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I do have small hands myself (can't play 10th), I agree Vectistim I should blame my technique rather than the keyboard,
If I feel bad about it I just watch some 10y old prodigy on youtube and the issue gets all relative

There is so much music out there that does not have big stretches I don't see that it would really be necessary to have thinner keys. If a particular piece has a difficult stretch, either use a "cheat" (perfectly acceptable) or simply choose another piece that's more playable!

Christopher Donison has written[2]: “There are two great secrets in the world of piano playing. The first is how much easier the instrument is to play with larger hands and the second is how impossible it can be with smaller hands. If one can divide the world into roughly two constituencies; a smaller half and a larger half, one can see that the larger half never really knows what the difficulties of their small-handed counterparts are, and the smaller half never really finds out how much easier all the difficulties are with larger hands. This is because small-handed people never wake up the next morning with larger hands, no matter haw hard they may pray for that to happen, and the larger handed people have never experienced the difficulties of the smaller-handed people. Their hands were already big enough long before they were attempting repertoire that was challenging enough to betray the secret.”
Today, for the first time in the history of the piano, there is a growing list of universities who own and are studying alternative size keyboards. Also, for the first time in the history of the piano, there is a growing list of pianists who own and use a 7/8 keyboard. Rhonda Boyle recently conducted a survey of many of these pianists. You can read the questionnaire she used and the results she obtained in her paper Hand Size and the Piano Keyboard[3]. Rhonda has also started a web site dedicated to presenting all the relevant data and arguments for smaller keyboards :Piano keyboard size - a level playing field?
Taken as a whole, this accumulating evidence demonstrates that pianists in general are locked in a one-size-fits-all world of profound discrimination. Students who study piano are mostly female and yet universities only provide pianos with large size keyboards. When we step back to reflect on this, is it not astounding to realize that universities around the world do not provide their students with instruments that fit their hands?! Today, slowly, they are becoming aware of the two great secrets Christopher discovered when he first got his 7/8 keyboard.

So any minus votes here are from people who are objectively pro injury in small children, and think DPs are currently too portable!

Not sure why anyone would be against it. It's not like people with large hands would be forced to use smaller keyboards. You could still use the standard size.

...It's not like people with large hands would be forced to use smaller keyboards...

Once you go down the road of the narrow keybed as an adolescent or adult, you probably can't turn back. It will greatly limit where you can play. There's no way this is ever going to take off in a big way - conservatories are certainly not going to adopt this wholesale, nor the teachers working in them. If you enter a competition, do a gig, play at your local church, high-school, your old grandma's - these narrow keyboards are going to be nowhere to be found. Sure you can drag a portable keyboard around with you, but if you want to play a real piano in a normal venue, your options are going to be few and far between. Most venues have room and budget for one piano - and it's going to be the standard one.

The comparisons with smaller guitars are not valid because on a guitar, you are already used to the frets getting narrower as you proceed up the neck. Playing a small guitar is the same as playing from the 2nd fret of a normal guitar. Learning to play demanding pieces on a piano with a narrow keybed with stretches of an octave, 9th or 10th will effectively make these pieces unplayable once you are asked to play on a full sized piano. And since you won't have learned coping strategies to deal with the full sized piano, you won't be able to adjust. Everything from stretches to intervalic leaps will be totally thrown out.

So, I think if you are a serious pianist who wants to get out and about in the world and play for people in a variety of venues, this would be a very bad decision to make. If you just wanted to stay home and play for enjoyment, then I see no problem with it. It's a bit like if people with tiny feet had difficulty driving a car with standard pedals, so they had their pedals assembly modified. Sure, they can drive their own car better, but they would have a heck of a time driving anybody else's car after that.

I see more problems than benefits with adopting something that is very unlikely to ever see widespread adoption. Passionately promotional videos notwithstanding. As a teacher, I'd rather prepare my students for the real world of pianos and how to cope with their misfortune of having small hands. That way, their options are kept open. There might be an argument for young children up to a certain age for using a narrower keybed, but at some stage I'd switch them over to the standard width for the reasons given above.

Note that Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, would have composed many of their great works on keyboards that were smaller than our present day conventional size. This makes it doubly understandable why pianists today with small hands will struggle to perform them.

Research has shown that pianists can adapt to the different sizes fairly quickly.

As for practicing on smaller keyboards and performing on standard size, I think you guys aren't thinking out of the box enough.

Yes, it sounds inprobable that pianists are going to bring their own keyboard to the venue. But I think it's important to understand that there is a theoretical possibility to do this. If enough people would adapt this kind of mind set, then their might just be a time when such a thing can happen. Innovation only happens when people open their minds and embrace it.

We all (mostly) wear right size clothes and shoes. What if there was only one size but everyone got used it, would you argue that creating individual sizes is never going to happen because it would be too much work for everyone involved?

It's also interesting to realise that keyboards didn't always have the size they have now. Some of the great romantic literature was probably created on smaller keyboards.

Note that Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, would have composed many of their great works on keyboards that were smaller than our present day conventional size. This makes it doubly understandable why pianists today with small hands will struggle to perform them.

I have actually experienced "getting larger hands." Although that sounds impossible, this was achieved by creating a 7/8 - size keyboard for my Steinway concert grand. I thus began the great discovery of what it feels like to play the piano with larger hands. It was like an epiphany. All the touches and techniques in piano studies - and I stress - all of them - were made easier by a factor of a hundred.

I would never have known this, however, if I had not had the 7/8 - size keyboard made for me. Getting that keyboard made became an obsession after the idea came to me while practicing the coda of the G-minor Chopin Ballade for about the thousandth time. I was staring at the keyboard and looking at my hands, realizing they did not look right in comparison to the keyboard to accomplish the task. (I cannot stretch a sixth between the index finger and little finger in the right hand.) I realized that my hands would never be larger, but the keyboard could be smaller! After I got the keyboard made and fitted to the piano, I made a multitude of discoveries.

I could finally use the correct fingerings. Broken-chord formations could be played on one hand position, instead of two. The sensation of what it feels like to play with the proper fingering is easier to remember, more reliable in terms of accuracy, less painful, and ultimately better sounding. That is because the fingers that must bring out specific pitches in concerted sounds are aligned more directly over the keys. The whole hand-shape is less stretched out, and so power can be directed down into the keys.

Wide, sweeping, left-hand arpeggiated figures so prevalent in Romantic music become possible, and I could actually get on with the business of cultivating the right sound, rather than repeatedly practicing the same passage. The larger the sweep, the greater the difference. On a 7/8-size keyboard, a two-and-a-half octave sweep is two-and-a-half normal key-widths smaller. That is about two-and-a-half inches! When the smaller-handed player attempts a sweep like this, the hand must be very loose, and it is almost flung from top to bottom to cover the distance. Landing in the right place is the great achievement. With a larger hand, landing in the right place is so easy that the force with which you land there is now an option. With the smaller keyboard, those washes of sound could now be controlled and manipulated.

There was an increase of power. A small-handed person playing on a 7/8-size keyboard will sound like a larger person. The distance to travel is now proportionate to the size of the hand. Much of piano technique is about allowing the hand to be in its natural position as much of the time as possible. If the hand has to stretch itself like a pretzel for every task, the hand tires faster. Alternatively, when the hand, in its natural relaxed position, is already in the position it needs to be, the percentage of time that the muscles are engaged is reduced significantly, and the ability to rest the muscles is increased. Therefore, power and stamina are increased.

It was easier to make large leaps, and I could do so accurately, with greater speed.

It was easier to achieve proper balance. Getting the right amount of tone out of the lead melody-line in the right hand (or any internal line) was possible and enjoyable.

I was able to “walk” (legato finger) octaves with a 3,4,5 fingering. This created more bel canto playing, but it also made achieving speed and accuracy easier when I performed the famous octave pssages in the repertoire.
I realize now, looking back, that most of the time I spent practicing was used trying to overcome difficulties because of my hand-size. My great desire is for the small-handed pianists of the world to experience, as I have, the great joy of playing the piano when the struggle of overcoming the limitations imposed by hand-size are gone.

Here's what Christopher Donison has to say about the smaller size keyboard he had built in the late 1970's (kinda the guy who inspired todays 7/8 keyboard). Perhaps it will be clearer to the average/large handed player how significant a smaller keyboard can be for the small-handed.

Dewster, OT: did you ever finish that whole 'case' you were building for the 700NX? I followed up till the bare speakers got wiring. Is it finished?

Even if you don't need you should be voting +1 because you should want more people to be able to enjoy Piano. Right now the subset of the population that can do so without pain is a minority, and that's very wrong.

Why would we be "voting" yes? The viability of this relies on how many small-handed people you can get together to buy these things, not on larger-handed people who will never buy them. This isn't a petition type situation, it's demand and profitability for manufacturers. If you think it's as compelling as you think, you should try and do some real research and get a petition going and invite all small-handed, aspiring or practising pianists to get on board. You would then have to lobby a few manufacturers. I don't see any point in imploring those who are fine with the standard keyboard to add moral support. Maybe you like the idea, but it won't change the outcome.

Do you always have to see some kind of profit for yourself in order to vote for something? I sure hope not, as that would be pretty sad.

You could say "I don't need it, but if it helps other pianists, why not". This goes for many things in life obviously.

Also, keep in mind that this informal polling is biased against smaller sizes, because we all play piano here. But how many musicians have turned away from piano due to the fact that it's so painful or they can't reach octaves. I know a girl who wanted to learn piano but he turned to the Cello because playing piano was so painful for her. You won't find people like her in this forum. So if the results are 50% in favor, in reality it's more like 75%.

One reason conventional keyboards are so large was do to the fierce pressure in the 19th century for piano manufacturers to win competitions. They were driven to produce pianos that had ever bigger sound which meant they would build pianos with more strings and ever bigger hammers. Cristofori’s first keyboards were the same size as in today’s modern pianos, but the initial reaction to his keyboard was to build smaller ones. Then in the 19th century as manufacturers strove for market share, designs for the modern piano evolved and pushed the width of the keyboard back out again. However, today it is possible to have pianos with very big sound and also to fit them with keyboards that are ergonomically suited to every hand.

I have average-size hands, too. At this point, I think that if there were much less space between the sharps I would be getting my fingers stuck between them on certain passages. Even now there are times when the fit is a little tight. Again, my fingers are normal size, not abnormally thick.

Oh I don't think it's quite as straight forward as "this is the most optimal keyboard size for the majority of players". Steinbuhler has this to say about it:



Let's also not forget that in those days when the piano became what it is today, women usually weren't welcome to play at all. Not suprising, then, that keyboards were made for men, and even then usually so that the average and large handed people could play comfortably.

Also, all of this happened in Europe. Today we have piano players all around the world. Asians have a huge interest in the piano and they on average have smaller hands than Americans or Europeans.

Adjusting the keyboard size to the player really isn't any stranger than adjusting the height of a piano bench to compensate for leg length and body height.

You're taking this a bit too seriously ando. You're quite right (and I already agreed with you) that the chance for this to really take off is very slim. I think if that ever were to happen in the future, Asians would probably be the driving force. Not only do they have small handed people and tons of women who play piano, they also have the majority of the piano industry.

I'm not trying to accomplish anything other than to point out how ironic the situation is. On one side we have concert pianists who adjust pretty much everything in their pianos. Tone, touch, acoustics, bench height, sitting position. The latter two especially, stuff that is taught ad nauseam: how important it is to have the right posture and to sit at the correct distance and optimal height. Yes something as essential as keyboard size remains static for practical and technical reasons. The keyboard, the very thing that every pianist uses first and foremost to play music.

If we had none of these practical limitations, if indeed every pianist could bring his own keyboard and insert it into any piano, or at least choose of one of 2 established sizes, would you approve and welcome the benefits?

Why would we be "voting" yes? The viability of this relies on how many small-handed people you can get together to buy these things, not on larger-handed people who will never buy them. This isn't a petition type situation, it's demand and profitability for manufacturers. If you think it's as compelling as you think, you should try and do some real research and get a petition going and invite all small-handed, aspiring or practising pianists to get on board. You would then have to lobby a few manufacturers. I don't see any point in imploring those who are fine with the standard keyboard to add moral support. Maybe you like the idea, but it won't change the outcome.

Adjusting the keyboard size to the player really isn't any stranger than adjusting the height of a piano bench to compensate for leg length and body height.

This is the wrong argument. What you need is the piano to be height adjustable, as adjusting the bench just does not cater for all arm, leg, and body sizes. Adjusting the bench, does not work for me, for example, but, just like with the keyboard, I play the instrument anyway.

Actually I am in favour of stage pianos for this reason, but I no longer own one.

If you want to adjust the height of the piano instead of the bench it's already been done ... http://www.alpha-piano.com/