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Needing info for physically challenged piano student

  • 1.  Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-24-2023 20:07

    Requesting information (letter listed below) for physically challenged piano student from a university music professor. Any ideas?  

    Greg,

      I have a student who has a short right leg and can't feel anything in his foot.  He wears a shoe with about a 3'' sole so he can walk correctly.  He is taking piano and must cross his legs to use his left foot to use the damper pedal.  I went online looking for something that may allow him to use the damper pedal on the left side of the pedals.  Of course, I saw all the pedal extensions for children, but only found prototypes of various "home-made" mechanisms to help with someone who can't use his/her feet to pedal.   I thought the Thigh Controlled Pedal solution was the best, but there was only one every made.  (Old sewing machines had those rather than a foot pedal, and they worked well.) Plus he could use his right thing in place of his foot.

     

    Do you have any information at all about something that might work for him?  Any ideas at all would be appreciated. 

    Greg Junker

    Greg Junker's Piano Shoppe LLC

     

     



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    Greg Junker RPT
    Owner
    Belleville IL
    (618) 971-9595
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  • 2.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-24-2023 21:57
    Greg

    Contact Michiel Van Loon, mvanloon@xs4all.nl, in the Netherlands. He has invented a contraption that works with the thigh to activate the pedals. I attended a class he gave at the Europiano Conference in Warsaw last fall where he showed the contraption. 

    Tell him you got his name from me. 

    Wim





  • 3.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-25-2023 02:39

    You don't mention what kind of piano this needs to be done to. Over the years many vertical pianos had some sort of bridge between the middle and right pedal, either as part of a bass sustain system (Kawai) or simply to provide a piano with 3 pedals even though the middle one was essentially a dummy. A bridge could be made across to the left pedal. Also, one may be able to simply rig the left pedal to operate the sustain directly.

    When Chick Correa was touring in 2019, he was having problems with his right foot and had a 4th pedal off to the left that operated the sustain pedal with a lever that lifted the back of the (grand) sustain pedal so he could use his left foot. It wasn't a complicated system and worked quite well. He was a stickler for dampers lifting as soon as he depressed the pedal.



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    Steven Rosenthal RPT
    Honolulu HI
    (808) 521-7129
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-25-2023 07:18

    The follow modification is serving well on the Yamaha G3 grand in our piano studio, for our instructor with a right knee injury. Fabricate a replacement base plate for the bottom of the lyre wide enough to add an extra pedal on each side. Yamaha pedals pivot on pins that extend out the sides of the pedal. Fabricate bushed blocks that will accommodate the pins, and mount the pedals on the base. Replace the pedal rod guide further up on the lyre with one built to accommodate five rods. Left rod needs to run exactly parallel to the sustain rod, and the right rod to the shift.  Install rods that stop short of the the bottom of the key bed. Make blocks to bridge the new outboard rods to the rods they need to activate. Figure out any additional bracing needed to achieve structural rigidity. 
    I can send photos on Monday.



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    Floyd Gadd RPT
    Regina SK
    (306) 502-9103
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-25-2023 07:03

    Fortepianos have the knee type damper pedal.  That would be a good idea if one could engineer a design that works.

    Paul

     




    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-25-2023 07:06

    Steingraeber makes adaptive pedal systems.

    Alan



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    Alan Eder, RPT
    Herb Alpert School of Music
    California Institute of the Arts
    Valencia, CA
    661.904.6483
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Posted 02-25-2023 08:13

    If you adapt one piano, then he won't be able to fully play any other pianos.

    If you create a mechanism that can be attached easily to any piano, he has full use of the pianos in the school.

    Example: a lever arch that moves laterally across the front of the pedals, pivoted to the right of the pedals, held to the floor by a truss rod that presses against the bottom of the keybed. A post in the lever presses the right pedal. The left end of the lever arches over the other pedals and is at  "pedal height" to the left side of the left pedal. It could be spaced to allow the left foot to press both the extension pedal and the una corda pedal.



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    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
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  • 8.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-25-2023 09:43

    I assume we're talking about modifying a grand pedal system? If the piano in question is an upright it's relatively simple to change which rod attaches to which pedal. I've done that by accident twice and effectively changed the left pedal into the sustain pedal. 



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    Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
    Piano Technician / Artisan
    (256) 947-9999
    www.professional-piano-services.com
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  • 9.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Posted 02-25-2023 11:28

    Bingo!!!!



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    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
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    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-27-2023 13:14

    Here is the contraption on our teaching studio grand.  The bridges between the rods are chunks of 2x4 with wood carved out to allow the passage of the original pedal rods.  The central three pedals maintain their normal function.



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    Floyd Gadd RPT
    Regina SK
    (306) 502-9103
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    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: Needing info for physically challenged piano student

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-27-2023 13:18
      |   view attached

    One more photo



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    Floyd Gadd RPT
    Regina SK
    (306) 502-9103
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    Original Message