Instant Smoother Pedal! | Intermediate Lesson | Pianist Academy

[@PianistAcademy1]

🆓 ➡ Want to learn how to accomplish more during your practice AND get some free sheet music?? ➡➡ bit.ly/FreePianistDownloads

[@PianistAcademy1]

I hope you find this pedal tip helpful! Looking forward to hearing from you in the comments!

[@alisonduffy6206]

Hi Charles, I loved the way you played (and pedaled) this. Nice shoes!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you, Alison! And thanks for watching :-)

[@serwoolsley]

loved the performance

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thank you, Ser Woolsley! And thanks for watching!

[@ami2846]

Lovely demo. I was taught to use the pedal this way from the beginning, but it’s still hard to master. Sometimes I think my foot didn’t get the memo.😅

[@PianistAcademy1]

Haha! It’s good to hear you had a good teacher! The coordination can be tricky for some time, yes!

[@hetedeleambacht6608]

Pedaling between fast note.chord changes is very tricky! I mtrying to improve that. I have a tendency of blurring my play with too much/inappropraiate pedaling. And it hides lack of proper play as well! In a sudden stroke of enlightment I sometimes play pieces without pedal to check my accuracy. Usually what happens then is I lay down my head on the key board and decide to give up piano entirely, untill I think of some nice melody line that I can try to interweave in some chord progressions...!

[@PianistAcademy1]

I really should do a video on the importance of checking your playing without pedal! It's a fantastic topic. I've been finding myself telling a few students recently that the key to cleaner pedal is better coordination between the fingers and foot, not just a faster foot. The pedal needs to stay up long enough to actually mute the strings, and that takes time. In the meantime, your hands and fingers need to stay engaged with everything you'd like the next pedal to pick up.

[@kristianpaul7]

Keep the good content!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Absolutely! Thanks for watching!

[@CyrusandAurelius]

Thank you. This is great that you used a song. I was wondering if you can address songs with many arpeggios for ocean etude or Liszt un sospiro and if it would apply to the vast majority of arpeggios

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks for the suggestion! Let me see what I can work in!

[@CyrusandAurelius]

@@PianistAcademy1 thank you so much for your consideration!

[@daleainsley9695]

I was very intimidated by the pedal (It sounded aweful) as I've been exploring my piano. I know it is early to worry too much about it but I think I'm going to play with it a little while learning Eidelweise (sp?) Thanks for making the overwhelming into a bite size morsel that I can fold into my future sound dynamics!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Definitely, Dale! Keep it up! Always best to practice in some small things a little here and there than try to bite off too much!

[@aBachwardsfellow]

Excellent explanations and demonstration! ummm ... as an organist, what should I do with the other 30 pedals ... ;-)

[@PianistAcademy1]

Haha, no expert there! I took organ lessons for one semester and had to improvise around an original theme in the baroque style… including with pedals. It was extraordinarily challenging.

[@aBachwardsfellow]

@@PianistAcademy1 LOL - good for you ! Try playing "Are you Sleeping" or "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in a round between one hand and the pedals - :-)

[@hetedeleambacht6608]

i had an acoustic piano at my former appartment, a Rippen. had to do it away because I live in an upstairs appartment, couldnt get it there..... I have a digital piano now. It `does the job` but honestly.........i cannot finetune pedaling, like the feeling is completely different, like you feel there is no physical connection with the hammers, there is weight and counterweight going on but has nothing to do with interaction with an acoustic piano. O how I miss my humble singing Rippen (or should I rather say thundering, it had marvelous bass notes) The same for the feel on the keys....I miss the physical connection with the hammers and entire wooden/metal sound system....Digital revolution democratised piano playing, true! I shouldnt complain, I know 😏

[@PianistAcademy1]

It's true! Digital instruments have made having a nice and well-maintained piano very affordable, but yes, they still don't compare to acoustic pianos, especially in the finer details. My own digital is a 15 year old Kawai that doesn't even have half pedal support, so I especially feel your pain haha.

[@clockfixer5049]

Great lesson! At the end you said ‘practice smarter’ and I decided to ask an unrelated question concerned with practicing. My weaker right hand (since I’m left-handed) lower forearm seems to tire after arpeggios and Hanon’s ex. 5,6 (with forearm rotation). Is it an ok tiredness, since there are lots of stretches and the hand is in an extended position (I don’t get the same feeling in the LH, although I do the very same movements) Or maybe it is just that I need to cut down on the time I devote to repetition of those exercises (I do spend up to 45 minutes doing them, sometimes more, sometimes less)

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks for the question! 45 minutes is on the very long side to devote to technique only. If your practice time during the day is around 3+ hours, 45 minutes might be closer to an OK division of time. Not so if you are practice for about 2 hours or less. Related to that, practicing any phrase or small group of phrases that use the same technique repeatedly for more than 20 minutes can be detrimental to your physical arm, wrist, and hand health. Even within that time, I'd recommend every 5 minutes to take a break and shake out the hands. I suffered a wrist injury practicing the Appassionata because of incorrectly practicing a group of phrases for 30 to 45 minutes on end. And the injury was in my weak hand. The sign of perfect technique is little to no feeling of weakness or exertion during practice or performance. If/when that feeling is present, we really need to be aware of the time we are spending working, and, instead of working to build strength or endurance, spend the time figuring out how to be more efficient. The goal for any exercise or repertoire where we are utilizing rotation is to make the motion just about as easy as turning a door knob. I'd suggest slowing down the Hanon and really trying to analyze where any extra tension is coming from. I agree about the 'stretch' in Hanon and also that it never allows time to relax mid-exercise when playing at or above the 108 metronome marking. Let me know if you have any other questions about this!

[@clockfixer5049]

@@PianistAcademy1 Thank you so much for elaborating on this! I’ll definitely try and mix up the technique part of the practice. Do you believe the heaviness of the keys could be a bit of an issue as well? Mine are on the extreme side of heavy and require quite a bit of effort, especially felt at the end of the day when fingers are limp and you struggle to press a single key as it tires you no matter how precise and well-executed the action is.

[@PianistAcademy1]

@@clockfixer5049 I think that very heavy keys can more readily expose a technique that has too much tension. Unless you are practicing concerti or some really big (loudness and length) music, heavier keys shouldn't feel "more difficult" to press. I have noticed in my own practicing and in student's that a heavier action can result in the shoulders tightening and raising, which then spreads into the neck and back and also into the forearm. It can be difficult to resist the temptation to constantly work "harder" to achieve more sound or power. Do you work with your hands the rest of the day? When you mentioned the end of the day being difficult that reminds me of days where I'm working a lot with my hands on other things. In those cases, it can be very difficult, to the point of maybe impossible, to let go in the way that's necessary to play with relaxed technique.

[@clockfixer5049]

@@PianistAcademy1 I do a lot of typing and use a lot of touchpad in my line of work, so that definitely must be an aggravating circumstance. You've made a great point on how heavy action can expose poor technique. I'll try and see how it all works out.

[@serwoolsley]

i'm playing gnossienne n1 from satie and i came back to this video cause, yes my pedal is not that great, but i use it in the "wrong" way cause otherwise the sound of the group of notes number 1 doesn't go away fast enough to not be sustained into the group of notes number 2 and it sounds terrible, don't know if you understand what i'm saying, here now i noticed you are using also the soft pedal, pretty much all the time, is it what i'm missing? do you have any tips?

[@PianistAcademy1]

I could do a bit of a demo in the next livestream if that would help. In the Satie, the pedal should still be lifting on the strike of the low F and then held until the next low F. If you are lifting at that point yet the sound isn't clearing, that's due to the pedal coming back down too quickly OR the lift not being a full lift where the dampers really dampen everything OR the damper pedal being out of regulation where it's not dampening as quickly as it should be. Satie is generally supposed to have quite a lot of blur within the phrase. With the soft pedal, that's a whole other monster with a lot of nuance itself. My piano at home is extremely bright for classical stuff, so I tend to use it more often than I would if I owned a Steinway, and I use probably only 25% or less of what I do at home if I'm playing on stage somewhere. So it's very variable. It's also not "on" or "off" and I rarely have it fully depressed. Some teachers told me to absolutely NEVER use it. Others told me I could use it on every phrase if I desired. Both sets of teachers with differing opinions were highly successful concert artists, so one isn't more correct than the other. I will eventually get to some soft pedal tips, but I'd love to demonstrate them on an instrument where the shifts in tone are more apparent than they are on my home piano!

[@serwoolsley]

@@PianistAcademy1 ok then i hope to catch the next live!

[@John-boy]

I see your left foot pedalling too but no explanation of the affect on the sound.

[@PianistAcademy1]

John, thanks for watching! That's at least one if not 10 separate videos! The left pedal on a grand piano is the soft pedal or 'una corda' pedal. It shifts the entire action to the right to allow the hammers to strike the strings on different parts of the felt. I use the una corda pedal not only to create a more mellow tone (which is the usual application) but also as a tool to shift tonality through a phrase. On an upright piano the left pedal is very different, it simply move the hammers closer to the strings instead of shifting them to the right. On a digital, the left pedal is usually more like an "on/off" switch to either trigger the una corda samples (of the left pedal fully depressed) or the tre corda samples (the left pedal not depressed at all.) I hope that overview of an explanation is of some help!

[@meaghanparent8740]

🤯🤯🤯👍🤓

[@PianistAcademy1]

Haha, thanks Meaghan!

[@monographic6700]

I need to let you know, your incorrect method of pedalling sounds great to me too. 😄

[@PianistAcademy1]

Haha, you are kind, thanks for watching!