4.10.3 Pedals

Pianos have pedals that alter the way sound are produced. Generally, a piano has three pedals, sustain, una corda, and sostenuto.

Syntax

Piano pedal instruction can be expressed by attaching \sustainDown, \sustainUp, \unaCorda, \treCorde, \sostenutoDown and \sostenutoUp to a note or chord:

       c'4\sustainDown c'4\sustainUp

What is printed can be modified by setting pedalXStrings, where X is one of the pedal types: Sustain, Sostenuto or UnaCorda. Refer to the generated documentation of SustainPedal (lilypond-internals) for more information.

Pedals can also be indicated by a sequence of brackets, by setting the pedalSustainStyle property to bracket objects:

      \property Staff.pedalSustainStyle = #'bracket
      c''4\sustainDown d''4 e''4
      a'4\sustainUp\sustainDown
      f'4 g'4 a'4\sustainUp

A third style of pedal notation is a mixture of text and brackets, obtained by setting pedal-type to mixed:

      \property Staff.pedalSustainStyle = #'mixed
     c''4\sustainDown d''4 e''4
     c'4\sustainUp\sustainDown
      f'4 g'4 a'4\sustainUp

The default `*Ped' style for sustain and damper pedals corresponds to \pedal-type = #'text. However, mixed is the default style for a sostenuto pedal:

     c''4\sostenutoDown d''4 e''4 c'4 f'4 g'4 a'4\sostenutoUp

For fine-tuning of the appearance of a pedal bracket, the properties edge-width, edge-height, and shorten-pair of PianoPedalBracket objects (see PianoPedalBracket (lilypond-internals) in the Program reference) can be modified. For example, the bracket may be extended to the end of the note head:

     \property Staff.PianoPedalBracket \override
        #'shorten-pair = #'(0 . -1.0)
     c''4\sostenutoDown d''4 e''4 c'4
     f'4 g'4 a'4\sostenutoUp

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