How do you teach the use of the damper pedal?

[m1469]

(plesae forgive if this has already been discussed, however, I could not find it anywhere)

I am a little embarrassed about this question, but this is a spot in my teaching that I find myself nearly trying to avoid.  I don't remember learning how to use the pedal because I explored it myself, I suppose once my feets could reach them (not that I learned correctly) and from then on I have had aid with certain aspects from my teachers.

I did have one teacher who seemed to have developed a systematic approach, but I don't think I got all of it and I simply could not ask questions.  I suppose his main concepts were pointed toward timing, when you release, when you engage.  One thing I might add is that his attitude toward the damper pedal was not that it allowed for the sound to happen, but that it clears the unwanted sound out of the air.  I very much appreciate this concept.

Do other teachers have a systematic approach to teaching "correct" pedalling technique? 

Mostly I have my students listen for a clean sound, and I will work with them in placement of the foot on the pedal, lifting the foot and putting it back down, how far one needs to depress the pedal and there being no need to lift the foot actually off the pedal... but other than that...?  I suppose timing is a part of the issue, it is slightly ambiguous.  I often feel as though we are just feeling our way through the darkness on this one (maybe that's all we are ever doing with anything... lol).

Any help is appreciated.

m1469

[pianonut]

this is an excellent question, and one that i hope you get lots of replies to. 

i've not been superb at teaching this myself, as i feel that i am still learning (from my current teacher) to make minimal movements, and be quicker about it (or quick/slow/quick). 

i have a book entitled 'pedalling the modern pianoforte' by york bowen.  the first thing he starts with is the shoe!  some ladies shoes easily bend at the toe.  you don't want this.  you can test your shoes and see if your shoe will work by placing your foot on the pedal (ball of foot and not toe) with the heel placed behind the middle of the two right pedals.

*when you are not playing the pedal, my teacher says DO NOT KICK YOUR OTHER FOOT BACK (as many are prone to do) to balance.  rather, keep BOTH feet available at all times.  (may have to change the way you balance yourself)
this was difficult for me at first and i had to rebalance myself.  BUT, if you watch many professional pianists, they oftentimes do not move the legs way back either.  (old habits die hard for some of the older pianists - or they may not wish to change this)  i believe the reasoning is so that you won't unconciously create a distraction for yourself with your feet or not 'be there' on time.


anyway, back to the shoe thing.  i have found moderately low heeled pumps with rounded toe to be great for women, and also, many men's style shoes have a more rounded toe.  the pointed ones don't give you much to work with.

[pianonut]

so i don't post forever on one post, i'll split this up:

the book makes an analogy of the left pedal being definately occasional (and not a constant foot rest) much like the clutch of a car/truck.  i used to like to hold my left foot back (on toe) to balance myself.  now, i try TRY to keep my feet down...but it's hard.

the first example in this book is a passage from the 'g minor brahms rhapsody' and showing how to correctly pedal legato.  it's quite detailed, so perhaps the best thing to do is to buy this book - but for a short explaination...

"the actual duration at the 'damping out' position of the pedal -  that is when in it at the top - must be calculated and varied in length according to the conditions at the time, such as strength of tone, speed of playing, and above all, height or depth of pitch." 

i would pick pieces for students that first use just the simple dampering that the brahms rhapsody does until the student can hear clean pedalling of chord changes. then, as the tempo speeds up, the damping should become 'tighter.'
by this, i mean, you can start 'feeling' with your toe, when the actual release happens and once it does you don't have to pedal any lower.  and visa-versa, when it stops the keys, you can make it a 'little movm't up' and not a 'slap.'  it's really quite difficult at first to play AND use the pedals.  i remember way back, it was hard for me for several years.  in college, i was still OVER pedalling and had to learn to minimize movement.

now, again back at it (learning-wise) i have found that if you combine 'feel' with 'hearing' you can also refine your pedalling.  you have to listen keener each time and not get lazy. 

[pianonut]

a moderate speed is better than a jerky motion.  they could practice 'pilates' for the foot.  tip your foot an inch or two off the floor, and just move it up and down about an inch and a half.  gradually, you'll have stronger ankles.  this is my workout for the day (along with finger stretches up and out).

[whynot]

Don't be embarassed, this is a great question.  It's something we do so responsively in the moment ourselves, it's hard to know what to tell students about it.  I don't know the perfect teaching method for it, but here's what I'm doing lately:  I start by talking about when to lift the foot, as you mentioned, rather than when to push it down.  I use "down" as the default position so the strings are ringing right from the beginning.  Not very far down-- I show them the inside of the piano and we look at how far the pedal has to move to lift the dampers, then only go that far down.  Then we take some easy chord changes and practice lifting the pedal on the changes.  Then I do two things:  one, have them say "up" (for the toes) every time the hands go down, to fight the instinct of putting everything down together.  If they forget to put the pedal back down, then we say "up-down" really fast each time, but the timing of the "up" is the thing.  Two, if the student knows me well and can tolerate this, I put my own foot on top of his/hers and have him play, and I guide the pedaling with my foot.  If I do this, I first explain what I'm doing, apologize that I'm going to be in their way for a minute, and move the rest of myself as FAR away as possible.  I only touch their foot for a few measures to illustrate, then never again.  I am very careful with this! but when I do it, they're always surprised by how the timing feels, so I think it must be informative.  Finesse seems to follow on its own once they're lifting up at the right time, because they hear it working correctly and start to respond to the sounds more specifically.  Hope this is useful.  Have fun!

[m1469]

Thank you both pianonut and whynot, I apreciate the responses and they are quite useful for me.

m1469

[nomis]

It felt intuitive to me when I first started using the pedal. However, when I began to have lessons and was playing on an acoustic (I had and still have a digital), my pedaling was messy because I wasn't used to the pedal. My teacher thought it was me, so she showed how to use the pedal. She first played a C with the finger only and then depressed the right pedal. In performance, it's done in split seconds but she was showing the steps very slowly. She then told me to do likewise with the rest of the C major scale. It's a fairly effective method of how to use the pedal: press note then press pedal afterwards.