Damper pedal The
damper pedal,
sustain pedal, or
sustaining pedal is to the right of the other pedals, and is used more often than the other pedals. It raises all the dampers off the strings so that they keep vibrating after the player releases the key. In effect, the damper pedal makes every string on the piano a
sympathetic string, creating a rich tonal quality. This effect may be behind the saying that the damper pedal is "...the soul of the piano." Soon after its invention, virtually all makers integrated the as a standard fixture. On Cristofori's pianos, the una corda mechanism was operated by a hand stop, not a pedal. The stop was a knob on the side of the keyboard. When the una corda was activated, the entire action shifted to the right so that the hammers hit one string () instead of two strings (due corde). Dominic Gill says that when the hammers strike only one string, the piano "produces a softer, more ethereal tone". By the late 18th century, piano builders had begun triple stringing the notes on the piano. This change, affecting the 's function, is described by
Joseph Banowetz: The sound of the on early pianos created a larger difference in color and timbre than it does on the modern piano. On the modern piano, the pedal makes the hammers of the treble section hit two strings instead of three. In the case of the bass strings, the hammer normally strikes either one or two strings per note. The lowest bass notes on the piano are a single thicker string. For these notes, the action shifts the hammer so that it strikes the string on a different, lesser-used part of the hammer nose. Edwin Good states,
Beethoven took advantage of the ability of his piano to create a wide range of tone color in two of his piano works. In his
Piano Concerto No. 4, Beethoven specifies the use of , , and . He calls for , then , gradually two and then all strings, in
Sonata Op. 106. A more accurate term for the left pedal on an upright piano is the half-blow pedal. When the pedal is activated, the hammers move closer to the strings, so that there is less distance for the hammer to swing. He began to advertise it publicly in 1876, and soon the
Steinway company was including it on all of their grands and their high-end uprights. The term "sostenuto" is perhaps not the best descriptive term for what this pedal actually does.
Sostenuto in Italian means
sustained. The middle pedal may sometimes lower a muffler rail of felt between the hammers and the strings to mute and significantly soften the sound, so that one can practice quietly (also known as a "
Practice Rail"). True sostenuto is rare on uprights, except for more expensive models such as those from Steinway and Bechstein. They are more common on
digital pianos as the effect is straightforward to mimic in software.
Other pedals Among other pedals sometimes found on early pianos are the lute stop, moderator or celeste,
bassoon, buff, cembalo, and
swell. The
lute pedal created a
pizzicato-type sound. The moderator, or celeste mechanism used a layer of soft cloth or leather between hammers and strings to provide a sweet, muted quality. The moderator stop was popular on Viennese pianos, and a similar mechanism is still sometimes fitted on upright pianos today in the form of the practice rail (see
Sostenuto pedal, above). Joseph Banowetz states that for the bassoon pedal, paper or silk was placed over the bass strings to create "...a buzzing noise that listeners of the day felt resembled the sound of the bassoon." The buff stop and cembalo stops seem similar to each other in method of manipulation and sound produced. The buff ("leather") stop
Johannes Pohlmann used a
swell pedal on his pianos to raise and lower the lid of the piano to control the overall volume. Instead of raising and lowering the lid, the swell was sometimes operated by opening and closing slots in the sides of the piano case. The Dolce Campana pedal pianoforte c. 1850, built by Boardman and Gray, New York, demonstrated yet another creative way of modifying the piano's sound. A pedal controlled a series of hammers or weights attached to the soundboard that would fall onto an equal number of screws, and created the sound of bells or the harp. The
Fazioli concert grand piano model F308 includes a fourth pedal to the left of the traditional three pedals. This pedal acts similarly to the "half-blow" pedal on an upright piano, in that it collectively moves the hammers somewhat closer to the strings to reduce the volume without changing the tone quality, as the una-corda does. The F308 is the first modern concert grand to offer such a feature.
Novelty pedals In the early years of piano development, many novelty pedals and stops were experimented with before finally settling on the three that are now used on the modern piano. Some of these pedals were meant to modify levels of volume, color, or timbre, while others were used for special effects, meant to imitate other instruments. Banowetz speaks of these novelty pedals: "At their worst, these modifications threatened to make the piano into a vulgar musical toy";
Janissary or Janizary pedals has five pedals for percussion instruments including tambourine. During the late 18th century, Europeans developed a love for
Turkish band music, and the
Turkish music style was an outgrowth of this. According to Good, this possibly began "when
King Augustus the Strong of Poland received the gift of a Turkish military band at some time after 1710." "
Janissary" or "
janizary" refers to the Turkish military band that used instruments including drums, cymbals, and bells, among other loud, cacophonous instruments. Owing to the desire of composers and players to imitate the sounds of the Turkish military marching bands, piano builders began including pedals on their pianos by which snare and bass drums, bells, cymbals, or the triangle could be played by the touch of a pedal while simultaneously playing the keyboard. Up to six pedals controlled all these sound effects.
Alfred Dolge states, "The Janizary pedal, one of the best known of the early pedal devices, added all kinds of rattling noises to the normal piano performance. It could cause a drumstick to strike the underside of the soundboard, ring bells, shake a rattle, and even create the effect of a cymbal crash by hitting several bass strings with a strip of brass foil." ==Development==