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Hi!
There is one thing about my Yamaha P140 I got last month that I am not sure if it is an issue. The black keys are wider than the ones on my Yamaha E313 and our old acoustic piano. So I am struggling to play the white notes between the black ones. My fingers are just able to squeeze in between the black keys, and my hands are not big for a guy.
Is there a trick to make this easier for me, or should I look for a keyboard with narrower black keys?
Thanks for any input.
-Henry

Haven't noticed this, I'm at work and measured my P90. Black keys are 10mm at the top, 12mm at the base. I'll measure my P140 when I go home.

This is what I measured on what I have:
Yamaha P140: 10.2mm @ top; 12mm @ bottom
Yamaha E313: 9.7mm @ top; 11.3mm @ bottom
Old Acoustic: 9.8mm @ top; 11mm @ bottom

The P140 is too tight for my fingers, the E313 is OK, and the acoustic is comfortable.

So it looks like I have to find a keyboard with black keys around 11mm wide. I looked at Roland keyboards last night, and they felt about the same as the Yamaha.

Any recommendations on brands to look at? Thanks!

After thinking about this, it doesn't matter how big the black keys are, it only matters how big the space is between them. The spaces between the black keys on my P140 range from 16-17mm. I think I'd wait for a technician to weigh in, or maybe ask this on the technician forum. If every key were different by only 1mm, that would mean piano lengths could be different by as much as 88mm. Doesn't sound right.

Hi,

I hope you can find something to suit. A small difference that you don't pick up by eye can be quite noticeable once you play.

Before I bought my current keyboards I blithely assumed that there was a standard size for keys and that the differences would be with the touch and the sound. So it was a real surprise to discover that even a complete octave is not the same width on my 2 keyboards - one a Roland and the other a Yamaha. It didn't take long to get used to swapping between the two but it did initially lead to my hitting the ege of some adjacent keys. Or maybe just provided a handy excuse for doing so...

My Roland HP 201 seems to have similar sized black keys to the P140 Yamaha (although probably a bit narrower at the top). The all important space between them varies (on both the Yamaha and Roland) depending on which cluster. There's noticeably more space for the D between the pair of black keys than for the G and A between the three.

Playing the G and the A between the black notes seems OK with my index and ring fingers, but the middle apparently needs to go on a diet, or spend some time on a treadmill, as it's quite a tight squeeze. So on a few occasions this has affected the choice of fingering to something that felt like a more comfortable fit.

It would be interesting to hear some more measurements, and also more feedback from players with 'wider' fingers as to how they cope.

Cheers,

Chris

I don't know how much other pianos might vary by, but 5 octaves on my Yamaha PSR-S500 keyboard (61 keys) is 20mm narrower than 5 octaves on the Roland (88 keys). Over a full 88 keys that would be over an inch difference. Nowhere near 88mm in that case, but still noticeable when you play.


EDIT: Mr Google just found this for me. From some piano forum.... Keyboard widths

and from a Wikipedia article here:

Musical keyboard

The octave span on the 61 note keyboards that I measured was a 'narrow' 160mm. But the all important room between the black keys seems the same as with the wider boards, thanks to black keys that are slightly less chunky (and incidentally slightly less tall as well).

I have normal sized hands so this has never been an issue for me. I never realized there was such a variation in key size. Interesting wikipedia article.

Thanks for all the interesting info.
I agree the bottom line is the space between the black keys. There seems to be more space to play D than there is for G and A. On my acoustic I measure about 17mm, and on the P140 it is just over 15mm. My index finger measures about 17mm at the first knuckle, and about 16mm at the tip. So it basically get wedged in between the black keys on the P140.

I had the same problem with my wide - stubby middle finger when I had a Kawai Es4. I uset to trigger an A flat for instance when playing a Cm9 chord in the right hand. The ES4 had a fairly light action.
Now I have a Roland FP7 and due to the action being heavier this problem is not tow noticable.