STROKES OF COLOUR THE SUSTAIN PEDAL
The sustain pedal is the piano’s Swiss Army knife. That inconspicuous piece of brass resting under the right foot is how we access a dizzying complexity of sounds, effects, textures and colours. The other two pedals – the sostenuto (or more often a ‘practice’ pedal on an upright) in the middle, and the una corda, off to the left – are far less habitually used devices, yet each of these opens up its own Aladdin’s Cave of effects. Though we tend to think of the sustain pedal as helping us to achieve two things – a legato or sustained effect and a warmth or ‘bloom’ of tone – in reality this hardly scratches at the surface of its possibilities.
