Lots of opinions on this floating around out there. My hands are of small-moderateish stature. I have a 9th, which is good enough for me. The 1-2 span (perhaps the most important) is decent. My greater concern is the span between the other fingers (2-3, 3-4, 4-5). The muscles in the top part of my palm near those fingers are pretty tightly wound, and the proof of this came through actual measurements for a friend's doctoral project.

My teacher thinks attempting to manipulate the hand beyond early childhood years is, at best, a waste of time, and at worst, damaging. Some of my peers and colleagues seem to take a different approach (often on the advice of their own teachers) and religiously stretch their hands (through various gentle exercises) daily.

So what's your take? To stretch or not to stretch?

When I first started like 10 months ago, I couldn't reach an octave with my fingers, barely a 7th. Now I can easily play a 9th.
I didn't do any exercises, it just happened. lol

I don't think stretching is a bad idea, but how significant a difference can it make? I've always assumed that the gains are modest and finite; one might go from an unpredictable ninth, for example, to a secure and functional one—but not from a ninth to an eleventh.

Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the potential to expand more than millimeters at most, and stretching is underrated. At the very least, the benefit may depend on individual physiology.

Steven

I think the downside of any intensive efforts to increase your stretch is much, much higher than any possible upside.

I would strongly say that your teacher is right. Forget worrying about your stretch.

Playing 10ths in stride is nice, otherwise? Don't do it.

Stretching as massage-like action to make you feel better is probably good. Doing anything to try to increase your reach is probably bad.

If you want a bigger reach on piano, the first thing to do is to start over with new parents.

I think that says it all, perfectly.

P.S. I would have added a smilie at the end of that last part.
But then again I would probably add smilies to funerals.....

As an adult restarting, I have noticed that playing itself has increased my stretch without anything additional (which I would avoid as dangerous). My efforts at getting serious about piano technique over the past 6 months have already led to accidental overshooting of an 8ve in the left hand. So in my case the (well into) adult hand can move. Then the brain seems to adjust to the new hand size and overshooting stops happening. Working on some pieces that have inner parts while the hand is stretched out seem to have the strongest effect on growing my stretch, just an obvious example would be trilling with 4 and 5 while playing an octave lower with the thumb.

Maybe with adults it only happens in the first year, and is a warming up of the stretch they already have rather than a fundamental change. Anyway, approach cautiously... Just my thoughts keeping in mind that I don't have experience of advanced piano technique.

Er, I kind of hand stretch. I do Harold Bauer's warm up exercises sometimes, and they do stretch the inner fingers. However, they're more for warm-up exercises than specifically stretching. I would say that they are safe to use. =)

Perhaps someone could find some medical article?

i don't know.. but I've always stretched my hands and they are very flexible.. i can reach a 9th with 1-3, 1-4 and 1-5 with both hands. I'm 53 and my hands don't seem to have been injured.

Horowitz' stretching exercise for the 4th and 5th fingers, thumb resting gently on the wood in front of the keys; slowly and decisively crawl up the keyboard:



Extremely effective, but I would never do it for more than a minute and a half a day, maybe three times a week.

I've been thinking of using this for other finger combinations, such as the all-important 2-5 stretch, starting with a seventh. And maybe 3-4 stretch, but I think that could be very dangerous. Best to do these only with guidance from a teacher.

Another Horowitz exercise, to be played slowly:



Adele Marcus' variation:




"Never to be done for more than 5 minutes a day". (Marcus)

For me, that would be never for more than one minute a day.


Mel

I have this problem big time (in both hands) with pieces that I first learned when I was in my teens and then didn't play for some years, even though I never gave up piano in the interim and even though my reach is only a little longer than it was then. I'm constantly over-reaching the octaves. It takes mega-work to undo it in those pieces.

My most natural reach is a 9th. That's part of why Scriabin feels so comfortable to me -- lots and lots of stuff built on 9ths.

IMO you don't have to wait for that.
Take our word.
It's unhealthy and dangerous to effortfully work on stretching your stretch.

But if you insist perhaps somebody could come up with something.

I think it's important to emphasize that Horowitz (presumably) wasn't aiming to increase his stretch with this exercise.

As finger strength improves so does the ability to manage the posture of the hand and therefore, I can play 10ths with "relative" ease when before I struggled with 9ths.

There are serveral accounts of some very famous pianists with very small spans not at all phased by huge stretches. A slight split is hardly noticable to the ear. Personally I focus on "illusion" and not stretching.

Just wanted to quote those great lines.

Well, De Larrocha famously did it, and without any apparent damage. I have heard she increased her span from barely an octave to a 10th.

I have no idea why so many here seem so against it. What's the problem? I actually have not heard of anyone here (or anywhere else, for that matter) injuring themselves by doing it, although obviously doing too much too fast could cause problems.

I did not know that!


Speaking for myself, it's because I feel that I have many indications that it's bad and none that it could be particularly good.

Sure, it would help on something like this if we had "data," or at least some examples of people hurting themselves from trying to do exactly this (although to me the latter wouldn't prove much).
But IMO it's sufficient to be going on general principles, and to take caution from examples and experiences that we feel are analogous.

You know about SCHUMANN? He ruined his hand. In fact I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned (at least not that I noticed). It wasn't from trying to increase his stretch, but to me it gets at the same principle. (He was using his own invented contraption to try to strengthen his 4th finger.)

And maybe most importantly, we know how it is when we over-challenge our hands physically in any which way -- and I guess I can't imagine an approach to "hand stretching" that wouldn't be 'over-challenging' the hand.

And finally, as has been said, it's not important enough to be worth what we feel is the risk.

Even with the De Larrocha example proving it can be done? I don't really see why stretching would be any different than any other developmental activity for a pianist's hands. You go slow, take it easy, and eventually the results show up. There's no need to "over-challenge". For me, the idea is to use a gentle nudge.



Except for those who feel it is important enough. I'm quite happy about the results I have had doing just a few Dohnanyi and Tagliapietra exercises that work on stretching, even if they haven't given me Rach-style hands. Just trying to maximize my flexibility as I age is enough, and stretching exercises will do that, without necessarily aiming at an increase in span. But, if I knew 40 years ago what I know now, I probably would actually have a wider hand now because I would have been started working on stretch a lot sooner. Of course, a lot of standard-issue stuff will do stretching too. Almost any etude on sixths, for example (and yes, they can injure the unwary and/or over-zealous, but that hardly means one shouldn't do them).

I had a student (not coincidentally, an enthusiastic adult with no piano experience) who did too much too fast, all on her own without telling me. She injured herself; I hope not permanently. It's really easy to go over that line. And the people who want to stretch tend to be the eager people who really WOULD do too much too fast. They are also the exact same people who would reassure everybody that they will not do too much too fast, because they're not the kind of person who would do that.

I could only span an octave in the beginning, now I can easily span a 9th. Unfortunately, there are pieces that require more than that, including a measure in Träumerei by Schumann, which otherwise is relatively easy (probably intermediate).

I'm glad you mentioned that, because I think it's a great example of why it's needless to make such a point of "stretching your stretch".....
IMO there aren't any chords in Traumerei that require a wide stretch. I can think of a couple that you might mean (one in the second phrase, one near the end). I happen to have a wide reach but I don't particularly use it on those chords, nor on anything else in the piece. Sure, someone with a wide reach could utilize it on those chords -- but it's far from necessary, and arguably disadvantageous to play the chords that way.

I have to admit that I'm so biased against this "stretching" idea that I can only approach something like that with doubts.
I would wonder exactly what she did, and what the results really were -- and whether the notion that you're expressing represents some misunderstanding or distortion (I don't mean intentional, of course). And, even assuming she did succeed in exactly what you're saying, I still wouldn't consider it any kind of argument for someone to follow, any more than I would think a Little League kid should try to do what Babe Ruth did. Or, to use maybe a closer example, that any other pianist should sit like Glenn Gould, not to mention behave like him.
Besides the generic fact that single examples don't tell us that something is a good idea (just that it's not impossible), the fact that a great pianist does some outlying thing doesn't mean it's something for anyone to follow.


NO PROBLEM with that. But I didn't get the idea that's what was being discussed here, and I would wonder if "gentle nudges" aren't any more than what happens through normal good practicing.


I'm not so sure.

Ditto to some of what I said up there.

Again, I acknowledge my bias.

I think the give-and-take in these last few posts well encapsulates the argument on the subject.

Yes -- that's perhaps an extreme example, but as a general matter it's exactly what concerns me on this.

Like some other adult beginners mentioned, my stretch more or less increased by itself, just by playing whatever I was playing. The first time I had to play octaves it really felt like an effort. But right now, after 2 1/2 yrs of playing a ninth is fairly easy, and I recently noticed I can actually reach a 10th with my right hand! My piano teacher told me that's a development that's rather common. And she even showed me that she herself is barely able to span more then an octave. And it apparently doesn't really affect her playing, which is beautiful, and looks smooth and effortless.

So I am not worrying about span. And whenever I come accross something that's hard to reach I have a teacher that knows a lot of ways to work my way around it.

Ingrid

Apart from Dannylux's exercises at the keyboard (and I wouldn't be worried about these, building up gradually) I don't know what streches ppl are doing. Are you just massaging the webbing with the other hand? Or something more?

Maybe Cherrycoke could describe some of the hand stretches her peers and colleagues do?

In a discussion of stretching, maybe it's useful to describe what exactly the stretching applies to.

In a thoroughly unscientific reduction of anatomy to its rudest essentials, our hands are meat and bones covered by skin. I take it for granted that bones don't stretch, and that it would be most unwise to pull meat from bone. Skin, however, does have the flexibility to stretch slightly and even the capacity to expand when subjected to regular tension.

Our handspan is widest when our fingers are fully extended laterally. Therefore, it seems a reasonable goal that the thumb and pinky of each hand be parallel (or nearly so) when the fingers are fully splayed. To achieve that, I don't think it's necessary to "stretch" anything but the webbing of skin between the fingers; to that extent, I can't see what the danger is from doing so.

I do flex and splay my hands and fingers routinely, especially between the thumb and index finger, and have done so for years.

Steven

Edit: Canonie, I was writing my message when you posted yours. Looks like we were having similar thoughts.

Thanks Steven, very helpful. I think flexing splaying and wiggling is probably pretty good. Some of my former (pre-music) activities stretched and moved the hands quite a bit. so maybe that kept them in good shape for returning to piano.

As far as "meat" is concerned, I think it is this meat you are stretching more than skin (meat =muscles). There are a lot of little muscles in the hand and stretching them wouldn't involve pulling meat off bone. It'd be rather like stretching a muscle in your leg (but smaller and more delicate). Active stretching without any props would be safest.

Two of the more advanced piano technic exercise books have stretching exercises.

Rafael Joseffy's "School of Advanced Piano Playing (Exercises)" has a section called "Stretches".

Josef Pischna's "Sixty Progressive Exercises" has some also, notably #29, #30, along with others.

Even Hanon has some mild ones, #20 opening fingers 2 & 4.

My hand has opened noticeably over the years doing these and other exercises, but my goal was not to increase my stretch, but rather just to play better. I always could play a 10th, but now I can do so and play chord notes easily within the 10th.

I have students who have mentioned that doing technique exercises, usually just Hanon, have increased their span.

Bottom line....Technical exercises, done correctly (I had the supervision of a technic-focused teacher), will greatly improve the hand's ability to play the piano, including more flexibility and agility, which is much more important than stretch, although greater stretch does seem to occur.

Physical stretching, using weights, rubber bands, etc, I would avoid like the plague.