Grade 1 exam piece, finding it hard to use peddle

[innerspirit]

I live in the UK and working towards my grade 1 (ABRSM)

the second of my peices in the exam book is B:2 (a story from long ago, by mertha mier)

I love the piece and play it quite well (my teacher just advised on a little tweek here and there, but the basics and melody are coming along nicely)

The teacher did note that this piece has alot of peddle use in it, and while he hasnt told me to concentrate on this through the week i thought id give it a go.

My problem is my feet dont seem to have any co-ordination and I find impossible to play anything while using the peddle... (I even just tried playing scales and using it just to get used to the action of moving my foot on and off the peddle, but i couldnt even keep a basic scale going while trying to use the peddle..

I'll take this up with my teacher of course when i see him, but wondered if anyone else has this problem or any advice?
The way I see it now (id be better off lossing a few marks in my exam not using the peddle and playing the piece well....or risk playing the peddle and completely messing things up and failing miserabley.
Ive spoken to my friend who plays and he is supprised that id have to use the peddle for a grade 1 exam and thought it was in the mid grades he started useing the peddle for exam etc


anyone have any points cos at the moment i feel it would be quicker to learn another piece rather than just get frustrated learning how to use a peddle

[pianisten1989]

Ha! I played through another piece yesterday or so, and noticed that I played it a lot better when I didn't have to focus on the pedal. What I did was: I played the piece slower, so knew I could play it without any mistakes, and at the same time really said "Up" and "down" to the foot. Ofc you have to start really simple - go all the way down, and then all the way up, while counting.  Remember, you have to play slowly, so you have time to think about everything you're doing.

If this doesn't work, maybe you could try like.. playing a waltz, with the bass-note in the left hand and a chord in the rightonly going up (c major, d minor, e minor, f major...) and change every time the left hand plays a note.

[lunchalpha]

Pedaling is usually done at the discretion of the musician, even in pieces where there are no marks for pedaling. It's a pretty important part of the piano and especially nice if used correctly, so it's good to get familiar with.

Whenever I see a piece that calls for pedal, I try to break it up into sections of pedal and non-pedal. My thinking is if I can play the parts where it says I should use the pedal, and the parts that don't, it's only a matter of connecting the pieces together.

[innerspirit]

Thx for the replies, I'll try and break it down and slow things up and keep plugging away until something sticks

I agree that using the peddle is an important skill, but would u say im right in saying that for a grade 1 exam is a little advanced??

None of the other pieces have any peddle work....and this piece has alot (about 16 _/\_ and the piece is only 5 lines long? (does that seem a little excessive for a grade 1 exam?

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Well I don't think pedaling is "easy"... I've been playing piano for a few years and I still need to work on my pedaling... :-/
Whenever I add pedaling to a piece, I play slower so I can focus on my pedaling and because it can be a little tricky to coordinate at first.

But I don't think using the pedal is too advanced for grade 1. So don't be intimidated by it
I think most people learn to use the pedal pretty early on, I remember when I first learned to use the pedal, I was so excited! Haha.
It just takes practice, because pedaling, like notes, is different for every piece, and if it's your first time using pedal, of course it takes a little getting used to.
 When you start learning a piece, you probably started hands separately. And found it hard to put the 2 hands together. But eventually you got it.
You can think of pedaling as almost adding a third hand, in terms of coordination. Practice makes perfect!
Just like playing with 2 hands usually sounds better than playing hands separately, adding pedaling can make your piece sound better too.