HOW USE IT?

The sound of the piano with harmonic mechanism, recognizable as a remanence or a reverberation, is only one of the possibilities of this mechanism.

The harmonic pedal give three effects :

- The "remanence" sound with all the strings, enabling at the same time an articulated play.

- The resonance effect (or sustain effect) usually practiced on the classical damper pedal.

- The sostenuto for the already played notes, enabling a dampered play for the further notes.

A practice of the harmonic pedal allows a "storage" of the notes chosen to be kept in resonance; so that, the hand gets the freedom to release these keys, and is available to play the further notes.

I give here a few ideas to get progress quickly in this practice.

For a note played, the question is only to know if this note must be kept in resonance, "stored", at the releasing of the key.

In the resonance position of the pedal, fully pushed in sustain, the damper raises away from the string and stays up, whatever the action on the key.

In the remanence position of the pedal, half way released, the damper comes back on the string at the releasing of the key. The key must be released according to the pedal position. If you play two notes together, you can choose to keep one note and to damper the second note:

Example 1 : You want to keep in resonance the C, and to damper the E.

You thrust down the pedal in resonance position. You play C and E together. You release the key C. You release the pedal in the remanence position. You release the key E that is now stopped by his damper, upon a background remanence.

Example 2 : You want to keep in resonance a full chord.

You play a large chord in resonance pedal position. You release all the keys. You release the pedal in remanence. You play the further notes staccato or non-legato at the convenience of your fingers, keeping the full chord resonance in background.

Example 3 : You want to keep in resonance only the bass notes of a chord.

You play a large chord in resonance pedal position. You release only the keys of the left hand. You release the pedal in remanence. With your right hand, you release the keys of the chord, and you play the further notes, keeping the bass notes in background.

Note : In the remanence position, the revolving noses are allowing to dampers to come back one by one on the strings during the play. The complete pedal releasing stops the remanence and get the reset of damper revolving noses. If the pedal is furthered pressed in resonance, it gives too this complete damper reset.

However, the harmonic action is working automatically, an dit is possible to make a very simple practice, for example by a remanence on easy pieces.

LEXICAL Hp marks :

Remanence + = half way pedal pressing. Dampers are coming back on the strings at the releasing of the keys.

Remanence - = complete pedal releasing. All the dampers are coming back on the strings.

Resonance + = complete pedal pressing. All the dampers let the strings free.

Resonance - = complete pedal releasing. All the dampers are coming back on the strings.

Resonance/remanence = pedal half released in remanence. The notes played before this mark are staying in resonance until the complete releasing of the pedal. The notes played after this mark are dampered at the releasing of the keys.

Remanence/resonance = coming from remanence, going to resonance by the complete pedal pressing. After this mark, all the dampers are reset.