One size fits all?. Or not!

Why Hand Size Matters (Piano's Darkest Secret)

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Very interesting. After watching this I measured my handspan from thumb to pinky and it is 8.75". I can reach a 10th if I place my hand down by the keyslip (parallel with front of the keys) and I can comfortably play a 9th (hand above the keys).

I guess for me it really doesn't matter because I don't play anything difficult and probably never will. However, I would try a smaller keyboard if they were available. I think a smaller keyboard would be better for someone like me starting later in life because it would provide less spacial memory to contend with.

Thanks for sharing.

God Bless,
David

I read about those shorter keyboards some time ago. I'd take a smaller keyboard if I had a choice, although my handspan is probably OK, I measured it at 23cm (9").

BTW, it's a well-known fact that some Yamaha synths have slightly narrower keys. For instance I measured the octave span of my Yamaha MODX6 at 16cm (6.3") whereas the N1X has octaves at 16.5cm (6.5"). It's just a 0.5cm (0.2") difference per octave but I've found I really like playing that MODX for quick lines (well, it's a synth action of course which makes it feel so much different than a hammer-action but I can still feel that I need to stretch my hands slightly less than when playing the N1X)

P.S. AFAIK, those smaller keyboards are offered in two sizes, 6" and 5.5". Judging by my measurements above, I think I'd be perfectly ok with a 6" keyboard which would bring the octave down to 15.2cm.

Hello,

A highly interesting and well-made video, in a calm documentary style. Thanks for posting, @Jose EB5AGV !

I never measured my hands before, it never occurred to me. Measured as depicted in the video, it turns out I'm at 8.25" when not stretching too much; 8.5" with more stretch. So, just near the threshold mentioned.

Cheers and happy physique matching,

HZ

Hm. Just measured. Exactly the average size hands with the full stretch.

I need this narrow size keyboard 🙂
Joking. I'm still a bit away from playing la Campanella & Co.

During my beginner’s restart back in 2014’, i realized frequent problems playing between the black keys, often sounding wrong notes due to friction causing wrong keys to go down while i was in the process of trying to press the nearby correct keys….. but i have slightly smaller - shorter & thinner - hands & fingers than what is typical for my overall size 🤔

At that time i was also learning & reading about various past virtuoso men pianists, some who were large-bodied …. with fingers nearly as fat as sausages. At first i sort of theorized that renowned pianists could probably afford to have custom-made keyboards to accommodate their large fingers but eventually i found that it was their refined skill of hand/finger movement/placement that allowed them to rapidly fit fingers between keys without problems ….. which probably is part of the full/long definition to be found when looking up - what is a virtuoso pianist?

The content of that video is questionable. I think the material was pulled from thin air. To wit ...

1. This guy in Titusville is not the only maker of a narrower keybed.

2. Steinway does not have thousands of engineers. Their total employee count is around 500.

And I doubt Yamaha has thousands of engineers working on pianos. Maybe that many if you count all of its many divisions. But there's no point in having thousands of engineers in a piano company.

3. He says that the octave span is 6.5" ... and my Clav measures 6.5". But then he says you need a handspan of 8.5" to play a ninth. Yet my 8.25" span can reach a ninth without problems.

4. And my pet peeve ... he incorrectly uses the phrase "increases exponentially". I think people need to know what they're talking about before they speak.

With so much made-up stuff ... right up front and in your face ... I just cannot take this video seriously.

Reminds me of a story my mother told me, when I was a teenager.

A Spartan soldier complained to his mother, that his sword was too sword. His mother replied:

If your sword is too short, get one step closer to your enemy.

That settles it for me. I'm not a sword fighter, but when it comes to piano, and I do have rather small hands, this is my motto: Just play what I can play, and not worry that my hands are not the size of those of Jaws in the James Bond movies The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker.

MacMacMac The content of that video is questionable.

The video (and the corresponding website) is very militant. I think this is inevitable when one thinks they have something important in their hands

MacMacMac I think the material was pulled from thin air.

There is certainly lots of bragging. On the other hand (pun intended), it solves a real problem which is particularly sore for women. The company/foundation was born out of people who did something similar already for themselves and were asked by friends. Once you have something like that, you want to leverage some economy of scale, and for lack of a marketing department and a dedicated research division, the DIY advertisenent-which-you-don-t-want-to-look-as-such causes that sloppiness in statements, that you are so harshly criticizing.

This thing has never caught up because it's very expensive for what it offers (on top of the already expensive acoustic piano) and because piano teachers are skeptical about it. Since one of my daughters is both a pianist and a violinist, I have a particular view about it. Violinists start on tiny instruments and swap them with larger ones as they grow, potentially arriving to "full size" (quoted because there isn't such a thing, sizes vary a bit from one instrument to the next). Some players with smaller hands, even professional ones, stay with something smaller than "full size", even though the smaller instruments produce not-as-good-as-the-largest-ones sound. Nothing like that in piano, which I think would be very useful (as a kid my daughter complained with me forever that she could never reach an octave, and still now she laments that it's a large stretch for her). I suspect the skepticism from the piano teachers is unfounded, but given that there isn't experience out there, I see how people tend to be conservative.

The few professionals with smaller hands that I've seen testing this reduced size keyboard, liked it. They claim one can adjust between large and small keyboards with no problem (people did that already between clavichords and harpsichord back in the day). Obviously with the limitation that in the large keyboards they can't do everything they do on the small one. That causes the famous chicken-and-egg problem with concert venues, on top of many other problems that concert artists have (for both, see the PW pianist subforum where such conversations are happening right now).

theodorn Just play what I can play

I agree that one has to make compromises, and if that's what you mean, fine. On the other hand, your whole post sounds to me like simply an "I don't care about change or progress" which is something I totally disagree with.

In my case, I can reach an octave ok and with some effort and stretch even a nineth, but only for some combinations (e.g. white-to-white). The mythical tenth is out of reach, which is a shame, since the interval of a tenth has such a beautiful sound and rolling it doesn't not make it for me. Given that, and my daughter's difficulty with an octave, which arguably is an essential interval to be able to reach on the piano, I did seriously look at the option of purchasing one of these.

In the end I did not for one reason. Well, price played a role, since I would have been quite outside of my budget and I would have renounced to many other things to be able to afford it, but if it were cheaper/used I would have bought it anyway just for my daughter. The problem is the space in between black keys, and the width of black keys themselves. Both of these are reduced proportionally compared to "regular" (again, there is no such thing, all pianos are slight different, go to PW technician forum if you don't believe me). I have a two-octave 3D-printed dummy of the largest of the reduced size. The black keys are thin and feel like one can slip off too easily; I guess I'd grow used to that, but this is important for what comes next. My fingers do not fit in between the black keys (my daughter's fingers do). You can request thinner black keys (from the even smaller reduced size ones), but I would not go with even thinner black keys. Hence, no purchase.

Now, if this were a $500 or so digital, I'd surely have bought it. If it were a several-thousand standalone one which would have a used market value if we decided we did not want it, I would have considered it very seriously. But for a several-thousands, custom-made-to-fit my own grand piano (hence with zero resale value), it's a stretch of my budget that I am not making. I guess if I win the lottery (I don't even purchase tickets, but the chances are more or less the same 🤣), and I satisfy all my other wishes and get plenty of spare money, I'd buy it. In fact, I even thought of building it myself, but then decided that the Mybrid/Cybrid was such a better project.

Maria Joao Pires can barely span an octave, and always complained that her weak arm strength limits her way to compete with an orchestra in concertos. Although that was a limiting factor in repertoire (she loves Lizst, but never recorded anything...), she never really complained and it did not limit her career.

vagfilm it did not limit her career.

I think this missed the point. Hazing (when it was popular and unavoidable) did not stop people from having a successful military career. Hazing (when it was popular and unavoidable) did not stop people from entering prestigious schools who had such rituals and graduate from them.

Does it mean it was not a problem that we needed to address? Certainly not, and I refuse to talk to anybody who argues that the military and the universities were better when hazing was the norm.

Obviously I am comparing you with some which is much more exaggerated, I know that and I'm doing it just as a hyperbole to make my point clear.

My point is: even though, some people can "make it" even despite great difficulties, that does not mean that we should not remove the difficulties which are possible to remove! We should remove such things as much as possible.

I raised MJ Pires because she is also very vocal (unless she changed her mind) about keeping the default key size. In her opinion the compromises in repertoire are less important than the compromises caused by smaller keyboards, unless all the pianos in the world were adapted to less wide keys. But then the people with thick fingers would complain...
Pianists (not named Horowitz or Hewitt) don't have the privilege of carrying their own instrument with them, as violinists do...
But I am all for it... I have a 3/4 classical guitar that love playing and sometimes prefer it because I played it for so many years.

As far as I’m concerned, Alicia had no problems despite her tiny hands, and she was known to take on a full-size orchestra with her tiny little hands, and still, come out victorious!

So, Maria should stop ‘complaining about her weak arm strength limiting her way to compete with an orchestra’ and just grow up already (musically speaking), and learn to adapt, adjust, and move on!

The world isn’t perfect, and sometimes one size has to ‘fit all’, and yes, under certain circumstances it is allowed to ‘fit’ you perfectly (a tiny violin for a tiny player, for example); however, this custom-made perspective isn’t always possible, or it is just too expensive.

So I say, dribble that huge basket-ball with your tiny hands until your hands grow.

If, per se, your hands never grow, and you’re stuck with tiny hands for life, there are two solutions: adapt despite your tiny hands and keep on dribbling, or leave them balls 🏀🏀 for someone else to dribble; but please, don’t ask for custom-made tiny balls…. (you’ll also need to be at least 7 feet tall for basketball; so yes, there’s also that to think about).

And if the PASK keyboards become a norm, someone needs to make an international ban (prison-enforced...) to prevent composers to pieces with 12 key spans in PASK, othwrwise the cycle is repeated endlessly 😊
Show an artist his limit, and he will push it...

vagfilm I raised MJ Pires because she is also very vocal (unless she changed her mind) about keeping the default key size.

I see. Thanks for clarifying that. I did not know that and (as you have guessed from my reply) I interpreted your point quite differently.

vagfilm In her opinion the compromises in repertoire are less important than the compromises caused by smaller keyboards, unless all the pianos in the world were adapted to less wide keys.

Potentially, major venues can have two keyboards for each instrument, so it's not exactly like this. But we are again at the chicken and egg problem. Do you have a link to an interview or something were she expresses that view?

vagfilm And if the PASK keyboards become a norm, someone needs to make an international ban (prison-enforced...) to prevent composers to pieces with 12 key spans in PASK, othwrwise the cycle is repeated endlessly

Musically speaking, the 10th is a very important interval. Going beyond that, I can't hear such strong case. So yes, somebody will compose stuff with larger intervals for sure, but I don't think it'd be such a problem, because it'd be less important musically.

Pete14 As far as I’m concerned, Alicia had no problems despite her tiny hands, and she was known to take on a full-size orchestra with her tiny little hands, and still, come out victorious!

To reiterate what I've said before with other words: the fact that same succeed despite difficulties, do not make these difficulties useful to be there in the first place. The goal of the instrument is making music. Having an instrument that enables making music in a easier way is a desirable goal. We can argue whether or not PASK "enables making music in a easier way" and I am not sure what the answer is (it solves some problems and creates others). But I don't agree with the some have succeeded, hence there is no problem stance.

RIP I agree that one has to make compromises, and if that's what you mean, fine. On the other hand, your whole post sounds to me like simply an "I don't care about change or progress" which is something I totally disagree with.

How in the world do you read that from my post? Nothing can be farther from the truth that I don't care about change or progress.

If this discussion is about whether keyboards with narrower keys should be manufactured or not, then by all means do it. If that can help some people being more musical by making it easier to play bigger intervals, I'm all for it.

It's just something I'm not that interested in for myself. If my hands are too short to play a tenth, I can arpeggiate it or play the higher note with my right hand. Yes, that means the right hand is not free to play other notes, like chords, but the pedal can be used to compensate for that (up to a point, of course).

Edit

I might add, that manufacturing keyboards / keybeds with narrower keys is also dependant on the market. If there are not enough potential buyers, the companies will not deem it economical to build them. Maybe an idea for the next DIY project?

theodorn How in the world do you read that from my post? Nothing can be farther from the truth that I don't care about change or progress.

Well it's hard to get exactly what one means from just a few written words with no inflection like in the spoken language -- and little or no context about the other person's background. Plus, I'm very naive, almost to the point of being dumb, with social interactions and not only, so that should explain it. I hope my own "if that is what you mean fine" followed by "sounds to me" made it clear that I was not sure and contemplating both options as possible.

theodorn I'm all for it.

It's just something I'm not that interested in for myself.

Thanks for clarifying it.

theodorn I might add, that manufacturing keyboards / keybeds with narrower keys is also dependant on the market. If there are not enough potential buyers, the companies will not deem it economical to build them. Maybe an idea for the next DIY project?

Especially so ... because pianos don't jump off the retailers shelved like bread at the supermarket or like roofing nails at Home Depot. Pianos sit for quite a while in inventory ... a costly undertaking. Adding a narrow keyboard into the mix would increase the inventory cost and peril.

I still would like to see a slightly narrower keyboard design. But I wouldn't count on it happening the world of acoustic pianos.

Maybe with digitals ... especially the low- or mid-priced keyboards? These move much more quickly and don't suffer the inventory overhead of their acoustic cousins. But I'm still not holding my breath.

Pianos can be modular. Often the action slides right out. It seems that's how Steinbuhler is retrofitting pianos. Keep a spare action in the backroom and slide it into a new piano on customer request. Seems like Hailun can do it.

navindra Pianos can be modular. Often the action slides right out.

Yes but the actions are very expensive to build and maintain.

theodorn Maybe an idea for the next DIY project?

Yes, that was indeed my idea as I (probably unclearly) stated in my message. I did not pursue further because (as I write above) building even a simplified action is a lot of work (and no, 3D printing does not make it easier), so I opted Cybrid/Mybrid, a DIY project with a higher chance of success.

MacMacMac Maybe with digitals ... especially the low- or mid-priced keyboards? These move much more quickly and don't suffer the inventory overhead of their acoustic cousins. But I'm still not holding my breath.

I totally agree with you. I think they have most if not all, of the needed parts. They already make several narrower keyboards (usually with crappy actions). They could leverage that expertise. But the market needs to be big. Assuming they can't use the exact parts they are already producing (the narrower ones are not good enough and the regular ones might not be easily adapted), they need to setup or subcontract the manufacturing needs. While in volume any part costs practically nothing (a key might cost less than $1 in material, energy to make and shipping), the setup costs are very high. Injection molding is a fantastic process which allows many wonders in building parts with everything one needs, but its costs are staggering. Last time I spoke with a friend who works in the field, we are talking about ten millions. So if you make a million identical keys (there are only about 10 identical white keys per keyboard, so you'd need to sell 100,000 of these), we are talking about 11 bucks each. Alright, I got into the weeds here, but I just wanted to say that to make a product with economy of scale, you need, well, scale -- and with this we have the chicken-and-egg problem: there is no demand, hence there is no supply, but without supply the demand cannot materialize either.