pedal extensions?

[pianonut]

have you ever heard of pedal extensions (take a look here:  www.sheetmusic1.com/pedal.extensions.html  )

has anyone used them? 

[possom46]

Wow, didn't know they existed  , brilliant idea though.

[Torp]

Yes, I've seen them.  My daughter uses one during her lessons.  She hasn't actually started using the pedal yet, but it is nice to have something adjustable to her foot height.  At some point she will be ready to play pieces that require the use of pedal.  Of course my hope is that this occurs before her legs are long enough to actually reach the pedals, so the use of the extension will be necessary.

Jef

[pianonut]

understand what you mean about learning first things first.  but, with these extensions, maybe it would change teachers minds about teaching how to pedal in the first couple of years instead of waiting longer?

[rhapsody in orange]

understand what you mean about learning first things first.  but, with these extensions, maybe it would change teachers minds about teaching how to pedal in the first couple of years instead of waiting longer?

Hmm personally I wouldn't introduce the pedal to beginners until they are able to coordinate their LH and RH with relative ease. Adding the pedal would probably confuse them further..
Just my 0.02

[dveej]

Yes, I have had several very young Asian students who were/are too small to reach the pedals but who were ready for pedaling. I had the family buy a Uniped from Patti Music in Wisconsin (www.pattimusic.com). It's about $150 American now, I think (they bought it several years ago). It really works and enables young kids to use the pedal. I teach pedaling from an early point: after they learn their major and minor five-finger patterns, then I start having them do two-octave crossed-hands arpeggios (like C - E - G - c - e - g - C - g - e - c - G - E - C, where upper case is LH). When they learn the basic pattern, then I have them depress the pedal AFTER they play the first note, and they must hold the pedal down until the last note and release the pedal AT THE SAME TIME as the last note. This starts them off with really good overlapping pedal habits and they love the sound - it's like "grown-up" music!!!

So: Uniped is good.

[pianonut]

thanks for the responses!  that's a good pedalling exercise for little ones.