Intro to Piano Pedal

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Once you’ve mastered working with 2 hands and all 10 fingers, it’s probably time to start to use your feet!

Piano pedalling can be tricky to learn. In this video I’ll give you some tips for how to get started learning to play the pedal.

  1. The pedal we’re using is the damper pedal, it’s the one on the far right. It releases the dampers that stop the notes from sounding. (If you have more than one pedal, you’ll also have an ‘una corda pedal’ and possible also a ‘sostenuto pedal.’)
  2. ‘Legato pedal’ means changing the pedal after the notes are pressed so that they have a legato sound.
  3. It’s important to master changing the pedal immediately after you play the note, so that when you have short notes you can still achieve a legato pedal sound.
  4. Keep your heel on the floor!
  5. Simplify your drills by playing single notes at first.
  6. Watch the video for a demonstration of all this and more!