Just picking up on Julian Dyer's thread about my comment on Waller's
sostenuto pedal techniques the other day -- let me elaborate for the
MMDers!

Tenor countermelodies are very effective in musical performance and
arranging.  For the organist the playing of countermelody is
straightforward : the right hand plays the melody, the thumb of the
left hand plays the countermelody, the other fingers of the left hand
play the accompaniment chord and the feet play the bass note preceding
that chord.

For the pianist the technique is essentially the same but without
reliance on a pedal keyboard.  It was partially for this reason that
both the pedal-klavier (piano with a pedal keyboard) and latterly the
sostenuto mechanism were developed.  These instruments facilitate the
performance of multiple melody lines against an accompaniment of
unsustained notes.  The performance of the great organ works in the
organ repertoire was thus made possible on the piano.

The sustain pedal on the piano, in comparison, was developed to
facilitate musical effects via technical feats that are not possible
on the organ.  It has a specific function of its own and this does
not include masking sloppy technique (which is where it sadly finds
its greatest use).

Fats' piano roll recordings are often heard to contain a tenor
countermelody inserted into the arrangement.  It beggars belief why
folk persist in believing these have been latterly inserted by a roll
editor.  Fats can be heard playing identical countermelodies (via his
use of the Steinway grand's sostenuto mechanism) on his numerous audio
recordings.  Did the disc recording engineer also add these in a
second-pass after-hours?  I think not.  The Fats Waller "sound" is
therefore a combination of meticulously and musical playing coupled
with the technical advantage offered by the sostenuto piano.

The Fats Waller style of piano playing is, in my opinion, better
described as a style of sostenuto piano playing.  His "sound" is, by
definition, impossible to recreate on a regular piano as these have
no sostenuto mechanism.  This is also why so many average pianists
find it so very hard to recreate the Fats "sound".  Not only do you
need a piano with the sostenuto contraption but you also need to learn
to operate it properly which itself takes more than a rainy afternoon.

Waller is always thought of as having insisted on a Steinway piano at
performances for reasons of showmanship and would refuse to play if
the Steinway was substituted.  There is of course a very, very simple
explanation for this otherwise apparently prima-donna type behaviour.
If there wasn't a sostenuto-equipped piano on stage then Fats couldn't
play in the style the public expected to hear.  He evidently did not
and would not perform in public any other way.  There is little to
compare against either: his piano audio recordings were also either
done with a Steinway or not at all.

The big question about the piano roll recordings is then a less
controversial one: did the recording piano have a sostenuto mechanism
fitted, and if so did the recording machine record its operation?
If it didn't then the editor would have simply extended the intended
note to give the correct effect the performer usually played.  This
is hardly over-creative editing.  Nothing is being added that is not
normally there anyway.

The other thing Fats knew how to do properly was to use the sustain
pedal.  Many jazz and ragtime pianists rely on the sustain pedal to
hold notes open once struck.  This is a spectacularly sloppy performing
technique which is so common now amongst performers that it is taken
for being the authentic and correct method.  How very wrong they all
are.  Pianists slap the keys and make the sustain pedal even-up their
note lengths while the strings ring and ring.  The sound is certainly
much louder but the musical effect of crisp syncopation is ruined by
being swamped.  Pianists that do this are lacking in keyboard technique,
pedaling technique and, by inference, musical insight.

The only way that ragtime and novelty piano (and indeed all music
unless expressly indicated to the contrary) should be played is with
absolute minimal use of the sustain pedal.  The best thing advice I can
give aspiring pianists of the genre is to disconnect the thing on the
inside for a week.  You'll soon find out exactly how reliant you were
upon the sustain pedal Your fingers should play the notes to the length
you want them to sound for : don't just rely on the sustain pedal to do
this.  Where this becomes technically impossible, _then_ and _only then_
comes the correct moment to use the sustain.  The technique for playing
the piano well is therefore very close to that of playing the organ.

Fats Waller understood all of these points.  Listen to his disc
recording of "Handful of Keys" and marvel at just how little the
sustain pedal is used.  The careful ear will also hear that the note
duration for each and every melody note and chord is played with
meticulously consideration, i.e., genuine musicality.  That Fats'
organ-playing background must have contributed to this is obvious.

Why not give it a go then and try and play like Fats?  Quit use of the
sustain pedal 50%; find a piano with a sostenuto mechanism and you're
almost there!

Sincerely,
Adam Ramet
http://www.themodist.com/