How far can your hand stretch on the piano?
35 replies
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I can reach a 10th somewhat comfortably in both hands.
LH can get pushed to an 11th!
But I really struggle with F# to A in both hands!
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Surprised that Scriabin can only stretch an octave given some of his compositions! I am pretty comfortable with octaves (maybe a 9th here and there too).
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8th comfortably in either of my small hands, up to a major 9th on a good day ;)
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If I drop to the edge of the fingerboard, I can play 10ths in both hands.
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I can reach an unassisted 12th(from C-G) in both of my hands, but it鈥檚 easier in my left hand which is slightly bigger. I can reach an assisted 13th in my left hand.(from C-A)
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I can reach a 10th. I can play a 9th.
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Even Scriabin has a bigger reach than I do! I can force an octave but adding even a third or a chord is tricky. I do it, but it's kind of painful...I've been eagerly awaiting the first run of Stretto (narrow) keyboards being produced right now, and I'm going to hop onto their waiting list as soon as I hear reviews from the first crop of brave customers.
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I can reach an unassisted 11th, but in the context of playing a piece, it would be a "one and done" event, and then my hand would have to relax into something smaller for a moment. On the other hand, I can fairly comfortably play short passages in 10ths, for example in Brahms' Gigue in A minor which we learned recently for the Brahms mini challenge (see last bar of the 5th system and first bar of the bottom system).
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Like Dominic, I can reach a 10th in both hands, and from there my LH can push out to an 11th.
BTW, what was Glen Gould鈥檚 reach? Do we know? In the below YT of him playing AoF contrapunctus 1, he plays the first 8 measures with his RH alone. I think measure 6 would require a pretty impressive reach.
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Nine comfortably. 10th as well but white to black is easier than white to white.
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I can squeeze out a 9th at the edge of the keys with both hands on my regular sized piano but I can reach a comfortable 10th on my narrow key pianos :-)
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An octave is feasible in the context of most music for both hands. However, sometimes it is difficult to have all the notes within.
Meanwhile, I occasionally use forced 9th for slow passages.
I completely changed my technique over my graduate studies to perform Rachmaninoff with such hands.
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I can reach miner 10ths easily but just a couple of major 10ths.
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I can comfortably strike a tenth in both hands and s-t-r-e-t-c-h to an 11th. Although sometimes I wish I had shorter fatter fingers because, combined with a meaty forearm, these pianists seem to get the best tone. Anyone else notice this?
