How to use the piano pedals

Most piano students meet the pedals within their first few lessons, and most spend years afterward using them by instinct rather than by ear. That's a shame, because the three pedals are not volume knobs — they are part of your interpretation, as expressive as your choice of fingering or tempo. Here is how I explain them to my students, and how you can start listening to them more closely in your own practice.

The sustain pedal (right pedal)

It lifts all the dampers off the strings, letting notes ring and blend into one another. It's the most used pedal on the instrument — and the most abused. For a clean legato pedal change: press down, hold, then release and press again at the exact moment the new harmony arrives, never at the same time as the new note, or the two harmonies blur together. A common mistake is holding the pedal through an entire phrase regardless of the harmony changing underneath it, which quickly turns the sound to mud. Practice tip: play a passage with no pedal first, decide exactly which harmonies should blend and which shouldn't, then add the pedal deliberately.

The una corda pedal (left pedal)

On a grand piano, pressing it shifts the entire keyboard action sideways so the hammers strike one string per note instead of two or three — hence "una corda," one string. That changes the tone color, not just the volume: it's a genuinely different sound, thinner and more veiled, useful for a specific color in a quiet passage rather than simply "whenever the score says piano." On an upright it works differently, moving the hammers closer to the strings, so there the effect leans more toward volume than color. Practice tip: play the same soft phrase with and without the pedal, and listen for the difference in color, not just in loudness.

The sostenuto pedal (middle pedal)

The least used and most misunderstood of the three. It sustains only the notes already held down at the exact moment you press it — anything played afterward is unaffected. It shows up often in French repertoire (Debussy, Ravel) to hold a bass note or pedal point while the hands play clear, unpedaled figures above it. Many upright pianos don't have a genuine sostenuto pedal — the middle pedal is often just a practice or mute pedal instead — so it's worth checking what your own instrument actually does.

Practicing pedaling deliberately

Treat pedal changes as part of your fingering rather than an afterthought: mark them into the score if it helps, practice a passage slowly enough to hear exactly when the pedal lifts and lands, and use "half-pedaling" — a partial lift — for passages that need some blending without the full buildup of sustain. It's a subtler skill than it looks, and worth returning to on old repertoire, not just new pieces.

Thoughtful pedaling is one of the fastest ways to make a piece sound more musical, and it's exactly the kind of detail we work through together in lessons.