Soft pedal

The soft pedal, or una corda pedal (Italian for 'one string'), is one of the pedals on a piano, generally placed at the leftmost position. On a grand piano, this pedal shifts the whole action (including the keyboard) slightly to the right, so that the hammers, which normally strike all three strings for a note, strike only two of them. This softens the note and modifies its tone quality. The tone quality is also affected because the remaining two strings that are struck make contact with a part of the hammer felt that is not often hit, since the whole action is shifted. This results in a duller sound, as opposed to the brighter sound usually produced when the felt has been hardened through regular use.