Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Hand size - what does it matter?

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_keyboard :

"Over the last three hundred years, the octave span distance found on historical keyboard instruments (organs, virginals, clavichords, harpsichords, and pianos) has ranged from as little as 125mm to as much as 170mm. Modern piano keyboards ordinarily have an octave span of 164-165mm, but several reduced-size standards have been proposed and marketed, including a 15/16 size (152 mm octave span) and the 7/8 DS Standard (140 mm octave span) developed by Canadian composer, conductor and pianist Christopher Donison in the 1970s then further developed and now marketed by Steinbuhler & Company, located in Titusville, Pennsylvania. U.S. pianist Hannah Reiman has promoted piano keyboards with narrower octave spans and has a U.S. patent (#6,020,549) on apparatus and methods for modifying existing pianos to provide interchangeable keyboards of different sizes."

So, a "standard" modern piano would have an octave span of 164-165mm. Older pianos might get up to 170mm. Pretty close either way. The smaller pianos seem to be a fair amount smaller.

Ormandj, interesting! My upright Danish Hindsberg from the late 1920's is 165 mm. Now I will have to wear a tape measure wherever I go!

Frycek, that about Chopin's and Liszt's stretch, how sure are you about that? I have heard they had large hands .... (?!)

Chopin's were very small. I have a cast of his hand. It's actually the same size as mine, which stretch very well (180 degree angle)to an easy nine and very problematic ten. Liszt himself gave his maximum range as a ten. Thalberg, a rival pianist of the two, apparently had a great reach. "He does a ten as easily as I do an eight" was what Chopin lamented about Thalberg. Now Rachmaninov had a huge hand, I've heard a thirteen!

FYI my 1887 Mathushek is 164 and my Casio Privia is 165.

Ormanji: How many yrs have you been playing?
if your just starting..your hand will stretch, if you can do a 9th now you'll make the 10th..
as an aside > I played Jazz guitar over 40yrs..
so my left hand is fully stretched..and can reach a 9th and a 10th white only..but get this.. my right hand can only make an 8th..so as you see its possible to reach another key or key and a half.. Bob Newbie

9, 13? What are this numbers? I can play from C to Eb with no problems with both hands. What number is this?

10 (assuming you can hit C-E as well otherwise a good 9)

PianOOb, count the white keys in the span - C to C is 8, C to D is 9, and so forth. [Ed: I didn't notice Frycek had already answered that].

I must say that that about Rachmaninoff doing a 13 sounds almost incredible...!!

Thanks to Frycek.

Rach was a huge guy all over apparently.

Wonder about his shoe size? (You have a cast of Rach's foot?)

An octave is 165mm on my Yamaha P140 and 164mm on my Steinway B.

The B is much easier to play.

So only a millimeter makes a difference.

Mel

C to E flat is a minor 10th.

That's very good.

Mel

Same difference between my Privia and my Mathushek but I really can't tell any difference atributable to key width.

I imagine somebody has one someplace. There's a museum in Paris that has a cast of George Sand's arm.

Bob: I've only had one lesson (last Saturday). Well, I've "noodled" off and on for the past 15 years, but maybe a day or two out of every month if you averaged it out, and nothing that required any stretching. Seems I'll be ok, assuming I'm not some mutant with inflexible/unstretchable hands. :p

As a FYI for those discussing Rachmaninov, it is generally thought he had Marfan's syndrom, as well.

http://www.marfan.org/nmf/GetContentRequestHandler.do?menu_item_id=2

Some people who have Marfan's exhibit the ability to stretch their hands in unbelievable ways. The connective tissue isn't "normal", some of these people can flex joints sideways and all kinds of other interesting ways. While Rachmaninov was a big guy, and did have big hands, Marfan's explains his *extraordinary* span.

Re: Rach - very interesting. There's more about it in the article below.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1351877&blobtype=pdf

This discussion comes up here quite regularly, but I don't really see the point. Sure, my life would be easier if I were good-looking, witty, and rich, and I could become a better piano player if I had another 200 years to live and three hands, but in view of the lack of these qualities, you just try to make do with what you have.

(I can reach an octave with mild discomfort and a 9th if my life depended on it, and I'm still trying to play.)

Just think of it as guys comparing - - - engines.

Yes, that was actually more or less my thought, too. Well, I did post my data (to avoid misunderstandings and because you might think otherwise if you just measured my hands: I am a guy).

I am good-looking, witty and rich and still I'm not allowed to sleep on park benches or under bridges. So, you shouldn't envy us...