Piano pedals: what each pedal does and how to use them

Piano pedals are the three levers under the keyboard, and sooner or later a score asks for them. A “Ped.” appears under a chord, or a long line runs under the bass staff, and the piece sounds thin until the right foot joins in.

This guide explains what each of the three pedals does and how they work inside a grand and an upright. It covers what changes on a digital piano, how pedal markings look in sheet music, and how to pedal cleanly step by step. It ends with the common mistakes, the moments to keep the foot still, and five pieces to practice on.

A piano has up to three pedals. The right pedal, the damper or sustain pedal, lifts every damper off the strings so notes keep ringing after you let go of the keys. The left pedal, the soft or una corda pedal, makes the tone quieter and darker. The middle pedal is a sostenuto on a grand, holding only the notes already pressed, and on many uprights a practice pedal that mutes the whole piano.

The three piano pedals, left to right

The pedals sit in the same order on every piano, and the right one is the pedal you will use in almost every piece. When pianists say “the pedal” without a name, they mean the right one.

Left: the soft pedal, or una corda

The left pedal makes the sound softer and changes its color. On a grand piano, pressing it slides the whole keyboard and action slightly to the right. Most treble notes have three strings tuned to the same pitch, and after the shift each hammer strikes two of them. The hammer also meets the strings with a less worn part of its felt, so the tone turns rounder and more veiled as well as quieter.

The Italian name, una corda, means “one string.” On pianos of Beethoven’s time, the shift could go far enough to leave a single string. The name stayed after the mechanism changed.

Middle: sostenuto, practice pedal or bass sustain

The middle pedal does different jobs on different pianos. On a grand it is almost always a sostenuto pedal, a selective sustain. Play a chord, press the sostenuto while the keys are still down, and only those notes keep ringing. Everything you play afterwards stops normally when you lift your fingers. A pianist uses it to hold a deep bass note through a passage while the hands play short, detached chords above it.

On many upright pianos the middle pedal is a practice pedal. It lowers a strip of felt between the hammers and the strings, and the whole piano turns quiet and muffled. On many uprights it slides sideways into a notch so it stays down while you practice. On other uprights the middle pedal lifts only the bass dampers, a half-keyboard version of the damper pedal. Some older and smaller uprights have just two pedals.

Right: the damper pedal, also called the sustain pedal

Most keys have a damper, a felt pad that rests on their strings. When you release the key, the damper falls back and stops the sound. The damper pedal lifts all the dampers at once, so every note you play keeps sounding until it fades or until you lift your foot. The highest notes have no dampers at all, since their short strings stop ringing quickly by themselves.

The pedal does two things a listener hears. It lets notes overlap where the fingers cannot hold them, so a wide left-hand chord can ring while the hand jumps away. And with all the dampers up, strings you did not play vibrate in sympathy with the ones you did. That resonance is why a pedaled chord sounds fuller as well as longer. The All About Piano chapter on how to use the pedals walks through the same three pedals with photos of each.

Grand vs upright: what the pedals do inside the piano

A grand lays its strings flat, and its dampers rest on them by weight. An upright stands its strings on end, so springs press the dampers against them. Both damper pedals lift all the dampers, and the player hears the same result.

The soft pedal is where the two part ways. An upright cannot slide its action sideways, so its left pedal moves the hammers closer to the strings instead. With a shorter swing they strike more gently, and the piano plays quieter. Technicians call this a half-blow pedal. The color changes much less than on a grand. If you are choosing between the two, our guide to the types of pianos compares their sizes, actions and sound.

The table sums up all three pedals on both instruments, with the marking that asks for each one in a score.

Digital piano pedals

A digital piano has no strings or dampers, so it imitates each pedal in software. Many portable digital pianos and keyboards come with a single sustain pedal that plugs into a jack on the back. The simplest kind is a switch, either down or up. It is enough for the first years of playing. A continuous pedal reports how far it is pressed, and on a piano that supports it you can half-pedal: press partway so the dampers only brush the strings and the sound thins out without stopping. Check the manual for “half-damper” or “half-pedal” support before you buy one.

Cabinet-style digital pianos usually have three pedals built in. Many portable models take an optional three-pedal unit that adds the soft and sostenuto pedals. Those pedals do on a digital piano what they do on a grand, recreated by the sound engine.

To try a sustain pedal before you own one, open the Pro tab of our free virtual piano. Hold the Space bar as the pedal, or tick “Sustain pedal” to keep it down. If you connect a MIDI keyboard with the Connect button in Chrome or Edge, its own sustain pedal works too. The tool’s pedal is a switch, so it is for learning the timing, not half-pedaling.

How pedal markings look in sheet music

Composers and editors write pedaling in two styles, and you will meet both on musescore.com. The older style puts “Ped.” where the foot goes down and a star-shaped sign (*) where it comes up. The newer style draws a line under the bass staff. The line starts where you press, a small upward notch shows a quick release and re-press, and a vertical hook at the end shows the final release. The line is more precise, because the notch sits exactly under the note where the change happens.

The other pedals have their own words. “Una corda” asks for the soft pedal and “tre corde” (three strings) or “tutte le corde” (all the strings) releases it. Debussy’s Clair de lune opens with “con sordina,” with the mute, which pianists play with the soft pedal. “Sost. Ped.” asks for the sostenuto. A movement may also carry a general instruction: “con pedale” (with pedal), “senza pedale” (without), or Beethoven’s “senza sordino” (without dampers) at the start of the “Moonlight” Sonata.

The chart shows each mark as it appears under a staff, so you can match it to the score on your music stand.

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How to use the sustain pedal: syncopated pedaling step by step

The standard way to pedal is called syncopated or legato pedaling. The foot changes just after each new chord, never with it. That small delay is the whole technique. It keeps every chord connected to the next without the old harmony bleeding into the new one.

The diagram lines up the hands and the foot on one time line, so you can see that the pedal lifts as the new chord sounds and goes back down a moment later.

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1. Rest your heel on the floor in front of the right pedal and put the ball of your foot on the pedal. The heel stays down for the whole piece and works as a hinge.
2. Play the first chord, and only after it sounds, press the pedal all the way down.
3. Hold the chord with the pedal and lift your fingers. The sound keeps going.
4. Play the next chord. At the same moment the keys go down, let the pedal come up.
5. Press the pedal down again straight away, while the fingers still hold the new chord. The old chord is gone and the new one is caught.
6. Repeat for every chord change: keys down, pedal up, pedal down.

Practice it on three chords in the left hand alone: C major, F major and G major, one per bar, at a slow count of four. Listen at each change. A clean change gives a new chord with no trace of the old one and no gap of silence. A blurred change means the foot went down too early, and a gap means it came up too soon or went down too late. The All About Piano lesson on using the damper pedal gives a song to apply it to, with the pedal changing at every new chord symbol.

Half-pedaling and the other timings

Half-pedaling lifts the pedal only partway, so the dampers brush the strings and thin the sound without cutting it off. Pianists use it to clear a blurred bass without a break in the melody. It comes after clean full changes are automatic. Two other timings appear in method books: pressing the pedal before the first note for a resonant start, and pressing it together with a chord to catch a short, detached sound.

Pieces to practice each pedal on

Each piece below teaches one pedal habit, and all of them are on musescore.com in several arrangements, from simplified to the original.

Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 is the gentlest start. The left hand plays a low note and then a chord in every bar, and most pianists change the pedal once per bar as the harmony changes. The tempo is slow enough to listen to every change.

Yiruma’s River Flows in You is a modern piece built on flowing left-hand patterns over a repeating chord sequence. It teaches you to change with each new chord and to keep the melody clear above the pedal.

Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2, is marked with Ped. and release signs throughout. The left hand leaps from a bass note to chords, and the pedal holds the bass while the hand moves. It is the piece for learning to read the marks and follow them exactly.

The first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata carries the instruction to play without dampers. On a modern piano that would blur the whole movement, so pianists change the pedal at each new harmony. It teaches you to decide by ear where a score gives only a general direction.

Claude Debussy’s Clair de lune is the classic soft-pedal piece. It begins very quietly with the soft pedal and uses the damper pedal to blend its rippling chords. On a grand it shows how the una corda changes color as well as volume.

Common pedaling mistakes and how to fix them

• Changing at the same instant as the chord. The dampers have no time to stop the old chord before the foot goes down again, so its sound carries into the new one. Lift as the keys go down and press just after, as in steps 4 and 5.
• Holding the pedal through a chord change. A C chord held into a G chord sounds muddy because the notes clash. Look for each new chord symbol or bass note and change there.
• Lifting the whole foot. The foot leaves the pedal, comes back late and sometimes thumps it. Keep the heel on the floor and the ball of the foot touching the pedal even when it is up.
• Pedaling through rests. A rest is a silence the composer wrote. Lift the pedal on the rest unless the score shows the line continuing.
• Using the pedal to hide fingering. A legato line that only sounds smooth with the pedal falls apart the moment the pedal changes. Practice the passage without pedal first, then add it.
• Leaving the pedal down when nervous. Under pressure many players hold the pedal for safety, and the piece turns to fog. Rehearse the pedal changes slowly, the same way you rehearse the notes.

When not to use the sustain pedal

The pedal is a color, and plenty of music sounds best with little or none. Bach wrote his keyboard music for harpsichord and clavichord, instruments without a damper pedal, and many pianists play it with clean fingers and at most a touch of pedal. Fast scales and runs blur into a smear with the pedal down. Staccato notes lose their point. And a score marked “senza pedale” asks for none.

Beginners also do well to leave the pedal alone for the first months. The fingers need to learn to connect notes on their own, and the ears need to hear what an unpedaled phrase sounds like. Once both hands play together evenly, the pedal adds to the playing instead of covering it.

When beginners start using the pedal

Most beginners meet the damper pedal once the hands can play simple pieces together, often within the first year. A method book brings it in at that point, with pieces chosen to need it, so the pedal arrives as a solution to a sound you already want. For an adult starting out, the Hal Leonard Adult Piano Method, Book 1 is the book we publish for that path. It combines lessons, solos, technique and theory in one volume, with more than 150 accompaniments online to play along with.

Frequently asked questions

What do the three pedals on a piano do?

The right pedal, the damper or sustain pedal, lifts all the dampers so notes keep ringing after the keys are released. The left pedal, the soft or una corda pedal, makes the sound quieter and, on a grand, darker. The middle pedal is a sostenuto on a grand, sustaining only the notes held when it is pressed. On many uprights it is a practice pedal that mutes the piano.

Which pedal is the sustain pedal?

The sustain pedal is the one on the right. It is also called the damper pedal, because it lifts the dampers off the strings. On a digital piano or keyboard with a single pedal, that pedal is the sustain pedal. It is the pedal a score means by “Ped.” and by a pedal line under the bass staff.

What does the middle pedal do on an upright piano?

On most uprights the middle pedal is a practice pedal. It lowers a strip of felt between the hammers and the strings, so the piano plays very quietly, and it often locks down by sliding sideways. Some uprights use it to sustain only the bass notes instead, and a few larger models have a true sostenuto, like a grand.

Do you need a sustain pedal for a digital piano?

Yes, once you play beyond the first beginner pieces. Most piano music from the 19th century onward and most pop ballads assume a sustain pedal, and without one you cannot play them as written. A simple switch pedal is enough to start. A continuous pedal that supports half-pedaling matters later, for advanced classical repertoire.

Is it bad to use the sustain pedal all the time?

Holding it all the time blurs the harmony, because every chord rings into the next. Changing it at each new chord is how most Romantic and pop piano music is played, and that can mean pedal in nearly every bar. Change with the harmony, lift it on rests, and use little or none in fast passages and Baroque music.

Start with one pedal and one piece

The right pedal does most of the work in most music, so learn it first. Keep the heel down, change after each new chord, and listen for a clean change with no blur and no gap. The left pedal and the middle pedal come later, when a score asks for them.

Pick the Satie Gymnopédie or the three-chord exercise above, play it slowly with one change per bar, and record yourself. A recording lets you hear every change from the outside, where a blur or a gap is easy to catch.