The Damper Pedal

What is the damper pedal on piano?

The damper pedal, also called the sustain pedal, is the pedal farthest to the right under the pianist’s feet. When pressed, the pedal sustains the tones from any keys played even after the pianist is no longer holding the keys down. By far the most often used piano pedal, it eliminates breaks in the sound and blends notes together.

How does the damper pedal work?

When you press down on piano keys, felt-covered hammers inside the instrument strike the strings, producing tones. When you remove your fingers, a series of dampers touch the strings and stop the vibrations. However, the damper pedal raises all the dampers away from the strings, letting the strings vibrate freely even when your fingers leave the keys.

Is a damper pedal the same as a sustain pedal?

Yes, these are simply two different terms for the same pedal. Because it sustains tones by lifting the dampers away from the strings, the pedal has two names.

Why don't the highest notes need dampers?

The high notes on piano are produced by strings with a much weaker tone, and the sound decays so quickly that dampers are not effective. Also, by allowing the higher strings to always vibrate sympathetically with lower notes, they contribute more resonance and tone quality. 

What are common techniques used with the damper pedal?

Syncopated (or legato) pedaling

This technique allows you to sustain tones and avoid a break in the sound when your fingers lift off the keys. Practice a short chord progression on the left hand, maybe just four chords in a repeating loop, until you can play them fluently. Then, practice the following:

Position your right foot over the damper pedal. The foot should raise and drop at the ankle (don’t lift up your entire leg).
While counting a slow, steady four-beat pattern aloud, play the chord on beat 1 while quickly lifting and dropping the foot. The hand and foot action must happen simultaneously. This allows you to dampen the sound of previous notes to let the sound of the new chord be heard cleanly.
On beat 3, lift the chord up but keep the foot down.
On the next beat 1, repeat steps 3 and 4. Do this as many times as you need to teach the foot to go up when the hand goes down and stay down when the hand goes up. If done correctly, you won’t hear a break in the sound when you change chords, and you won’t blur one chord into the next. As you practice, listen for a clean change of tone with no overlap and no silence in between each chord.

Half pedal

For complex musical textures, you may need to sustain some tones while ensuring others don’t become blurred. By pressing the damper pedal only partially, the dampers will be in an in-between state, lightly contacting the strings without fully lifting away. This is an effective way to sustain bass tones while dampening out the treble notes.

When did the damper pedal become standard on pianos?

The damper pedal was standardized by the early 19th Century. Manufacturers like John Broadwood and Americus Backers introduced some of the first damper pedals in the 1770s. At the time, hand stops and knee levers were used to control the dampers, and remained common features on early pianos into the early 1800s. Beethoven’s 1817 Broadwood grand piano even had an early split damper pedal, half affecting the low strings and half for the upper strings.

How was the damper pedal used in Classical and Romantic era piano music​?

During the latter half of the 18th Century, the damper pedal was used to change the instrumental timbre, rather than help achieve legato. The strings on early pianos like the fortepiano were thinner and had a faster decay than on modern pianos. With the dampers raised, the resulting sympathetic vibrations produced more of an echo effect than the blurring of harmonies. The first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata could be played on a late 18th Century fortepiano with the dampers raised throughout (as was Beethoven’s direction) without the different arpeggios being smeared together. 

Because the more robust pianos that emerged in the 19th Century had longer tone decay, the blurring effect of the damper pedal on different harmonies became more problematic. Pianists began to use the damper pedal for legato and “cleaning out” the previous harmony. This technique is now widely used for pieces like the Moonlight Sonata.

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman,
and today we're going to learn how, when, and why we use those magical and mysterious
pedals down at the bottom of your piano.
Let's come to the piano--wait..
I mean let's come under the piano to get started.
So, the petal here on the left is called the soft pedal,
or if you want to sound very intellige ...