Piano Video Lesson: What Does Chopin Sound Like Without the Pedal?

Welcome to the LivingPianos.com. I'm Robert Estrin. You probably heard a sparse theme just now. Why? Because I did not use any pedal. The subject of today's video is what does Chopin sound like without the pedal? First, little primer about the pedal. When I talk about the pedal, I'm talking about the one on the right, the damper pedal, the sustain pedal, the one that holds all the notes when you put it down.

It's a glorious thing. It makes everything sound better, doesn't it? And louder too. And it helps you to connect what you can't connect with your fingers, which brings us to the first important point about the pedal. What is the job of the pedal in music, in general, and in Chopin, specifically? The pedal actually has two distinct functions. One is to connect notes you can't connect with your hands. Have you ever, for example, seen a score where you have a whole note down here, and then, other things going on where you can't possibly hold that whole note because you got other notes going on? Well, the pedal to the rescue. You could use your nose, I suppose. But how else are you going to hold those notes that you can't possibly hold? So, sometimes, really is just a matter of music is written in such a way that you must depend upon the pedal or you can't even play what's written in the score.

But there's also the tone enhancement that the pedal affords you in your musical performance. Because when you play a note with the pedal, you get a different sound than without the pedal. Listen to a note with no pedal first. Now, I'm going to play the same note. I'm going to have the pedal down before I play it. So, you see it gets more of an echo-y sound because as the dampers lift up all the strings, they are free to vibrate sympathetically, enhancing the tone. And indeed, when you depress, the pedal will have a different effect upon the tone, the envelope of the sound that is the shape of the decay.

You can enhance the sustain by judiciously using the pedal just at the point at which the tone might be dying away. But that's a subject for another video. And indeed, I do have some other videos out there for you on this subject. So, now, what does Chopin sound like without the pedal? Well, of course, it depends what Chopin. The famous E-flat Nocturne, for example, doesn't really have notes you can't hold, in terms of what's written in the score, but it's implied to use the pedal. Here's what the famous E-flat major Nocturne would sound like without the use of the pedal. And notice how I strive to connect as much possible with my fingers, even though it's a thankless task. I can't connect everything I want to, but I try my darndest so that the pedal can enhance the sound and not be used as a crutch for things that I can connect. Listen to it with no pedal. (silence).

So, that's what it sounds like with no pedal. And you want to strive for as legato as possible with your fingers before putting the pedal in because if you're going to practice it with a pedal right from the get-go, you might not use the ideal fingering in order to connect as much as possible. So, you want to connect with your fingers everything you can, then it becomes obvious where to pedal. And of course, adding the pedal gives you much more beautiful sound. Plus, you can hold these bass notes so that you get a richer sound and more of a linear quality to those bass notes, and indeed, the inner voices as well, as you'll hear. (silence).

Obviously, much more beautiful. And instead of getting the vertical chords, you get the sense of the line. Because the baseline then has enough sustain from note to note, instead of just being sporadic that way.

Now, I want to show you a drastically different example where indeed, you not only need the pedal to get the sense of the lines, but there are notes you just can't possibly hold. And I'm going to play it for you without the pedal, this little excerpt of the Chopin G minor Ballade. And this is the genius of Chopin, by the way, that he could conceive of music and know what to write down that would work so incredibly well with a pedal. And without the pedal, it sounds like a whole different piece practically. And yet, once again, I'm striving to connect everything I possibly can with the fingers first, as you'll hear. (silence).

I was working as hard as I possibly could to hold everything as long as I can. But boy, when you put the pedal in, it's a different sound entirely. (silence).

So, that's what the pedal adds to Chopin. There's a richness to the quality, and the sustained harmonies, and the linear aspect you get with all the lines from the bass, all the way to the treble, not to mention the enhancement of the tone. Because you can use the pedal to get these little degradations in the melody to make one note meld into the next, by enriching it with those extra vibrations that the other strings allow for when you released the dampers with the sustain pedal.

I hope this has been enlightening for you. And I welcome all your comments here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. Thanks, all you subscribers. And we'll see you next time. Again, I'm Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/what-does-chopin-sound-like-without-the-pedal/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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