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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Being a Discussion of the Functions of the Damper Pedal and Its Impor-
tance in the Correct Rendition of Player Music—The Development of
Tone Color Through the Proper Use of the Pedal Interestingly Explained.
We do not know who first applied the term,
"the soul of the piano," to what is usually but
wrongly called the "loud" pedal of the piano.
Yet the description is most apt, for all that makes
piano playing lovely would be almost impos-
sible if the pianist could not have the power
of prolonging the tones which he evokes. It is,
in fact, the damper pedal which changes the piano
from a mere glittering scatterer of tinkling bril-
liancy into a noble singer, the breadth and quality
of whose tones rival those of the violin or the
human voice. Yet it is sadly true that very few
people who play the piano, and still fewer player-
pianists, have any particular idea either of what
the damper pedal is for or how to use it.
Speaking as we are primarily for player-pianists,
let us say that in the player-piano mechanism the
functions of the right hand piano pedal are dupli-
cated by a hand lever or a pneumatic push button,
so that when playing with music roll one can do
exactly what the manual pianist does when he,
presses the right hand pedal of the piano. Let us
also remark that many music rolls and player-
pianos are provided with automatic devices where-
-by the damper pedal device is operated independ-
ently of the player-pianist, and so assures correct
results. Seeing, however, that not all player-
pianos or rolls are equipped in this way and that
anyhow it is much more musically effective to
know how to do these things for oneself, we are
taking the liberty of giving some explanation of
the functions of the sustaining or damper pedal
device, confident that many player-pianists are
anxious to find out whatever they can; in fact,
all that can be learned about the art of making
the piano sing and producing a fine tone from it.
The sounds we evoke from the piano are gene-
rated by the vibration of the strings, which are
struck by hammers. Each string is of such dimen-
sions that when stretched at a certain tension it
will vibrate, on being struck, just so many times
per second. Each of these given fixed frequencies
generates one sound of a given and fixed order.
We call these sounds after the first seven letters
of the alphabet, from A to G, inclusive. To each
other all these sounds bear certain musical rela-
tions, so that it is possible to combine some of
them with others and obtain from the junction
agreeable results.
These we call consonant
sounds. Other combinations again are incapable
of producing an agreeable effect, and these we call
dissonances. In addition to all these sounds there
are others between them, which we call sharps and
flats of the former, according as any of them is
above or below one of the others.
Now, as we said before, some of the combina-
tions which may be made among these various
sounds are agreeable, and others are not so. If
we sit down at the piano keyboard and run our
fingers over the keys, one by one, we merely get
a series of detached tones. If, however, we hold
one key down while another is struck we find that
the two tones run into each other more or less, al-
though they die away quite quickly. Nevertheless,
it is easy to produce very disagreeable effects this
way, and so we have to be careful while playing
not to allow this intermingling among tones ex-
cept when the combination is consonant.
It will be noted that as soon as we raise our
finger from a key the sound immediately and
abruptly ceases. This is because there is what is
called a "damper" in connection with the string,
which drops down and stifles the vibrations as
soon as the finger pressure on the key is relaxed.
The damper is a pad of soft felt. When the
finger touches the key this pad is raised from the
string, redescending when the contact ceases.
Let us go a step further and, while we are play-
ing, press down the right hand pedal on the piano.
This raises a rod which lifts all the dampers
from the strings and holds them away as long as
the foot pressure continues. As soon as we have
done this an entirely new character is imparted
to the sound of the piano. Every tone runs into
the next, there is a confused blurring and jangling,
and individual sounds are lost in a mixture of in-
coherent noise. But let us suppose an» artist is
sitting at the piano. We notice that he continually
uses the pedal, raising and depressing it at short
intervals. And we see that when he does this he
makes the tone sing just as if it were being drawn
from the strings of a violin. Noble, broad, sus-
tained tones follow each other in majestic succes-
sion and the noisy piano is transformed.
Now, both of these experiences, the pleasant
and the unpleasant alike, were generated by what
is fundamentally the same physical cause of sensa-
tion ; namely, by that property of the piano's
string bridges and sound board in virtue whereof
they transmit the vibrations arising in any given
string or strings and impress them upon all other
strings which have partial tones coincident with
any belonging to the string actually sounded by
the impact of the piano hammers. But, of course,
if the dampers are pressed against all the strings
save those which are actually being struck it fol-
lows that there will be no such physical effect as
we have described. On the other hand, as soon
as we depress the damper pedal, or operate the
corresponding device on the player-piano action,
the dampers rise and the physical process we have
described takes place.
Now this physical process, described in other
terms, is simply that if we sound one tone on the
piano while at the same time raising the dampers
every other tone which possesses common partial
tones with the first will be agitated, the intensity
of the disturbance being dependent partly on the
nearness of the relation which the secondarily
agitated tone bears to that which was generated
by the piano hammer in the first place; that is, by
the number of the partials common to both.
So, if we strike the key known as middle C and
simultaneously depress the damper pedal on the
piano, then every other C string will begin to
vibrate and will mingle its sounds with that of
the originally sounded C. The same process,
though with less intensity, will take place in all
the E's and G's throughout the piano, and less
strongly still in the F s , A's and B flats.
Now, naturally, the reinforcement of a single
tone by such means tends to impart not only a
greater richness of coloring, but greater duration.
Hence if we keep the dampers raised after strik-
ing one chord, and then proceed to strike another,
it is clear that the two sets of chords will be
jangling against one another, not only in their
primary elements, but in all their sympathetically
related secondary tones. Therefore, unless the
two chords be almost exactly similar, it follows
that many discordant sounds must be generated
and sound together, owing to the fact that some
tone in one chord will surely be antagonistic to
some tone in the other chord, and consequently
the secondary sympathetically related tones of
these two will jar very much against one another
and will strengthen any dissonance originally felt.
So, then, it is plain that the damper pedal may
constitute as much a weakness as a strength. In
the bungling employment of the pedal, which we
imagined ourselves to be making just now, we
have a case of ignorance and misunderstanding
such as, unfortunately, is far too common. But
the artist knows how to use the tools provided for
him and so is able to take advantage of the
capacity of the damper pedal for producing a
singing effect while avoiding the jangling which
we have described as the result of unskilled
effort. How, then, does the musician get these
effects which we so much admire? By knowing
the nature of each chord he is playing and avoid-
ing the mistake of running them together when
they are not harmonically related. This, of course,
he is able to guard against by releasing the pedal
when there is danger of running chords into each
other with bad effect and taking it again only
when the reverberation has been checked; that
is, when the change of harmony has been safely
made. Anyone can tell when two successive
chords sound well together. Even if one cannot
play a single note on the keyboard, or even read it
on paper, one can at least hold over the sustaining
lever or depress the button and run the music roll
so as to play two consecutive chords with the
dampers raised. Then the good or bad effect
can be judged. A little practice will enable one
to judge discriminatingly in a very short time.
Single tones can be sustained, and one can often
impart quite a bit of color to a piece by judiciously
sustaining the tones in the melody while cutting
off the accompaniment sharply with the tempo
lever and quickly letting the dampers off and on.
It is all a matter of primary understanding.
But before that understanding can be had it is
just as necessary to know what the damper pedal
is not as to know what it is. And so let the
player-pianist free himself from the notion that
this device is intended to make the piano "sound
louder."
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