Adding the damper pedal

- So here's the pedaling lesson for this piece. You've done a great job of learning some very challenging new notes and new ways of playing. Big bluster chords. Now, let's make it sound magical with the pedal. So we're going to be doing a simplistic pedal. Again, basically one pedal for each measure. Start with your foot with the pedal down before you start the piece. Now watch carefully how I pedal this piece. Ready? And.

And I'm gonna just change on the beginning of the measure. Up down. Up down. Up down. Up down. Place here. Up down. Up down. Up down. It's nice because it connects you between these big jumps.

Up down. Up down. Place. Up down. Jump to here. Up down. Up down.

Up down. Jump here. Now hold the pedal and then let go the second beat here. Now no pedal. Now here, you're gonna play, and put the pedal right after you play. Pedal after this. Okay. Let's review that really quickly. So this is starting from measure 20 four three two one, okay? Measure 21.

Here we go. So we had the pedal already engaged. We're going to change it here. Jump to this portion here, change the pedal. Change the pedal. Now hold the pedal, don't change it here. Let go of it here with that rest. No pedal. Now we're gonna get the pedal back in. Play first, pedal. See how that works? Change the pedal. Change the pedal.

Change. Change. Change. Now no pedal. Off. Okay? So just a few spots where we change the pedal pattern just slightly. So keep that in mind, and now your pedal is becoming more of an active participant in helping you shape your music. Enjoy.

As you've seen by the way I've presented these lessons, as much as possible, try to bridge material before, and material after. That's the way I really want you to practice. Don't simply start at the beginning of a measure. Try to take the easy part, and connect it with something you just worked on prior to that. That's going to create a much smoother sense of flow as you learn this piece and as you start to play larger and larger chunks together seamlessly. So the key thing is, try to apply the pothole practice principle that we talked about in the introduction, watch how I transition from previous sections to the next, and also really pay attention to the spots that stop you, the spots that are hard and difficult, and I want you to pay particular attention to where they are.

Go ahead and mark them up in your music if you want, and always look at how you go right before and right after, to fix those spots and then create a smooth transition between them. When you do that and apply that, you're going to learn this piece much faster, much more comfortably, and believe it or not, we're going to be applying... That's the way muscle memory works. When you practice through those difficult patterns and teach your muscles to move through, rather than simply stopping on them, you will automatically find your way through this piece, and I think you're going to surprise yourself.

It's challenging, it's a lot more notes to fit under your hands, but you have everything you need to be able to do it. So take your time, section at a time, bridge those sections with pothole practice, and really enjoy. Just be patient with yourself. This is a very challenging piece. We're introducing a lot of things that, as I've mentioned before, you wouldn't be seeing this for at least a couple years of dedicated lessons, so you're really moving very, very fast towards mastery of the instrument. So enjoy, take your time, and get comfortable.