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An unimportant question!

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KickThatBathProf:
I have a weird question that requires both knowledge of acoustic pianos and of recording technology.  See, there is a middle pedal on most pianos that enables you to play one half of the instrument with regular pedal (the one on the left) and the other half without. I've been experimenting with it lately and have noticed a sound I really like when I use the pedal and play just the half that is without.  Now for the recording technology part.  Is there a way that I could capture that sound but cut out the initial striking of the keys?

smack that isaiah:
Do you mean the striking of the key by your finger, or the striking of the string by the hammer?
if it's the first, I could conceive of a way to position the microphone to pick up the sounds of the strings vibrating and not the key being struck.  If it's both... I dunno

Also, not all pianos have the middle foot pedal anymore.  My piano did, but my piano teacher's didn't.  I'm not sure if it's more recent pianos or older pianos that do or don't have them.

Bastardous Bassist:
Are you talking about when all of the strings on the lower half start to vibrate?  If so, you can probably replicate that sound just by striking the piano itself with the pedal depressed.

KickThatBathProf:

--- Quote from: smack that isaiah on 29 Sep 2009, 07:41 ---Do you mean the striking of the key by your finger, or the striking of the string by the hammer?

--- End quote ---

The second one.  I guess it's kind of hard to explain without a demonstration, but after the string is hit there is sort of a ghostly echo.  It basically happens when you have that pedal depressed and you play any staccato note in that register

pwhodges:
The middle pedal of a grand piano is called the sostenuto pedal.  Its function is not as you describe; the way it works is that it holds off the dampers of the notes that are down at the time it is depressed.  This enables you to hold a note while still pedalling normally to control others (it can be used for that in the central section of Debussy's La Cathédrale Engloutie, for instance, to make the chords less muddy while continuing to hold the big bass note representing the bell), or it can be used to hold the dampers off a number of notes which have been pressed silently so that subsequent playing leaves resonances of those notes only.  The second usage is quite common in contemporary piano music, of the sort my son (a concert pianist) tends to play. 

I have heard of the mechanism you describe as a rarity on upright pianos, though, but I've never seen it.

Either way, I can't think of any way you're going to be able to capture the sound of the resonance without the sound that excites it, though.  I suspect the best you could do would be to record the result of playing individual notes and chords and then to edit the later parts together as a separate exercise.

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