What do the pedals on a piano do? | Cunningham Piano Company, Philadelphia, King of Prussia, PA

welcome to Cunningham piano I'm Hugh sung in this video I'm going to answer the question what do the petals on a piano do now depending on the keyboard or piano that you have you'll find anywhere from 1 to 3 petals and you operate with your foot and they all have different functions so let's start off with the petal that is most commonly used on acoustic pianos it will always be the pedal on the furthest right or on a digital keyboard especially low and keyboards if you only have one pedal it'll always be this pedal it's called either a damper pedal or a sustain pedal basically it does the same thing in fact the names are synonymous with their function ok so let's take a look at the damper or sustain pedal the damper pedal or the sustain pedal controls these pieces of wood with felt underneath resting on top of each string every key has a damper that's connected to it alright when I play a note on the piano and I pushed on a key that lifts up the corresponding damper when I let go of this note with my finger the damper comes back down and stops the sound but every note will have its own damper to control its sound and when the sound is released now when I push the damper pedal down notice all of the dampers come up all at once for every single string when I play the key and keep my foot on that damper pedal down the keys will continue to ring until I let go of the pedal and the dampers come back down and the felt stops the strings from vibrating ok so this is a great way to keep this is one of the most magical sounds that you can create on the path on the piano pushing the deck pedal down and letting the sound ring and then lifting up your foot to stop the sound that's what the damper or the sustain pedal does it's one of the most essential functions in making music on the piano okay so now let's say you have a piano or a keyboard with two pedals what does that second pedal do well the second pedal will always be to the furthest left and that pedal is the soft pedal or an una Corda what is it recorded well again the name kind of is synonymous the soft pedal makes the piano or keyboard sound softer let's take a look and see how this works when I push down the soft pedal or the UNA Corda look carefully you may miss this I'm going to push the pedal down did you see that did you see the keys shifting slightly to the left what this is doing is moving the action over and if you'll notice you have three strings for each key or each note by moving the action over slightly what that's doing is moving the Hammers over so instead of striking all three of these strings you only strike one of the strings hence the name una Corda or you see as an abbreviation so here's the sound of the piano play normally now I'm going to push the UNA Corda pedal down notice everything moves slightly to the right can you hear it slightly softer now that's what the left pedal the far left pedal will do it's our soft pedal or the UNA Corda now let's talk about the middle pedal now this pedals function will differ depending on whether you're on an upright piano or on a grand piano and some uprights will mimic the grand pianos function so let's talk first about what it does on a grand piano okay on a grand piano the middle pedal is called the sostenuto pedal and when you push this it has a really cool function let's take a look at what this does some music calls for certain notes to be held and sustained while other notes stay disconnected or say or are stopped like you would normally like it would work individual note to do that we use what's called the soft another pedal which is the pedal in the middle as I mentioned ok so how does this work the way this works is you play the note first and hold it with your fingers then I push the sostenuto pedal notice these three notes are still having their dampers held up and that's being done with my soft stone as a pedal in the middle but all the rest of the notes the dampers come right back down it's only these notes that I pre held and locked with the softer the pedal that are being sustained so once again I have to first play with my fingers hold the note while I'm holding those notes then I push the soft in the pedal and then those notes are helped now if I want to I could still use the damper pedal at the same time with my saucepan of the pedal so watch I can do this play these no catch it with the soft of the pedal push the damper pedal down and then control now everything is ringing now the one I lift the damper pedal those other notes are stopped and these notes are still sustaining that's the softer neutral pedal now on an upright piano that middle pedal is sometimes used as a practice pedal and when you push this down you'll have the option to sometimes lock it by pushing it also to the left and what this will do is it'll be it'll bring another thicker piece of cloth between the Hammers and the strings for a really muted sound designed really for practicing so that when you play it's super soft and doesn't disturb your neighbors some higher-end upright pianos will actually preserve the softer the function that you find in Grand kind of like we just demonstrated anyway that's a look at what the three pedals on pianos do I hope you found this exclamation helpful if I'd love to get your feedback and you have other questions we love answering them here in our video blog be sure to leave your questions comments and feedback in the comments section below and as always we have a weekly newsletter so be sure to subscribe so that we can let you know whenever we have new videos and articles answering your questions once again I'm Hugh sung for Cunningham piano thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: CunninghamPiano

Views: 4,520,129

Keywords: piano, piano pedals, piano pedal, damper pedal, sustain pedal, soft pedal, una corda, sostenuto pedal, grand piano, upright piano, Cunningham Piano, Hugh Sung

Id: xwYBBWFDZRA

Length: 6min 54sec (414 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 18 2017