"loud" pedal

[Dave Nereson]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Ilvedson 
  To: pianotech 
  Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2001 10:34 PM
  Subject: Re: Keybed Inserts


  Are you calling the left pedal the loud pedal?  I call it the shift pedal
  or soft pedal.

  David I.

  > If the loud pedal is used with any regularity, the glide bolts 
  >will easily burnish a trough in side grain and will need to be 
  >readjusted regularly. 

  >Bill Ballard RPT
  >NH Chapter, P.T.G.
  >
  >"May you work on interesting pianos."
  >     ...........Ancient Chinese Proverb
  >+++++++++++++++++++++

  There IS no "loud pedal" on a piano.  The right pedal operates the dampers and is the damper pedal, or sustain pedal, which if held down, can create the illusion that the piano is louder, but it's really not --  there are just more strings ringing simultaneously.  The middle pedal on better grands and very few uprights is the sostenuto pedal (not 'sustenuto', even though 'sustain' in English is spelled with a 'u'), and on most other pianos it's a bass sustain, practice mute (strip of felt), rinky-tink attachment, or tied to the left pedal.  The left pedal is the "soft pedal" on verticals and a few grands, where it makes the piano "softer" by reducing the blow distance to about half -- this of course introduces much lost motion except in those actions that have "lost motion compensators".  And in those grands where the left pedal shifts the action laterally, causing the hammers to miss a string, it's still called the soft pedal by most people, and the 'una corda' pedal by others.  'Una corda' (one string) comes from a time when most pianos had two-string unisons -- when you depressed the pedal, the action would shift and hit only one string of each unison.  Nowadays, 'due corde' (two strings) would be more correct since when the pedal is engaged, the hammers still hit two strings of each unison.  All of which is beside the point, except that to my ears, "loud pedal" instead of "damper pedal" is akin to "pads" or "felts" instead of "hammers".    As for the inserts for the glide bolts, I would think any hardwood would be fine, with the end-grain facing up, but oriented in the same direction as the keybed grain.  It would take a heavy action, rough bolt surfaces, or greatly rounded bolts and an awful lot of action shifting (soft pedaling -- not 'peddling', which is selling stuff) to wear grooves in the inserts.    --Dave Nereson, RPT


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