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Is there any classical artists who wrote music specifically to practise the use of the sustain pedal?
To illustrate my question:
Over the years, I used Hanon for conditioning, Bach for ground work, Bartok for sight reading, Mozart for use of scales and technique.....
If so, can anyone recommend a practical work book?
"The pedal preludes" by Samuel Maykapar are Romantic etudes written with the intention of learning to work with the pedal. Each etude has a small introduction by the author.
These two studies are hardly a "work book", but it explains the basic principle well and gives a few examples that apply the basic idea to other works: https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/87415/to
To practice legato pedalling (which is the basis for everything else) you don't need anything more than some simple hymn tunes. The important thing to learn is to coordinate the timing of releasing the pedal with playing the next chord. You press the pedal after you play the chord you want to sustain, not at the same time as you play the notes.
At least, that is the technique for classical music - some jazz and rock players just seem to stomp on the pedal at the same time as they play a chord, which affects the tone of the piano but doesn't create a legato effect.
