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My Finger Span is 7.5" - What's Yours?


bitflipper

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I don't have "piano player's hands".  My fingers are too short and too fat.

Unfortunately, the standard keyboard was designed to accommodate the hands of Franz Liszt, who had exceptionally large hands.  Prior to that, keys were narrower and shorter. Consequently, generations of keyboard players have had to struggle with keys that are too large for their hands.

You'd think that nowadays when most keys are made of plastic, it would be possible to buy a smaller keyboard. Well, you can, but only those tiny keyboards made by Korg and Akai, which typically have only 25 keys. As this video shows, there is only one guy in the world making 88-key keyboards with smaller keys.

The standard size is 6.5" per octave. I measured all of mine and found that even my compact Axiom 49-key controller adheres to this standard, as does my little Hammond clone. Only my itty-bitty AKAI LPK-25 was smaller, at a smidge under 6" per octave. But I've always struggled to play fast on that little guy. I still like it, though, because it slips easily into my laptop bag for travelling.

So I'm curious. Keyboard players, get out a ruler and see what your span is. Mine is a wimpy 7.5", capable of an octave + the second, but not octave + a third. Good thing nobody told me, when I was starting out, that my appendages were too small for the task.

NOTE: bapu, don't even think of making a parody of this thread, you perv.

 

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I have a skiier's (also called gamekeeper's) thumb injury on my right hand which prevents the bottom knuckle from going straight, but I have always used that hand to gauge 9". Because of this thread I had to check... sure enough, right hand is exactly 9"... I never checked the left hand before and that is 9.5"... fretting hand matters most. Actually that makes more sense because that hand gets spread naturally often (especially the pinky)... the tendons between my pinky and ring finger on my right hand are much tighter than on the left (left spreads 180 degrees from thumb to pinky, right is about 160 degrees).

Hand stretching exercises do help, but straight line from thumb to pinky is as far as anyone can get.

That video is nicely done!

Edited by mettelus
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Mine is just under 8".   I can manage an octave comfortably.

An octave plus one, although doable is uncomfortable and I can't do it with any reasonable velocity.  Fine for organ sounds, not so much for piano.

I use a Korg microKEY 61 in my office, which has mini piano style keys - it's a breeze to get an octave plus three on that.

IIRC when I did classical piano ( so long ago, it's hard to recall!) I used to quickly arpeggiate larger intervals I couldn't stretch to, and using the sustain pedal to sustain the first note.  Takes a bit of practice, but it can be done.

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Ok, y'all started this :). As a piano player too, I just had to know... if you have 7 1/2inch spread that is tiny my diminutive wife has that, and I always thought she has tiny hands!! (she has) interesting note about different hand spreads, mine are left 8.7 inches (good for bass end) and right 8.25. However!!!, that isn't going to give you the ability to get serious purchase on the keys, you can basically subtract an inch overall. 

On a side note, when I was in Queensland in the mid 80s, we had a bouncer who's spread would have easily been 13-14 inches, man was an orangutan, I swear!.

Lastly, the Yamaha Montage 7 does not conform to 6.5 inch per octave I think.. or is it just length of keys.... going to google now!. 

Edit: OK Google let me down again.. twice in one day!!!. Anyway, the keys on Montage 7 are 5 1/2 inches long, but the same width and so in fact full 6 1/2 inches between octaves.  I had to measure. You're all welcome :). It's now on google!.

Tony :_)

Edited by Tony Carpenter
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1 hour ago, Telesforo Cardarelli said:

Utilizzo con piano elettrico casio midi, ogni volta che spingo il pedale del sustain mi riproduce una nota, come posso evitarlo

For those of us that don't know Italian! ?

Quote

I use with casio midi electric piano, every time I push the sustain pedal it plays me a note, how can I avoid it

 

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5 hours ago, msmcleod said:

An octave plus one, although doable is uncomfortable and I can't do it with any reasonable velocity.

I do it regularly; a lot of my compositions lately are using it - sometimes including the second above the low note in which case I'm hitting both with my thumb which shortens the distance. But I can do the 9th by itself pretty easily with the same span.

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