarier than most things at piano because you MUST LISTEN or you can't discover . People talk about Michelangeli's pedalling only experts can tell these things and when most of us listen someone would have to lead our ears to it . The high levels of expertise required in every profession ...
I'm not piano player, but when i was playing with my grandma's piano, right pedal always sounded like mint for me ) it made sound feel like mint or menthol :D
Etched into my memory is the best music theory teacher I ever had playing a wonderful chord (some big extended add 9 kinda deal IIRC) and announcing to the class "smoooooooth like a menthol cigarette"
I also get down on the floor and have my students remove their shoes and I place my hand on their foot.....yes it's weird and sometimes stinky, but I find it is the most thorough way to teach pedal work. The older I get the more of the lesson I use to get back up from the floor!!!😅
This is fabuloso, Piano guy, and I'm NOT a pianist; BUT, I DO know a guy with an advanced degree in piano performance . . . and, he (gulp!) uses the pedal waaaaaay toooooo much; so I thank you, sir. Uh-oh, shoot! I sent him this very video, and now I'm hoping he neglects to read the viewer comments . . . eh, ''W''? . . . ooh, I gotta comment Piano guy, I am a ''video guy'', and I noticed, right off the bat, that your video shooting and editing is SUPER !! Great job !! . . . OH, I just thought of something, Mr. Pianoforte . . . Why not produce another of your EXCELLENTLY produced videos - from the modern perspective of JAZZ PIANISTS? Is their use of the pedal(s) merely INTUITIVE? Or, is there madness to their technique, as in all of these classical boys and girls? Huh?
Excellent lesson, could use a demonstration of the dampers action to explain what physically happens when we apply the right pedal. I can see that there can be slight changes when slightly pressing the pedal, but if you watch the dampers, they're either in contact with strings, muting them, or not. Not exactly on or off, but close to it. No way there are many gradations
Talk about gradation all you want - you're all at the mercy of the technician who set up the pedal. At the end of the day, it's simply about having a sensitive foot and sensitive ears.
Great video as always, much to think about. But as an opera répétiteur, I must disagree with the good professor Lowenthal about the sostenuto pedal. It can be EXTREMELY useful when playing orchestral reductions. There is much more to the piano than just the solo repertoire!
I never knew that there was a middle pedal, but then I’ve never had the opportunity to own a grand piano. The thing I have in the middle of my upright(s) is a piece of cloth to dampen all the notes, and it makes everything sound like playing with gloves on. Someday I’ll get me a digital piano that has a sostenuto piano - and at least now I know to ask this question. :)
My pedalling technique cost me 1st place in my first ever competitive recital. I kept my heel off the ground and used the pedal with the front of my shoe- the adjudicators notes wrote that I need to keep my heel on the ground while using the pedal, not floating in the air. They docked me for that and the result was 2nd place instead of 1st, lol.
For those who subscribe to Tonebase: Claire Huangci's discussion of the Lizst transcription of Beethoven's 6th Symphony has a lot of fascinating discussion of using the pedal there. They really should have included some excerpts of that here.
Never even knew there are *degrees*! Anyway, Yunchan Lim has masterful pedalling, including not overusing it (the effect of which distinguishes his many pieces from those of others, like in the Hough toccata and Rach 3). He even used the middle pedal distinctively to pull of an intended effect.
@@nilsfrederking62 how many degrees are there? My first good piano teacher just told me to get my foot off the pedal. And most pianists overuse the pedal. But I can't believe the pedal mechanism is sensitive enough to allow for at most quarter half and three quarter pedaling.
@@meyerbeer13 There are no degrees, it is a continuum, they only use these terms to ease communication. As they said, you need to use your ears to find the degree that produces what you have in mind. Of course that suggests that you have an intention and for that a good knowledge of music theory is helpful and a good understanding of the possibilities you have with the pedals.
There are as many degrees as the ear can perceive. It's like a bow on a stringed instrument. The time dimension on top of the depth dimension adds even more expressive possibilities.
Not only the middle pedal is not a mistake, it is the most useful of all pedals. Sometimes, it’s the only pedal that should be used. In piano music such as Prokofiev’s, often the middle pedal is the only tool you have at your disposition to accurately play the music without muddying the already dissonant score buy using the right pedal.
as a pianist who’s played piano since 4 years old, i LOVE pedalling. i do pedal with my ears-to me it’s just like blending parts of your charcoal drawing in the parts that need it most. i add pedal where i feel it, i feel it in myself, i feel the emotion
I heard it read somewhere that out of all classical musicians, pianists make the “best drivers”, presumably because of their fine control and gradation of the use of the pedals. 😎
That's a really great point. I've never used the pedal when playing Bach's Sinfonia but whenever I took piano lessons for sinfornia, my teacher would sit next to me and use the pedal for me. It really bothered me because she never told me whether I should be using the pedal in that piece. If she asked me to use the pedal, I would have practiced using it too. 😅
My very first lesson in university was about pedal lol. My teacher basically ripped me apart and also sent me off with the sentence “never wear these shoes again” 😂
Wow, where did you learn? I spent 15 years playing piano and I've been told how to pedal soooo many times by soooo many teachers, of course everyone of them telling you a different story, as we've just seen in the introduction 🤣
Aaah in my teaching going back forever I call it 'the muffler' ! The problem students have is the definition of it and specifically the modern (last hundred years) pedal. Students tend to believe it's the magic 'joining' tool replacing fingers for legato (which of course in part is true) but it's essential use especially when Debussy arrived is more of a 'color/tone' enhancement for me. I seem to recall that Debussy himself often complained about players using too much pedal in his music even though it sounds like it'should' have it. I have to be honest, for composers up to Beethoven I recommend learning with zero pedal and then (because of the modern ever sustaining pedal we now have) adding very little. I often hear Bach with pedal but being older school my ear cannot accept it fully. For me it always 'muddies' it. It's nature is contrapuntal so... But that's another discussion - pedal in Bach is now deemed acceptable and encouraged. I suppose we have to accept the modern instrument is very different so maybe 'different' rules apply? Not for me personally.
How is it that every word this people are saying is mesmerizing. I just want to hear them talk. Obviously, the playing is top notch too. It's impressive just how easy they can pick up a piece at any bar because for them is second nature to play with such an ease after all those years of practice and polishing their craft. Just wow
In all the years I have been studying the piano, I had one person show me how to pedal in one session. Otherwise I have been on my own figuring it out for most of my life.
Exploration in the capacity of piano's sound has always been a part of it since it was born for the exploration of making the harpsichord more expressive and resposive to the player's touch, pedals and other old fashioned moderators and una corda etc. were like "special effects" to the music, so... ylu may use it as you like, you are the one playing lmao
Год назад+1
Awesome video! I'm always surprised by how unconciously many students use the pedal, before someone brings their attention to it. It is such an important tool with hundrets of layers and not just and on/off switch (same for the left pedal!).
The left pedal shifts the hammers laterally. On a real instrument, different displacements do produce a different sound quality. There is a range between the full three string position and full two string position. There is some wear leveling accomplished with the left pedal over time as well.
@ the una corda pedal shifts the keyboard to hit two strings on three. So it has two settings on and off. What don't you grasp? If you put it in between, it would hit no strings
Год назад+1
@@meyerbeer13 Sorry, but now I'm unsure if you're actually being serious 😶
Legend has it she is still indicating "Pedal... Pedal... Pedal... Pedal... Pedal... Pedal..." to this very day.
I'm gonna be hearing this coming from my closet tonight 😂😂😂
😂
never knew those were the lyrics
🤣🤣🤣
She or he
After 12 years with the same teacher, I switched to another teacher and my first lesson with her was all pedalling. She was on the floor like some crazy person with her hand on my foot pressing on my shoe. On off, on off. My mom was there too and it was such a clown show that I nearly decided to not continue with her. Thank God I didn’t. She ended up changing my life (she had actually studied with Babayan for 6 years, but back then, no one really knew who he was.. we’re talking 2005-2006). I’ve never forgotten that first lesson.
😂
I saw Babayan on t.v. when he competed at Chopin competition . Have never forgotten him and now his students everywhere talk about him !
Great story! Garrick Ohlsson has expanded on his at 2:08. Rosina Lhévinne (who was in her eighties) would hold his foot while she was lying on the floor and explain "I'm really serious about this!"
🇦🇲I’m glad that you didn’t change your teacher. In my case I didn’t have that much passionate teacher. Hachoghouchoun Mher 🫶🏻
...Who is Babayan?
18:58 I spat out my drink. Seymour is such a legend
But I. wished he'd followed up. What if Chopin wrote a dotted quarter note? What difference would it make between a quarter and dotted quarter if you hold down the pedal? The composers are often so painstaking with their dots -- real pains in the ykw! What happens to the dot details under the pedal?
This is very interesting…the first lesson I give to all of my students, assuming there is an acoustic piano around, is just having them look inside the piano and see how the pedals work as I press down on them one at a time. I also inevitably give ( maybe a year or two in) what I call “the pedal lecture” where I spend nearly the whole lesson explaining different contexts of pedaling and how to use your ears.
Excellent!
This was one of the most confusingly helpful pedal videos ever. I will be watching this many times! 😂 Thank you for putting it together!!
Ben you are such a gem
This is clearly the best piano channel of youtube. Thank you for your hardwork !
I had a very good piano teacher before I went to college who taught me all sorts of pedal techniques. Not once in college did anyone mention the pedal. Non-piano faculty used to ask me how I was creating so many different sonorities with the pedal.
My first piano teacher, in 1977, taught us in detail how to use the pedal, when not to use it, etc, and I have never forgotten it. ❤
You must have had a good teacher then. Most teachers focus on technique for most of the time in the early years and kind of neglect the area of music performance where you bring in dynamics, colours
Maybe this channel is strong and widespread enough to teach young pianists about pedalling in baroque music. Just please do never forget that the damping in any harpsichord action is very rudimentary, to say the least. So even if all the registers are in the ON position with the dampers on the strings, there will be some amount of constant sympathetic resonance. If any of the registers is/are in the OFF position, the dampers won't even touch the strings so you get a lot of sympathetic resonance, the more registers in the OFF position, the more sympathetic resonance the instrument will produce, since the strings share the same bridge and all the undamped strings will vibrate as well. Plus in historical instruments there were often stops that just did not have any damping at all and could be used as a special effect. (N. B. CPE Bach says that the best way to play a free fantasia on an early fortepiano is if you do it on the undamped stop). So no matter what you do on an early keyboard instrument, whether they be harpsichords, clavichords, early fortepianos, spinets etc, you will always have a bit of a pedal in the sound. The amount can of course vary, but there will always be some constant "pedal" in the sound. Andras Schiff is just utter nonsense to me. Playing baroque music on the piano in a horribly flat way and then use the harpsichord as an excuse... Awful.
We also know from a letter by G. F. Duarte Antwerp 1648 to Constantijn Huygens (father of Christiaan Huygens) that harpsichords were set up in a way that the dampers of the registers in OFF position did not touch the strings:
"The extreme length of the large clavecimbels is 8 voeten more or less, the pitch Chorista, with 3 registers - that is, three different strings of which 2 strings are at unison and one at the octava and all three of which can be played together or each string separately, with or without the octave, like the ordinary clavecimbels that your honour mentions. But they have a better tone because the unused strings which is not played moves of its own accord, producing such a sweet quiet tone through the principal sound, which does not occur when all three strings are played together."
You may be interested to check this: ruclips.net/video/MOITmxlKesg/видео.html - without dampers
ruclips.net/video/t0gW5hJsZwk/видео.html - the same piece played with dampers
WONDERFUL! When I taught piano, I noticed that there were some students who used the pedal "naturally" without major problems. Others, were a disaster, and I created exercises to teach them to pedal correctly....because to begin with, pedaling MUST be within a rhythmic context.
All my years of study came rushing back during this video, forcing me to remember two things I learned along the way:
1. The ability to do and the ability to teach are light years apart.
2. Performers rarely know what composers wanted - _especially_ when handed detailed instructions on a diamond encrusted platter. 😅
This is what I have to remind myself of all the time. I’m kind of a rubbish classical pianist/performer, but I am a hell of a good teacher
@@blueridding i believe you!!
I love the " not Gary's foot"😂😂
Me too!
Tonebase piano content is consistently fantastic.
27:04 Jean-Yves "what are those!!" Thibaudet
Nobody really mentioned flutter pedaling... That is a very quick half pedal that can be 3-4 pedals per second that is particularly useful in more modern music that contains a lot of atonal passage work. Also useful in some of the more chromatic passage work in romantic compositions.
That is some higher lvl crazy shit
That' the editor's fault.
I can see why. chromatic fast notes after each other easily give a blurry tart sound, you cannot hear anything anymore. Only I wonder hoe good that is for the feet muscles
8:03 Thibaudet's shoes 💀
12:45 blows me away. Incredible sound.
Bach was highly interested in new developments in the realm of keyboard instruments. It's silly to think that he'd forgo the use of the pedal on a modern piano.
Bach ended up liking the piano late in his life. He didn’t own one because they were not widely available
@@gojewla Keep in mind that it didn't sound or look anything like the modern piano so yeah.
@@spicy7302 No, they didn’t, but they basically did what a modern piano does. Hell, a Clavichord basically does what a modern piano does (minus the pedal).
This is an amazingly important episode. Tonebase is the best on line piano platform (I am a life subscriber).
Michael
Fascinating compilation! I find it interesting how many pianists seem not to be intimately familiar with the mechanism* of the action’s parts and the “innards” of the pedals. For example, it doesn’t take much depression of the damper pedal to have released all engagement of the strings, after which all further depression (or lifting of the dampers) has absolutely no effect. The range of pedal movement that actually spans from reducing damper pressure on the strings (which is not always equal across all sections) to no longer touching the strings, is far more limited than the full travel range of the pedal itself. This trait is usually unique to each instrument and advanced pianists adjust to it immediately and intimately as if a second nature (which it is by then).
I knew if I searched I find a treasure and your words are indeed that! Hofmann they say and Cherkassky also could take a piano apart and put it back together . Many students nowadays are required to learn about the machine itself !
Why do you think the pianists don't know it? I've never seen anyone making a distinction between the literal half way depression and full depression on the pedal. The furthest extent of half pedal indeed means you want the dampeners to be almost disengaged but still touching.
@@ecpgieicg i think all this stuff you can hear whilst playing, if you listren carefully
For me, the piano wasn't so bad; it's when I hit 32 pedals on the organ that things started to get ... interesting. 🙂
Ikr???
I fully understand you
I find it more difficoult with piano pedals though, because it's more sophisticated . With the organ you just press what you have to press and surely it's hard (it's like learning to move a third arm that you never used and knowing how to finely move 3 hands together), but at least you don't have to worry about the sound.
@@simonepedrazzini7569 That is a very good point - especially artistically speaking from a pianistic point of view. Piano pedalling is much more nuanced with what is going on with the hands in terms of blending (or not blending) the sounds.
However, with the organ it's not quite as simple as " ... you don't have to worry about the sound." The organ pedals have to be played every bit as articulated as the manuals, and in conjunction with the manuals -- not just bass notes, but artistically articulated and phrased contrapuntal melodic lines as well - :-)
Informative and beautifully constructed! A real treat to hear these great pianists teaching us.
This was awesome! As a composer, I’m always happy to learn about the myriad of techniques implemented by specialists, although it can be a bit overwhelming to choose what exactly to notate. So, I took the suggestion of a pianist friend and simply indicated “con pedale” in a new work instead of clogging the page with information. Liked and subscribed!
THE quote is : "All guilt tends to disappear when you pedal (romantic music)" Seymour Bernstein
there is some truth in that for sure!! I m a louzy piano player but when I use pedal, I m less hard on myself, which in itself helps to continue playing and hopefully get somewhat better
That was excellent. Thanks and congratulations to the editor for the brilliant work.
I didn't expect this video to be that helpful . I am truly thankful
This is great. The only lesson in pedal use I got was when they put a book under it. This video confirms that everyone is different. Great job.
A typically entertaining and yet instructive video. well done!
Love these videos where you bring in so many different pianists for their opinions! If you could choose 3 pianists who haven't been on this channel yet, who would it be? 🙂
Yuja, Kissin, Richard Goode.
I love this knowledge when applying pedal mechanics that can extend to other instruments or pedal-likes. knowing your equipment when getting into pedal effects for amplifiers, expression pedals for volume or parameters on delay rates, and even other forms of modulation in glide ribbon controllers, pitch wheels and resonance knobs on synth keyboards.
23:10 I wish everyone played that part of Feux Follets like that!
I'm not a professional pianist, just an advanced amateur. I use the middle pedal in several pieces I play, usually to hold the bass while allowing my right pedal the liberty to clear the harmony when moving lines make it too blurry. Two examples that come to mind are Debussy's Claire de Lune (in the section starting on bar 15) and Albéniz's Corpus Christi en Sevilla (both in the beautiful section in the middle with lots of ppp markings and in the final section).
i just began learning and decided to tackle one of chopin’s nocturnes and immediately realized how important the pedal was to creating his somber sound and also realized how uncoordinated i was regarding pedaling. very helpful video!
The thing about this wonderful series is that because they are all pianists playing Steinways or Steinway-type pianos, they don’t discuss the history of the pedals, nor how different piano makers throughout history made different mechanisms for different things depending on the country and its unique sensibilities of the time. Dear Tone Base editors, I think your audience would gain so much by featuring the work of early piano specialists as well, so that there’s not just one perspective.
It’s like asking a bunch of Italian Americans to explain the regional cuisines of Napoli vs Venezia, when they’ve never visited, eaten that food with those ingredients, or even bothered to read original recipes. Sure, Italian American has some similarities and is certainly delicious, but you should ask someone from NAPLES to explain a Margheurita pizza.
I was thinking the same thing. I feel like modern pianists miss out on so much in neglecting to give any attention to the pianos the composers themselves knew and played. Older pianos typically had much lighter dampers and damper mechanisms, resulting in a "leakier" sound where the notes would continue to bleed through as the damper struggled to dampen the string. If you were to play a loud staccato chord, without pedal, on the typical historical fortepiano, you'd hear a wash of sound still lingering after you release the notes. This might explain the premature pedal-lifting called for by Beethoven in the Appassionata Sonata example.
On the other hand, those early pianos also typically had a markedly shorter or weaker sustain than modern pianos, so this wash of sound lingering after the release of the notes wouldn't be so muddy. I imagine this is why Beethoven called for the sustain pedal to be held completely throughout the entire first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. It's barely doable at half-pedal on a modern piano, but on Beethoven's 1814 Nannette Streicher piano, full pedal would very much have been doable.
This was unbelievably enjoyable. I love hearing everyone’s opinions put together. They all may actually agree on something - pedal with your ears
I'm not sure if this is applicable for all grands, but in the piano I use, the middle pedal doesn't just sustain the lower part of the piano, but it also makes sympathetic harmonics from the opened strings, which gives an interesting effect to some pieces of music like recitative sections or Bach organ transcriptions for piano, for example. Kind of like harmonic pedal.
You can also silently depress the keys with both your hands, hold down the middle pedal, and strum the strings like an autoharp.
Yes, I´ve seen several different mechanism for the middle pedal, seems like it´s not exactly standardized.
That's awesome
@@nathangale7702 This is correct. No upright that I know of has a proper sostenuto pedal. Only grands. Some have no middle pedal at all. Some of the uprights make the middle pedal a notched locking mechanism that moves a 'practice felt' between hammers and strings. And I do not recall having ever seen a notation in any work calling for the sostenuto pedal but my knowledge is mostly up until the early 20th century.
I have never had lessons and I ha d always pedal by ear and I can create sounds that is simply bliss
Thank you tonebase ! ❤
That’s actually the first lesson I give to every new student
Another great video ! You're definitely one of the best classical piano channels out here ! I just wih they spoke a bit about Satie too !
Great video even for someone like me who never touched a piano in my entire life. And btw the editing work done on this video is amazing !
Thank you for taking the time to put together a cohesive video from an assortment of tips from the experts. Very engaging video.
Wish there was more talk about finger pedaling but that gets deep into harmony and orchestration.
Finger pedaling is where you start. If you can make legato with the fingers, you shouldn't use the sustain pedal.
@@meyerbeer13 It's more than a starting point. There are lots of expressive choices when ten fingers and complex harmonies are involved. It takes writing orchestral scores to understand the depths of pedaling.
Finger pedalling? Didn’t know there was a name for it. Indeed it should be prioritised above sustain pedalling.
@@meyerbeer13 But always conscious of injury, though. That's the danger of anti-pedal orthodoxy, you could cripple yourself.
I teach mostly beginner and intermediate students....mostly young children. "Miss Monique what are those???". They often ask. I demonstrate what each pedal does and then say, "When your legs are long enough to reach them then you may learn pedaling..🙂.
With older students, I will demonstrate the techniques of the pedal...and eventually when they need to use a pedal in whatever they are working on the technique will be taught.
One student was a retired nurse who played rather well. (as long as "Arthur -itis" wasn't visiting her fingers.'). I took her to a Newport Classical Festival concert just to watch the pedaling technique of a Mr. Aneivas.(I hope I spelled his name correctly!!). What a
marvellous concert....he played the entire repertoire of the Chopin Preludes.
We sat so we could see his right foot on the sustain constantly .......up down up down.... constantly..... beautiful..that was probably the best lesson she had for the pedals. After that experience, she actually started listening to what her pedaling was producing....it changed the level of her ability almost instantly. I said to her after she purchased a new piano that had a sostenuto pedal and was getting closer to finishing the Rhapsody in Blue : "You now need a new teacher!!!". I couldn't do much more than that for her.
Amazing what people will do....even as a piano student with Arthritis 😁🙏🌷💗🎶🎉😁🙏💗🎶🎉🎆🕊️🎉💕☺️😇 Miss Monique
Got my first Steinway finally. The fun is now getting it tweaked so I can play it correctly. Adjusting the pedal settings is so important.
When my piano technician came to work on my piano, he said “you use the soft pedal a lot. That’s good.” He noticed all the grooves on the hammers. This guy worked on the pianos for all the touring concert pianists who came to town. My piano is over 100 years and has original Steinway hammers. If I move the soft pedal just right, it hits the string kind of between grooves and get an almost electronic sound.
One thing regarded using the sustain wpedal with Bach. I studied harpsichord for many years and used to be deadset against it. But the harpsichord is in fact a very resonant instrument. Even when you lift the key, there is often a slight ring afterward. You have a very small piece of felt or leather dampening the string so it doesn’t kill the sound, unlike the piano, which have thick, heavy dampers. So a harpsichord note doesn’t completely die when you lift the key. So I use pedal a bit now on piano, but not enough to blur anything. Also, having that extra ring can also help give a slightly different color to notes that are sustained over others, which helps with voicing.
how did y’all not have any pedalling lessons. every time i finish a piece, my teacher dedicates one entire hour to perfecting the pedalling. it’s of extreme importance
what mountain is your profile pic?
@@batboy5023 lmao. it’s the matterhorn
@@CarlosERamos-ey1lj I love it! I been to the fake one in disneyland.
@@batboy5023 same! that’s actually why i have it as my pfp, i’ve never been to switzerland
@@CarlosERamos-ey1lj haha nice
16:35 epic transition back to Garrick.
Chef's kiss to the editor for following on the over soy sauced fish with Seymour's unfinished tuna fish sandwich.
Thank you for all what was included into this very video. So many great comments on pedaling. ANd yes, this is so true we have never been taught how to use all three pedals.
My first piano teacher (my mother) was a superb teacher. She as a child (now 96) had studied with one of Liszt last students. As a result the study of the pedal was taught from almost the beginning. Also the was emphasis on the development of the left hand.
This is such a well made video .
But this Is pure Gold of a channel
Very interesting. Actually my teacher spoke about pedalling at the conservatory, but it was my second instrument while harp was my first; piano was obligatory for my composition studies. He was a great teacher, even if I was not so good, it helped a lot to understand the piano technique.
Treat the dampers like the bow on a violin string. Makes a huge difference for modern repertoire like Messiaen. There are extra overtones created from vibrating strings interacting with the damper.
Golandsky and Taubman made names for themselves with relaxation technique and scientific updates on this phenomenon that was discussed as far back as Liszt and his pupils. I remember reading somewhere there were only 6 gradations for one of the pedals meaning depressing pedals is not tied exactly to how the dampers lift off the strings . So does this mean the key itself cannot as older German training taught that moving the key had an effect on the string and that one could mimic the string player's vibrato. There is a lot of nonsense involved with instrumental playing in general . 7:42 shows middle pedal being used for legato upper register chords!!!??? Thiswas completely new to me ! I can't wait to try it on that same DMSonata I played last year of highschool .O'Connor knows a great deal about music and the piano.He must know that Hadyn's small delicate pianoforte's cannot be compared to today's Steinways .Has he played Mozart's Stein.He knows holding the pedal continuously will be and was a new effect in Hadyn's daty but it won't sound the same on today's stronger pitchholding steel strings.I was disconcerted that he did not explain himself better.I've watched him teaching here and have a cd of him!Flutter pedal ? I've heard about this before . There may be some nonsense about shaking keys at bed for a vibrato sound or other things but these people have spent their entire lives many before the age of 6 at the piano and at very knowledgable teachers . This is scarier than most things at piano because you MUST LISTEN or you can't discover . People talk about Michelangeli's pedalling only experts can tell these things and when most of us listen someone would have to lead our ears to it . The high levels of expertise required in every profession ...
I'm not piano player, but when i was playing with my grandma's piano, right pedal always sounded like mint for me ) it made sound feel like mint or menthol :D
Etched into my memory is the best music theory teacher I ever had playing a wonderful chord (some big extended add 9 kinda deal IIRC) and announcing to the class "smoooooooth like a menthol cigarette"
Frederic Chiu is phenomenal. I’ve seen him live before when he came to my University. Really nice guy!
One of my favorite pianists, ever
I also get down on the floor and have my students remove their shoes and I place my hand on their foot.....yes it's weird and sometimes stinky, but I find it is the most thorough way to teach pedal work. The older I get the more of the lesson I use to get back up from the floor!!!😅
What an excellent compilation -- thank you!
This is fabuloso, Piano guy, and I'm NOT a pianist; BUT, I DO know a guy with an advanced degree in piano performance . . . and, he (gulp!) uses the pedal waaaaaay toooooo much; so I thank you, sir. Uh-oh, shoot! I sent him this very video, and now I'm hoping he neglects to read the viewer comments . . . eh, ''W''? . . . ooh, I gotta comment Piano guy, I am a ''video guy'', and I noticed, right off the bat, that your video shooting and editing is SUPER !! Great job !! . . .
OH, I just thought of something, Mr. Pianoforte . . . Why not produce another of your EXCELLENTLY produced videos - from the modern perspective of JAZZ PIANISTS? Is their use of the pedal(s) merely INTUITIVE? Or, is there madness to their technique, as in all of these classical boys and girls? Huh?
Excellent lesson, could use a demonstration of the dampers action to explain what physically happens when we apply the right pedal. I can see that there can be slight changes when slightly pressing the pedal, but if you watch the dampers, they're either in contact with strings, muting them, or not. Not exactly on or off, but close to it. No way there are many gradations
Wonderful video! So much excellent wisdom in here, and demonstrative of a huge variety of situations--really valuable, thank you!
Talk about gradation all you want - you're all at the mercy of the technician who set up the pedal.
At the end of the day, it's simply about having a sensitive foot and sensitive ears.
Great video as always, much to think about. But as an opera répétiteur, I must disagree with the good professor Lowenthal about the sostenuto pedal. It can be EXTREMELY useful when playing orchestral reductions. There is much more to the piano than just the solo repertoire!
Great episode! I am glad I have learned about pedaling while at school.
Tonebase library should be FREE and downloadable as a big archive via some file sharing protocol.
hahahahaha all the funeral march cuts, you the best, Ben
What Maestro Jon Kimura Parker mentiones about lifting pedal for resolution does happen frequently in piano Jazz
I never knew that there was a middle pedal, but then I’ve never had the opportunity to own a grand piano. The thing I have in the middle of my upright(s) is a piece of cloth to dampen all the notes, and it makes everything sound like playing with gloves on.
Someday I’ll get me a digital piano that has a sostenuto piano - and at least now I know to ask this question. :)
Ok, this sold me on Tonebase.
My pedalling technique cost me 1st place in my first ever competitive recital. I kept my heel off the ground and used the pedal with the front of my shoe- the adjudicators notes wrote that I need to keep my heel on the ground while using the pedal, not floating in the air. They docked me for that and the result was 2nd place instead of 1st, lol.
The stupidity of piano competitions. It should be about the sound produced and nothing else
That's beyond stupid.
For those who subscribe to Tonebase: Claire Huangci's discussion of the Lizst transcription of Beethoven's 6th Symphony has a lot of fascinating discussion of using the pedal there. They really should have included some excerpts of that here.
Great selection of clips and placed in a good order
Never even knew there are *degrees*! Anyway, Yunchan Lim has masterful pedalling, including not overusing it (the effect of which distinguishes his many pieces from those of others, like in the Hough toccata and Rach 3). He even used the middle pedal distinctively to pull of an intended effect.
That is one of the most common pedal mistakes, the only on / off pedaling, you can even find that in concert pianists!
@@nilsfrederking62 how many degrees are there? My first good piano teacher just told me to get my foot off the pedal. And most pianists overuse the pedal. But I can't believe the pedal mechanism is sensitive enough to allow for at most quarter half and three quarter pedaling.
@@meyerbeer13 There are no degrees, it is a continuum, they only use these terms to ease communication. As they said, you need to use your ears to find the degree that produces what you have in mind. Of course that suggests that you have an intention and for that a good knowledge of music theory is helpful and a good understanding of the possibilities you have with the pedals.
There are as many degrees as the ear can perceive. It's like a bow on a stringed instrument. The time dimension on top of the depth dimension adds even more expressive possibilities.
@@daniellu8282 the ear can perceive at most two degrees. And it's not like a violin bow. That's a joke?
Incredible. You've given me more to think about
Not only the middle pedal is not a mistake, it is the most useful of all pedals. Sometimes, it’s the only pedal that should be used. In piano music such as Prokofiev’s, often the middle pedal is the only tool you have at your disposition to accurately play the music without muddying the already dissonant score buy using the right pedal.
as a pianist who’s played piano since 4 years old, i LOVE pedalling. i do pedal with my ears-to me it’s just like blending parts of your charcoal drawing in the parts that need it most. i add pedal where i feel it, i feel it in myself, i feel the emotion
Im self-taught and did not know what the other 2 pedals even do
So thankyou... that was well overdue
I heard it read somewhere that out of all classical musicians, pianists make the “best drivers”, presumably because of their fine control and gradation of the use of the pedals. 😎
8:02 I was NOT expecting Thibaudet to have such drip
That's a really great point. I've never used the pedal when playing Bach's Sinfonia but whenever I took piano lessons for sinfornia, my teacher would sit next to me and use the pedal for me. It really bothered me because she never told me whether I should be using the pedal in that piece. If she asked me to use the pedal, I would have practiced using it too. 😅
My very first lesson in university was about pedal lol. My teacher basically ripped me apart and also sent me off with the sentence “never wear these shoes again” 😂
thank you for your hard work! nice assembly, enjoyed thoroughly
Can we just talk about Thibaudet’s shoes?! Anyone know what those are?
P.S. great video, super informative on an subject not talked about enough!
came here to say this ❤
i paused to see who else was impressed!!
8:06 timestamp for anyone interested.
Shoes + Sockets 🪐
He’s into fashion, has had some famous designers work on his concert attire.
Wow, where did you learn? I spent 15 years playing piano and I've been told how to pedal soooo many times by soooo many teachers, of course everyone of them telling you a different story, as we've just seen in the introduction 🤣
Yes..Each one of my ten organ teachers from high school to grad school had their own ideas!!
Aaah in my teaching going back forever I call it 'the muffler' ! The problem students have is the definition of it and specifically the modern (last hundred years) pedal. Students tend to believe it's the magic 'joining' tool replacing fingers for legato (which of course in part is true) but it's essential use especially when Debussy arrived is more of a 'color/tone' enhancement for me. I seem to recall that Debussy himself often complained about players using too much pedal in his music even though it sounds like it'should' have it. I have to be honest, for composers up to Beethoven I recommend learning with zero pedal and then (because of the modern ever sustaining pedal we now have) adding very little. I often hear Bach with pedal but being older school my ear cannot accept it fully. For me it always 'muddies' it. It's nature is contrapuntal so... But that's another discussion - pedal in Bach is now deemed acceptable and encouraged. I suppose we have to accept the modern instrument is very different so maybe 'different' rules apply? Not for me personally.
This was so well made, excellent video
How is it that every word this people are saying is mesmerizing. I just want to hear them talk. Obviously, the playing is top notch too. It's impressive just how easy they can pick up a piece at any bar because for them is second nature to play with such an ease after all those years of practice and polishing their craft. Just wow
This video is absolutely brilliant, thank you.
Beautiful 😊❤
What an exciting video! Thank you very much
there's a video of a Schiff masterclass actually saying that you can use pedal in Bach, but it needs to be imperceptible
My principle teacher, Duncan McNab, did give pedaling it’s due. He also studied with Mrs. Lhevinne and quoted her often!
In all the years I have been studying the piano, I had one person show me how to pedal in one session. Otherwise I have been on my own figuring it out for most of my life.
Exploration in the capacity of piano's sound has always been a part of it since it was born for the exploration of making the harpsichord more expressive and resposive to the player's touch, pedals and other old fashioned moderators and una corda etc. were like "special effects" to the music, so... ylu may use it as you like, you are the one playing lmao
Awesome video! I'm always surprised by how unconciously many students use the pedal, before someone brings their attention to it. It is such an important tool with hundrets of layers and not just and on/off switch (same for the left pedal!).
About the left pedal -- you are totally wrong.
@@meyerbeer13 ok, I guess, I can't argue with this convincing argument 😅
The left pedal shifts the hammers laterally. On a real instrument, different displacements do produce a different sound quality. There is a range between the full three string position and full two string position. There is some wear leveling accomplished with the left pedal over time as well.
@ the una corda pedal shifts the keyboard to hit two strings on three. So it has two settings on and off. What don't you grasp? If you put it in between, it would hit no strings
@@meyerbeer13 Sorry, but now I'm unsure if you're actually being serious 😶
Thank you
this was a really nice video!