Piano pedals

Piano pedals from left to right: soft pedal, sostenuto pedal andsustain pedal

An overview of the piano pedals, which are placed under thekeyboard of the piano

Piano pedals are foot-operated levers at the base of apiano which change the instruments sound in variousways. Modern pianos usually have three pedals, from leftto right, the soft pedal (or una corda), the sostenuto pedal,and the sustaining pedal (or damper pedal). Some pianosomit the sostenuto pedal, or have a middle pedal with adierent purpose such as a muting function also knownas silent piano.The development of the pianos pedals is an evolution thatbegan from the very earliest days of the piano, and con-tinued through the late nineteenth century. Throughoutthe years, the piano had as few as one modifying stop,and as many as six or more, before nally arriving at itscurrent conguration of three.

1 The individual pedals

1.1 The damper pedal

Main article: Sustain pedal

The damper pedal, sometimes called the sustaining pedal,is used more often than the other pedals, and is placed atthe right of the array of pedals, most conveniently acces-sible to (mostly right-footed) players. The damper pedalraises all the dampers o the strings so that they keep vi-brating after a key on the keyboard has been released. Ineect, the damper pedal makes every string on the pianoa sympathetic string, creating a rich tonal quality; it isprobably this eect that lies behind the common sayingthat the damper pedal is the soul of the piano.[1] Thedamper pedal has the secondary function of allowing theplayer to connect into a legato texture notes that otherwisecould not thus be played.

1.2 Una corda pedal

Main article: Soft pedal

The una corda mechanism, invented by BartolomeoCristofori, was the rst stop invented to modify the pi-anos sound. This function is typically operated by theleft pedal on modern pianos. The common name manyuse today for the una corda is the soft pedal, which is notan entirely accurate description of the pedals function.The una corda primarily modies timbre and color of thetone, not just the volume of the tone.[1]

Soon after its invention, the una corda was integrated onpianos of all makers as a standard xture.[2] On Cristo-foris pianos, the una corda mechanism was operated by ahand stop, not a pedal. The stop was a knob on the side ofthe keyboard. When the una corda was activated, the en-tire action shifted to the right so that the hammers hit onestring (una corda) instead of two strings (due corde).[3]

Dominic Gill says that when the hammers strike onlyone string, the piano produces a softer, more etherealtone.[4]

By the late eighteenth century, piano builders had beguntriple stringing the notes on the piano. This change, af-fecting the una cordas function, is described by JosephBanowetz:

1

2 1 THE INDIVIDUAL PEDALS

On the pianos of the late eighteenth toearly nineteenth centuries, the pianist couldshift from the normal three-string (tre corde)position to one in which either two strings (duecorde) or only one (una corda) would be struck,depending on the depth to which the pedal waspressed. This subtle but important choice doesnot exist on modern pianos, but was readilyavailable on the earlier instruments.[2]

The sound of the una corda on early pianos created alarger dierence in color and timbre than it does on themodern piano. On the modern piano, the una corda pedalmakes the hammers of the treble section hit two stringsinstead of three. In the case of the bass strings, the ham-mer normally strikes either one or two strings per note.The lowest bass notes on the piano are a single thickerstring. For these notes, the action shifts the hammer sothat it strikes the string on a dierent, lesser-used part ofthe hammer nose.[5]

Edwin Good states,

On the modern piano, the timbre is subtlydierent, but many people cannot hear it. Inthat respect, at least, the modern piano does notgive the player the exibility of changing tonequality that early ones did.[6]

Beethoven took advantage of the ability of his piano tocreate a wide range of tone color in two of his pianoworks. In his Piano Concerto No. 4, Beethoven speci-es the use of una corda, due corda, and tre corde. Hecalls for una corda, then poco a poco due ed allora tuttele corde, gradually two and then all strings, in Sonata Op.106.[2]

1.2.1 Half-blow pedal

On the modern upright piano, the left pedal is not trulyan una corda, because it does not shift the action side-ways. This cannot happen because the strings run atsuch an oblique angle to the hammers that if the actionweremoved sideways, the hammermight strike one stringof the wrong note.[7] A more accurate term for the leftpedal on an upright piano is the half-blow pedal. Whenthe pedal is activated, the hammers move closer to thestrings, so that there is less distance for the hammer toswing.[8]

1.3 Sostenuto pedal

The last pedal to be added to the modern grand was themiddle pedal, the sostenuto, which was inspired by theFrench. By using this pedal, a pianist can sustain se-lected notes, while other notes remain unaected. The

sostenuto was rst shown at the French Industrial Expo-sition of 1844 in Paris, by Boisselot & Fils, a Marseillecompany. French piano builders Alexandre Franois De-bain and Claude Montal built sostenuto mechanisms in1860 and 1862, respectively. These innovative eortsdid not immediately catch on with other piano builders.In 1874, Albert Steinway perfected and patented thesostenuto pedal.[9] He began to advertise it publicly in1876, and soon the Steinway company was including iton all of their grands and their high-end uprights.[10]

Other American piano builders quickly adopted thesostenuto pedal into their piano design. The adoption byEuropean manufacturers went far more slowly and wasessentially completed only in recent times. [11]

The term sostenuto is perhaps not the best descriptiveterm for what this pedal actually does. Sostenuto inItalian means sustained.[1] This denition alone wouldmake it sound as if the sostenuto pedal accomplishesthe same thing as the damper, or sustaining pedal.The sostenuto pedal was originally called the tone-sustaining pedal.[10] That name would be more accu-rately descriptive of what the pedal accomplishes, i.e.sustainment of a single tone / group of tones. The pedalholds up only those dampers that were already raised atthe moment that it was depressed. So if a player: (i) holdsdown a note or chord, and (ii) while so doing depressesthis pedal, and then (iii) lifts the ngers from that note orchord while keeping the pedal depressed, then that noteor chord will not be damped until the foot is lifted, despiteany subsequently played notes being damped normally ontheir release by the ngers. While less often specied bycomposers, its selective sustaining of tones is particularlyuseful to performers playing transcriptions of organ mu-sic, or for various case-by-case musical reasons.It is common to nd uprights and even grand pianos thatlack a middle pedal. Even if a piano has a middle pedal,one cannot assume it is a true sostenuto, for there aremany other functions a middle pedal can have other thanthat of sostenuto. Often an uprights middle pedal is an-other half-blow pedal, like the one on the left, exceptthat the middle pedal will slide into a groove to stay en-gaged. Sometimes, themiddle pedalmay only operate thebass dampers.[6] The middle pedal may sometimes lowera muer rail of felt between the hammers and the stringsto mute and signicantly soften the sound, so that onecan practice quietly (also known as a "Practice Rail").[8]True sostenuto is rare on uprights, except for more expen-sive models such as those from Steinway and Bechstein.They are more common on digital pianos as the eect isstraightforward to mimic in software.

1.4 Other pedals

Among other pedals sometimes found on early pianos arethe lute stop, moderator or celeste, bassoon, bu, cem-balo, and swell. The lute pedal created a pizzicato-type

3sound.[12] The moderator, or celeste mechanism useda layer of soft cloth or leather ... interposed betweenhammers and strings to give a sweet, singing and mutedquality.[4] According to Good, "[the piece of leather orcloth was] graduated in thickness across its short dimen-sion. The farther down one pushed the pedal, the fartherthe rail was lowered and the thicker the material throughwhich the hammer struck the strings. With the thickermaterial, the sound was softer and more mued. Such astop was sometimes called a pianissimo stop.[13]

The moderator stop was popular on Viennese pianos,and a similar mechanism is still sometimes tted on up-right pianos today in the form of the practice rail (seeFunctions of the upright pianos middle and left ped-als, below). Joseph Banowetz states that for the bassoonpedal, paper or silk was placed over the bass strings tocreate a buzzing noise that listeners of the day felt resem-bled the sound of the bassoon.[14] The bu stop and cem-balo stops seem to be similar to each other in method ofmanipulation and sound produced. The bu (leather)stop[13] used a narrow strip of soft leather ... pressedagainst the strings to give a dry, soft tone of little sustain-ing power.[4] The cembalo stop pressed leather weightson the strings and modied the sound to make it resem-ble that of the harpsichord.[15] Johannes Pohlmann used aswell pedal on his pianos to raise and lower the lid of thepiano to control the overall volume.[16] Instead of raisingand lowering the lid, the swell was sometimes operated byopening and closing slots in the sides of the piano case.[15]

Often called the father of the pianoforte", MuzioClementi was a composer and musician who founded apiano-building company, and was active in the designingof the pianos that his company built. The Clementi pianorm was later renamed Collard and Collard in 1830, twoyears before Clementis death. Clementi added a featurecalled a harmonic swell."[This pedal] introduced a kind of reverberation eectto give the instrument a fuller, richer sound. The eectuses the sympathetic vibrations set up in the untuned non-speaking length of the strings. Here the soundboard isbigger than usual to accommodate a second bridge (the'bridge of reverberation').[17]

The Dolce Campana pedal pianoforte c. 1850, built byBoardman and Gray, New York, demonstrated yet an-other creative way of modifying the pianos sound. Apedal controlled a series of hammers or weights attachedto the soundboard that would fall onto an equal numberof screws, and created the sound of bells or the harp.[18]

1.4.1 Novelty pedals

In the early years of piano development, many noveltypedals and stops were experimented with before nallysettling on the three that are now used on the modern pi-ano. Some of these pedals were meant to modify lev-els of volume, color, or timbre, while others were used

for special eects, meant to imitate other instruments.Banowetz speaks of these novelty pedals: At their worst,these modications threatened to make the piano into avulgar musical toy.[2]

1.4.2 Janissary or Janizary pedals

During the late eighteenth century, Europeans developeda love for Turkish band music, and the Turkish musicstyle was an outgrowth of this. According to Good, thiswas possibly started when King Augustus the Strongof Poland received the gift of a Turkish military bandat some time after 1710.[19] "Janissary" or "janizary""refers to the Turkish military band that used instrumentsincluding drums, cymbals, and bells, among other loud,cacophonous instruments. Owing to the desire of com-posers and players to imitate the sounds of the Turk-ish military marching bands, piano builders began in-cluding pedals on their pianos by which snare and bassdrums, bells, cymbals, or the triangle could be playedby the touch of a pedal while simultaneously playing thekeyboard.[20]

Up to six pedals would control all these dierent soundeects. Alfred Dolge states, The Janizary pedal, oneof the best known of the early pedal devices, added allkinds of rattling noises to the normal piano performance.It could cause a drumstick to strike the underside of thesoundboard, ring bells, shake a rattle, and even create theeect of a cymbal crash by hitting several bass stringswith a strip of brass foil.[20] Mozarts Rondo alla Turca,from Sonata K. 331, written in 1778, was sometimesplayed using these Janissary eects.[21]

2 Development

2.1 Hand stops

The sustaining, or damper stop, was rst controlled bythe hand, and was included on some of the earliest pi-anos ever built. Stops operated by hand were inconve-nient for the player, who would have to continue playingwith one hand while operating the stop with the other. Ifthis was not possible, an assistant would be used to changethe stop, just as organists do even today.[22] JohannesZumpe's square piano, made in London in 1767, had twohand stops in the case, which acted as sustaining stops forthe bass strings and the treble strings.[22]

2.2 Knee levers

The knee lever to replace the hand stop for the dampercontrol was developed in Germany sometime around1765.[2] According to David Crombie, virtually all thefortepianos of the last three decades of the eighteenth

4 3 BEETHOVEN AND PEDALS

century were equipped with a knee lever to raise andlower the dampers ... ".[23]

Sometime around 1777, Mozart had an opportunity toplay a piano built by Johann Andreas Stein, who hadbeen an apprentice of Gottfried Silbermann. This pianohad knee levers, and Mozart speaks highly of their func-tionality in a letter: The machine which you move withthe knee is also made better by [Stein] than by others. Iscarcely touch it, when o it goes; and as soon as I takemy knee the least bit away, you can't hear the slightestafter-sound.[24]

The only piano Mozart ever owned was one by AntonWalter, c. 1782-1785. It had two knee levers; the oneon the left raised all the dampers, while the one on theright raised only the treble dampers. A moderator stopto produce a softer sound (see Other pedals, below) wascentrally above the keyboard.[25]

2.3 Pedals

Although there is some controversy among authorities asto which piano builder was actually the rst to employpedals rather than knee levers, one could say that pedalsare a characteristic rst developed by manufacturers inEngland.[26] James Parakilas states that the damper stopwas introduced by Gottfried Silbermann,[3] who was therst German piano builder.[27] Parakilas, however, doesnot specify whether Silbermanns damper stop was in theform of a hand lever, knee lever, or pedal. It is of im-portance to note here that many successful English pianobuilders had apprenticed with Silbermann in Germany,and then left for London as a result of the disturbancesof the Seven Years War in Saxony. Among those whore-located to England were Johannes Zumpe, AmericusBackers, and Adam Beyer.[28] Americus Backers, AdamBeyer, and John Broadwood, all piano builders in Eng-land, are credited as being among the rst to incorporatethe new feature. Americus Backers 1772 grand, his onlysurviving instrument, has what are believed to be origi-nal pedals, and is most likely the rst piano to use pedalsrather than knee levers.[29] A square piano built by AdamBeyer of London in 1777 has a damper pedal, as do pi-anos built by John Broadwood, ca. 1783.[1]

After their invention, pedals did not immediately becomethe accepted form for piano stops. German and Viennesebuilders continued to use the knee levers for quite sometime after the English were using pedals. Pedals and kneelevers were even used together on the same instrument ona Nannette Streicher grand built in Vienna in 1814. Thispiano had two knee levers which were Janissary stops forbell and drum, and four pedals for una corda, bassoon,dampers, and moderator.[30]

3 Beethoven and pedals

Throughout his lifetime, Ludwig van Beethoven ownedseveral dierent pianos by dierent makers, all with dif-ferent pedal congurations. His pianos are ne examplesof some experimental and innovative pedal designs of thetime. In 1803, the French piano company Erard gave hima grand, "[thought to be] the most advanced French grandpiano of the time .... It had ... four pedals, including anuna-corda, as well as a damper lift, a lute stop, and amod-erator for softening the tone.[31]

Beethovens Broadwood grand, presented as a gift tohim from the Broadwood company in 1817, had an unacorda pedal and a split damper pedal one half was thedamper for the treble strings, the other was for the bassstrings.[32] In an eort to give Beethoven an instrumentloud enough for him to hear when his hearing was fail-ing, Conrad Graf designed an instrument in 1824 espe-cially for Beethoven with quadruple stringing instead oftriple. Graf only made three instruments of this nature.David Crombie describes this instrument: by adding anextra string, Graf attempted to obtain a tone that wasricher and more powerful, though it didn't make the in-strument any louder than his Broadwood.[33] This extrastring would have provided a bigger contrast when apply-ing keyboard-shifting stops, because this keyboard shiftpedal moved the action from four to two strings. Crom-bie states, these provide a much wider control over thecharacter of the sound than is possible on Grafs usualinstruments.[33] This piano had ve pedals: a keyboardshift (quad to due corde), bassoon, moderator 1, mod-erator 2, and dampers.[33] A dierent four-string system,aliquot stringing, was invented by Julius Blthner in 1873,and is still a feature of Blthner pianos. The Blthneraliquot system uses an additional (hence fourth) string ineach note of the top three piano octaves. This string isslightly higher than the other three strings so that it is notstruck by the hammer. Whenever the hammer strikes thethree conventional strings, the aliquot string vibrates sym-pathetically.As a composer and pianist, Beethoven experimented ex-tensively with pedal. His rst marking to indicate use ofa pedal in a score was in his rst two piano concertos,in 1795. Earlier than this, Beethoven had called for theuse of the knee lever in a sketch from 179092; withthe knee is marked for a series of chords. According toJoseph Banowetz, This is the earliest-known indicationfor a damper control in a score.[34] Haydn did not specifyits use in a score until 1794. All in all, there are nearly 800indications for pedal in authentic sources of Beethovenscompositions, making him by far the rst composer to behighly prolic in pedal usage.[35]

54 Pedal pianoAlong with the development of the pedals on the pianocame the phenomenon of the pedal piano, a piano witha pedalboard. Some of the early pedal pianos date backto 1815.[10] The pedal piano developed partially for or-ganists to be able to practice pedal work away from theorgan. In some instances, the pedal piano was actuallya special type of piano with a built-in pedal board and ahigher keyboard and bench, like an organ. Other times,an independent pedal board and set of strings could beconnected to a regular grand piano.Mozart had a pedalboard made for his piano. His fa-ther, Leopold, speaks of this pedalboard in a letter: "[thepedal] stands under the instrument and is about two feetlonger and extremely heavy.[25]

Alfred Dolge writes of the pedal mechanisms that his un-cle, Louis Schone, constructed for both Robert Schumannand Felix Mendelssohn in 1843.[36] Schumann preferredthe pedal board to be connected to the upright piano,while Mendelssohn had a pedal mechanism connected tohis grand piano. Dolge describes Mendelssohns pedalmechanism: The keyboard for pedaling was placed un-der the keyboard for manual playing, had 29 notes andwas connected with an action placed at the back of the pi-ano where a special soundboard, covered with 29 strings,was built into the case.[36]

In addition to using his pedal piano for organ practice,Schumann composed several pieces specically for thepedal piano. Among these compositions are Six StudiesOp. 56, Four Sketches Op. 58, and Six Fugues on BachOp. 60.[37] Other composers who used pedal pianos wereMozart, Liszt, Alkan and Gounod.[38]

The piano, and specically the pedal mechanism andstops underwent a lot of experimentation during the for-mative years of the instrument, before nally arriving atthe current pedal conguration. Banowetz states, Theseand a good number of other novelty pedal mechanismseventually faded from existence as the piano grew to ma-turity in the latter part of the nineteenth century, nallyleaving as survivors of this torturous evolution only to-days basic three pedals.[14]

5 LocationThe location of pedals on the piano was another aspect ofpedal development that uctuated greatly during the evo-lution of the instrument. Piano builders were quite cre-ative with their pedal placement on pianos, which some-times gave the instruments a comical look, compared towhat is usually seen today. The oldest surviving Englishgrand, built by Backers in 1772, and many Broadwoodgrands had two pedals, una corda and damper, whichwere attached to the legs on the left and right of thekeyboard.[29] James Parakilas describes this pedal loca-

tion as giving the piano a pigeon-toed look,[3] for theyturned in slightly. A table piano built by Jean-Henri Papein the mid-nineteenth century had pedals on the two frontlegs of the piano, but unlike those on the Backers andBroadwood, these pedals faced straight in towards eachother rather than out.[18] A particularly unusual design isdemonstrated in the Dog Kennel piano. It was built bySebastien Mercer in 1831, and was nicknamed the DogKennel piano because of its shape.[39] Under the uprightpiano where the modern pedals would be located is asemi-circular hollow space where the feet of the playercould rest. The una corda and damper pedals are at theleft and right of this space, and face straight in, like thetable piano pedals. Eventually during the nineteenth cen-tury, pedals were attached to a frame located centrally un-derneath the piano, to strengthen and stabilize the mech-anism. According to Parakilas, this framework on thegrand piano often took the symbolic shape and name ofa lyre,[3] and it still carries the name pedal lyre today.

6 Recent development in pedal con-guration

See also: Innovations in the piano

Although the piano and its pedal conguration has beenin its current form since the late nineteenth century, thereis a possibility that sometime in the future the pedal con-guration may change again. In 1987, the Fazioli pianocompany in Sacile, Italy, designed the longest piano madeuntil this time (10 ft, 2 in.). This piano has four pedals:damper, sostenuto, una corda, and half-blow.[8]

7 References[1] Siepmann, J. (1996). The Piano: The Complete Illustrated

Guide to theWorlds Most Popular Musical Instrument, HalLeonard & Carlton Books, 17.

[2] Banowetz, J. (1985). The Pianists Guide to Pedaling,Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 5.

[3] Parakilas, J., et al. (1999). Piano Roles: Three HundredYears of Life with the Piano, New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 48.

[4] Gill, D., ed. (1981). The Book of the Piano, Ithaca: Cor-nell University Press, 27.

[5] Williams, J. (2002). The Piano: An Inspirational Guide tothe Piano and Its Place in History, New York: BillboardBooks, 45.

[6] Good, E. (1982). Giraes, Black Dragons, and Other Pi-anos: A Technological History From Cristofori to the Mod-ern Concert Grand, Stanford: Stanford University Press,22.

6 7 REFERENCES

[7] Good 1982:22.[8] Crombie 1995:94.[9] Williams 2002:26.[10] Banowetz 1985:4.[11] For a reference describing the lack of sostenuto pedals

on European pianos as of 1982, see Good 1982:22. Thewebsites of Bechstein, Bsendorfer, Petrof, and Fazioli asof 2015 all describe their top-of-the-line instruments asincluding the sostenuto, and for Grotrian it is an availableoption.

[12] Good 1982:74.[13] Good 1982:110.[14] Banowetz 1985:5-6.[15] Banowetz 1985:6[16] Crombie 1995:18-19).[17] Crombie 1995:31.[18] Gill 1981:248.[19] Good 1982:111-112[20] Dolge, Alfred. (1911). Pianos and Their Makers: A

Comprehensive History of Development of the Piano, NewYork: Dover Publications, 35.

[21] Crombie 1995:26.[22] Good 1982:48[23] Crombie, D. (1995). Piano: A Photographic History of the

WorldsMost Celebrated Instrument, San Francisco: MillerFreeman Books, 19.

[24] Bie, O. (1899). AHistory of the Pianoforte and PianofortePlayers, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, 136.

[25] Williams 2002:35.[26] Good 1982:62.[27] Kennedy, Michael. (1980). The Concise Oxford Dictio-

nary of Music, 3rd ed., New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 598.

[28] Good 1982:40-42.[29] Williams 2002:21.[30] Good 1982:79).[31] Williams 2002:36.[32] Crombie 1995:37-38.[33] Crombie 1995:36.[34] Banowetz 1985:144.[35] Banowetz 1985:143-144.[36] Dolge 1911:191.[37] Williams 2002:40.[38] Banowetz 1985:3-4.[39] Crombie 1995:42.

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The individual pedalsThe damper pedalUna corda pedalHalf-blow pedal

Sostenuto pedalOther pedalsNovelty pedalsJanissary or Janizary pedals

DevelopmentHand stopsKnee leversPedals

Beethoven and pedalsPedal pianoLocationRecent development in pedal configurationReferencesText and image sources, contributors, and licensesTextImagesContent license