The pianist can acquire but relatively little control over the musical sounds of his instrument. He can make them soft and loud, but he cannot, as the violinist can, make a single tone grow from soft to loud and die away to soft again. The violinist or the singer both makes and controls tone, the one by his bow, the other by his breath; the pianist, in comparison with them, but makes tone. Having caused a string to vibrate by striking it through a key, he cannot even sustain these vibrations. They begin at once to weaken; the sound at once grows fainter. Therefore he has to make his effects with a volume of sounds which has been aptly said to be ever vanishing. On the other hand, these sounds have more endurance than those of the xylophone, for example; and in their brief span of failing life the skillful pianist may work somewhat upon them according to his will. He may cut them exceedingly short by allowing the dampers to fall instantaneously upon the strings, thus stopping all vibrations. He may even prolong a few sounds, a chord let us say, by using the sustaining pedal. This lifts the dampers from all the strings, so that all vibrate in sympathy with the tones of the chord and reënforce them, so to speak. This may be done either at the moment the notes of the chord are struck, or considerably later, after they have begun appreciably to weaken. In the latter case the ear can detect the actual reënforcement of the failing sounds. Moreover, the use of the pedal serves to affect somewhat the color of the sounds of the instrument. All differences in timbre depend on overtones; and if the pianist lifts all dampers from the strings by the pedals, he will hear the natural overtones of his chord brought into prominence by means of the sympathetic vibrations of other strings he has not struck. He can easily produce a mass of sound which strongly suggests the organ, in the tone color of which the shades of overtones are markably evident. The study of such effects will lead him beyond the use of the pedal into some of the niceties of pianoforte touch. He will find himself able to suppress some overtones and bring out others by emphasizing a note here and there in a chord of many notes, especially in an arpeggio, and by slighting others. Such an emphasis, it is true, may give to a series of chords an internal polyphonic significance; but if not made too prominent, will tend rather to color the general sound than to make an effect of distinct drawing.