Music

Have you ever played a piano with one of these things? Also: what are some of the crazy old pedals you mentioned? I'm curious now.

Nope! It seems I would have to travel pretty far to try one in a store (either that or I might have to call ahead to a Maryland location but driving there is scary as hell and they probably wouldn’t be too thrilled to hear I’m just an amateur with a 0% likelihood of buying anything substantial).

So on some ancient pianos, they had “janissary” pedals, a sort of crude drum kit used to ape the percussion-heavy style of Turkish military bands. You can see a demonstration here (sadly, the video is so quiet you have to hear it with some nasty hiss).

Some pianos also had a bassoon pedal, and some a lute pedal. Pretty obvious what those were supposed to sound like.

Many harpsichords had similar “special effects”, though usually when we talk of pedals on a harpsichord we mean a harpsichord with a pedalboard. Very nice low notes, as you can hear in the first 30 seconds or so here.