The player must pay close attention to the damper pedal to play cleanly and avoid multiple notes ringing unintentionally at the same time. Because the notes ring for a significant fraction of a second when struck with the damper pad up, and ringing bars do not stop ringing immediately when contacted by the pad, players use a technique called "after pedaling". In this technique, the player presses the damper pedal slightly after striking the bar—shortly enough so the recently struck note continues to ring, but long enough so that the previous note stops ringing.