Some very famous piano duets which were originally written in this form include several sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, several pieces by Franz Schubert including a "Fantasia in f minor", Gabriel Fauré’s "Dolly Suite", Debussy’s "Petite Suite" and Georges Bizet’s "Jeux d’Enfants" (which he also arranged for orchestra).
Some works are written for two people to play together using two pianos. These are usually called piano duos. Examples include Mozart’s Sonata in D major K448. The Sonata op 34 by Johannes Brahms started as a string quintet but he changed it to a piano concerto, then a piano duo, and eventually a piano quintet. The Suite op 17 by Rachmaninoff is another. Most piano duos are very hard to play and need very good pianists. Piano concertos can be played on two pianos, with one player playing the solo part and the other playing the orchestra’s music.
There is also a small repertoire of pieces for three people to play at one piano. This is called Piano six hands. These pieces are often fun pieces which are not too hard to play, although there are examples of serious pieces. The three people need to be good friends, because it is a bit of a squash. The player at the bottom ought to do the pedalling but it may be easier for the middle player to do it.
Piano six hands
Music described as piano six hands is for three pianists at one piano, as distinct from piano duet which is music for two pianists at one piano, and from piano trio which is music for piano, violin and cello. Not much music has been written for this combination, although there are several arrangements of music originally written for other forces.
Compositions include 5 pieces by Percy Grainger, Sergei Rachmaninoff's Romance and Valse, Alfred Schnittke's Hommage, Carl Czerny's op.17 and 741, Jean Cras's "Âmes d’enfants", Paul Robinson (composer)'s "Pensees" and "Monmartre", various pieces by German composer Armin Fuchs, Bulgarian composer Tomislav Baynov's "Metrorhythmia 1", John Pitts's "Are You Going?", Greek composer Dionysis Boukouvalas's "Fantasy on a theme by Steve Reich", Canadian composer Paul Frehner's "Slowdown" and Italian composer Fabio Mengozzi's "Promenade".
Pedal
A pedal is something that is made to work by someone's foot. The word "pedal" comes from the Latin word for "foot". Many things can be made to work by pedals. These include:
Rice wine
Rice wine is a word some people use to talk about alcoholic drinks. However, it is not a true wine, despite the name. True wine is made by fermenting grapes, and perhaps other fruit. In rice wine, the starch in the rice is first changed into sugar. This sugar is then fermented. This process is more like the fermentation as it is done in beer.
The "rice wines" made in this manner have more alcohol in them than normal wines (18–25% alcohol compared to 10–14% for normal wines). Beers on the other hand usually have 4–8% alcohol in them.
Many people use the term "rice wine" to refer to sake (which is just one variant of many different kinds of rice wines).
Alcopop
Alcopops are alcoholic drinks. They are also known as Ready-to-drink (RTD), Flavored Alcoholic Beverage (FAB) or Flavored Malt Beverage (FMB). They are usually available in bottles or cans. They contain about the same amount of alcohol as a beer. Usually, they are very sweet, so that the alcohol can not be tasted.
There are two different kinds of this drinks. In Europe, they are usually spirits mixed with lemonade, like vodka with lemon juice (and a lot of sugar, so the alcohol cannot be tasted), or rum with fruit juice (also very sweet). In the US, they tend to be beers, which taste very sweet.
Because they are very sweet, alcopops tend to be more popular among young people. Since the fact that they contain alcohol is usually not obvious from the taste, these drinks are considered to be dangerous for young people by many countries. These have either raised the taxes on the drinks, or they have outlawed the sale of these drinks to people under a certain age (usually 18, sometimes 21 years).
Pedal (music)
Pedals on musical instruments are used to control parts of the instrument, or provide extra notes.
There are several musical instruments which have pedals for various reasons.
The piano has at least two pedals; large concert grand pianos always have three. The pedal on the right (operated by the player's right foot) sustains the sound of the notes for as long as the pedal is depressed. It does this by lifting the dampers from the strings. Some of the other strings even start to vibrate as well ("in sympathy").
The pedal on the left makes the sound quieter. It is called the "una corda" pedal (Italian for "one string"). This is because, in the early days of the piano, the una corda pedal made all the hammers move over so that a hammer would only hit one string for each note instead of three (most notes on a piano each have three strings to make a bigger sound). On modern pianos the hammers actually hit two strings instead of just one. They also tend to hit the string at a point where the hammer is softer, away from the grooves which get worn in the hammerhead. On an upright piano the una corda pedal moves the hammers closer to the strings so that they do not hit them so hard.
On pianos which have a middle pedal (called a sostenuto pedal) any note or chord which the player is holding down when the pedal is pressed will be sustained, but any more notes he plays afterwards will not be affected.
On pipe organs there is a pedalboard with pedals which play notes in the same way that the fingers are playing notes. An organ pedalboard usually has two and a half octaves of notes. These are low notes written in the bass clef. An organist has to learn to play with the feet at the same time as with the hands. He uses the toes or the heels of his shoes. It is even possible to play four notes at once (four part chords) but this is very difficult and usually found in some modern French music.
There are seven pedals on a concert harp. Each pedal can be in a high, middle or low position. The strings of the harp can be thought of like the white notes of a piano, tuned to naturals (C,D,E etc.). Each pedal can change one of the letter-named notes one semitone higher or lower. For example: the pedal on the left changes all the Ds to D flat (if the pedal is in the highest position) or D sharp (in the lowest position). From left to right the pedals operate the Ds, Cs, Bs, Es, Fs, Gs and As.
Pedal timpani are timpani with a pedal which will tighten or loosen the drumhead. This will make the note go up or down in pitch. It is a fairly new invention. Composers in the Classical music period never had pedal timpani. Their timpani always had to be tuned by hand using the taps around the side. Composers like Béla Bartók wrote for pedal timpani.
Modern harpsichords often have pedals which change the sound in the same way that stops on an organ change the sound. In earlier harpsichords the sound was more often changed by pushing in or pulling out hand stops.
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is addiction to alcohol. People who have alcoholism are called alcoholics.
Alcoholism is a disease. It often gets worse over time, and can kill a person. However, alcoholism can be treated.
Alcohol is the most commonly used drug in the world. Around the world, there are at least 208 million people with alcoholism.
Alcoholism is a condition with a social stigma. Because of this, alcoholics often feel ashamed of their drinking. They may try to hide their drinking, avoid getting help, or refuse to believe that they are alcoholics, because they are too ashamed.
Being an alcoholic does not mean that a person just drinks a lot of alcohol. It means that they cannot control how much alcohol they drink. No matter how badly they want to, once they take one drink, they cannot stop drinking.
To be diagnosed with alcoholism, a person has to have three of these symptoms in the past year: