short/long fingers?

[jamie_liszt]

Hey

Do you have long or short fingers, do you think having longer + skinny fingers helps playing the piano better. I've noticed many people like ingolf, blechacz and alot more have longer fingers.

im just wondering if having short stubby fingers makes it harder to play or gives you a disadvantage, i have short fingers . Curse my hands......

[avetma]

I consider my hands as normal ones 
My thumb is 6,5 cm long, 3rd finger - 9 cm and 5 finger 7 cm.
I can reach from c-F on keyboard.

It is nice to play with them. But still my left is to 'heavy'... 

[pianistimo]

as long as you HAVE fingers, you're ok.  you just do creative stuff - use tricky fingering to help yourself and sometimes the pedal to connect things.  the zip technique, of course (low note - zip sideways to high note = sounds like it's played together)

i'm never giving up unless my hand is broken or maimed.  it's even numb on the right side of my palm - but i got back feeling in my pinky by playing with play doh a lot.  *note - play doh really helped!!!!

i can play transcriptions by moving some of the notes around.  noone seems to tell the difference.  as someone else said on this forum - just don't go around telling everyone - woohoo, i make things easier for myself.

[gruffalo]

I have long skinny fingers, well as my friend put it I have "E.T. fingers".

my dad told me once i would make a good gynecologist. (as a joke)

[steve jones]

I think my hands a pretty average in many respects. If anything I think my fingers a more thin / long. But my hands are pretty small really, so its a good job my fingers are a little longer!

I get C - E (max playable), or C- F (not playable). But I can also get my fingers into fiddly passages without any trouble as they are pretty thin and nimble.

[whynot]

Don't hate your hands!  They're doing their best for you!  Every shape has advantages and disadvantages.  Be savvy about what you do best and try to solve playing problems through your strengths.  I have VERY small hands.  Actually, the smallest of any pianist I know, and I play almost everything I want to.  Some things are more difficult for me, but other things are easier, and I feel comfortable in certain repertoire that someone with normal or large hands would find confining and awkward.  It doesn't matter what's ideal, partly because you have to determine:  ideal for what?  Lizst?  Mozart?  Big sprawling transcriptions or intricate polyphony with closely-crossed hands?  And partly because, if there were such a thing as ideal hands and a person had them, it still wouldn't make the person a great artist at the piano.  There are so many other factors which have nothing to do with physical characterics:  Musical ear, taste, artistic knowledge and experiences, investment of time and energy, wise teaching... blah blah blah.  If you have something to express with your music and the techniques to express them, your hands will never hold you back.
 

[zheer]

I feel that my fingers are fine for all the composers i like, but when i play Rach i guess i need biger hands for some of his chords.

[sevencircles]

but when i play Rach i guess i need biger hands for some of his chords.

Rach himself could reach a 13:th with any hand still he used standard fingerings most of the time.

Is there any recording of him where does these phenomenal stretches?

[zheer]

Is there any recording of him where does these phenomenal stretches?

  If you look at his last prelude he wrote, the last chords can only be playd,if you are 12ft tall.

[steve jones]

I agree with whynot. There is no perfect hand or finger.

For Bach and Mozart, I would think a slight hand would be ideal. Whereas for Rach you'd OBVIOUSLY benefit from  having hands like plates. So I guess it all depends on what you want to play.

I always think though, piano is all about solving technical issues, and getting around the occassinal long chord is not really up there in terms of major problems. If you'd mastered something like Chopin 10/4, then Id wager the few long chords are pretty low on the list of difficulties conquered.

That said, Iv heard it said that wide hands with shorter fingers are probably better all round. Dont know how true this is. Imo, an 11th stretch with fairly thin fingers is probably the optimum. This should make most chords within comfortable reach, yet enable you to still work the fiddly stuff.

[mike_lang]

.

[countchocula]

hand size doesn't matter

[lostinidlewonder]

The worst fingers for piano are FAT fingers. I have one student who has fingers so wide that they cannot play inbetween white notes without the the black notes interfering. What can you do? Nothing! Get a piano with notes more spaced I guess, change how you play so you dont have so play "inside" the keys as much, keeping more on the edge of the notes closer to your body.

Short fingers are not a problem so long you can reach an octave. Even if you cannot reach octaves you shouldn't avoid repetiore which requires it since the hand can definatly be trained to expand more than they normally are used to, like learning to do the splits with your legs but with your fingers instead!

Small fingers play Bach wonderfully because they can play inbetween notes with ease, large fingers are suited for large shapes at the keyboard. When it comes to hand size there is no advantage when there is a string of single notes to be played. Of course if you can relax and play big arpeggios with your hand controlling the large groups without uncomfortable expansion, larger hands become an advantage, but the muscular relaxation can also be trained for the smaller hands controlling larger groups.

[donjuan]

my dad told me once i would make a good gynecologist.

Dude, you'd be one creepy looking gynecologist!

I can just see you in the office: 'dont tell me about your problems, Bi*&h!'

[jamie_liszt]

lostinidlewonder- haha, i dont have really fat fingers, i can reach an octave, i can reach C-F, and my fingers can fit between the black keys so i guess im fine

[g_s_223]

I saw Artur Rubenstein being interviewed once on TV, and the question of his hands came up. He had shortish fingers, but he stated the particular advantage he felt he had was his finger lengths were unusually even, i.e. the middle finger was not protuberant as is usual (in men at least, in women the ring finger may be longer - this is due to hormonal differences during gestation). He believed this evenness of finger length gave him a similar evenness of power across the hand and fingers I think.

Stravinsky was a pianist, and his hand looked like he had five fat pork sausages attached to it.

[rimv2]

I saw Artur Rubenstein being interviewed once on TV, and the question of his hands came up. He had shortish fingers, but he stated the particular advantage he felt he had was his finger lengths were unusually even, i.e. the middle finger was not protuberant as is usual (in men at least, in women the ring finger may be longer - this is due to hormonal differences during gestation). He believed this evenness of finger length gave him a similar evenness of power across the hand and fingers I think.

Stravinsky was a pianist, and his hand looked like he had five fat pork sausages attached to it.

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4314209.stm

It also made him a girlie mahn

[henrah]

I'd say my fingers are fairly thin and average size, though not average compared to the stretches some have told of here. I can stretch from C to D playably but C to E just about. I don't really mind about my finger-stretch-length because I can play most things that come across me (I'm suprised at how far I've gotten with Gnomenreigen); it's my fourth and fifth that let me down, more my fourth as it hasn't learned to become independent of my fifth so it's extremely hard to play from my fifth to my fourth. There's a run passage in Gnomenreigen that goes: F#-A#-D#-C# then C#-F#-B-A# and it's the B-A# that softens because when I play the B with my fifth, my fourth is already hovering above the A# and doesn't have much room to strike. I'm slowly overcoming it though 

I still can't believe how amazingly long Rach's fingers were and the sheer length of some of the chords he wrote: supposedly he could stretch from C-A 
Henrah

[stevie]

I have long skinny fingers, well as my friend put it I have "E.T. fingers".

my dad told me once i would make a good gynecologist. (as a joke)

my mom told me the same thing, not as a joke 

[donjuan]

my mom told me the same thing, not as a joke 

hey, just be glad she didnt say 'proctologist' instead

[letters]

i have pretty small hands, i have to say that doing a lot of octaves does start to hurt after a while!! i can just about do C-D but i find it difficult to then play notes inbetween! i guess my fingers are quite nimble, i can do lots of running about with them but not big crashy chords. some Rachmaninov preludes are pretty daunting in that respect.

[canardroti]

I keep hitting the backboard of the keyboard during fast octave.
Finger too long? no i think i suck too much Haha

[henrah]

I keep hitting the backboard of the keyboard during fast octave.
Finger too long? no i think i suck too much Haha

Are you playing on an upright or a grand? I have a similar problem on the uprights here at school (they majorly suck; on one of them all the bass notes don't return the hammer so you can never keep a bass note going) from doing octaves, and I've scraped my knuckles many times playing one of my friends sonata's which includes a fast octave run. If you're playing on a grand, maybe you should play closer to the edge of the notes. And is this happening during white-note or black-note octaves?
Henrah

[jamie_liszt]

I say when heh its black notes, because he moves his hand forward into the black keys and moves them to far forward. this used to happen on my old small crappy upright which i killed and no longer have.

[henrah]

This is the most likely case. However if he is hitting the backboard of a grand piano whilst playing the white notes, he surely has HUGE fingers!

[steinwaymodeld]

i hate my short pinky......

[mpd210]

long fingers are a definite advantage. pieces by rachmaninov for example, are much more difficult for pianists with smaller hands.

[steve jones]

True, but I would bet that technical acquisition is more difficult for some with very long fingers.


Steinwaymodeld,

You hate your pinky? You should see mine - we have a trait in our family for the little finger to curve inward at the last joint. I have no idea if this is a blessing or a curse!

[nanabush]

Long fingers... thin but not skinny.  This helps toonnnss with huge reaches aka Rachmaninoff

[canardroti]

Are you playing on an upright or a grand? I have a similar problem on the uprights here at school (they majorly suck; on one of them all the bass notes don't return the hammer so you can never keep a bass note going) from doing octaves, and I've scraped my knuckles many times playing one of my friends sonata's which includes a fast octave run. If you're playing on a grand, maybe you should play closer to the edge of the notes. And is this happening during white-note or black-note octaves?
Henrah

This only happens on grand piano mostly,  I dont think i've ever hit hte backboard on an upright piano. I think mayb e the keys on the Baldwin are shorter than usual?
In any case, I know i have to hit the key closer to the edge.

[steveie986]

Absolute size isn't as important as technique and the ability to penetrate the keys with the right amount of force: being smooth and gentle when you need to be and being forceful during climax.

However, having micro-fingers might make the act impossible.

[henrah]

You hate your pinky? You should see mine - we have a trait in our family for the little finger to curve inward at the last joint. I have no idea if this is a blessing or a curse!

I have that same trait, but I don't know if it runs in the family. How much does it curve in? Mine only does it very slightly, enough to fit against the first joint of my ring finger. You could say that it curves around the ring finger 

[steve jones]

Haha, yeah that sounds like my pinky all over - slight curve in the last joint that fits around the middle joint on my ring finger! Lol, are you sure we're not related? I thought this was a Jones trait exclusively. 

Whether or not this is a piano handicap I cant say. My pinky is very short in comparison to my other fingers, so I guess that does limit my reach. But the curve helps it to grab onto the edges of keys, so this probably makes up for it. Who knows! I doubt I could reach C-F comfortably even if my pinky were straight, so it makes little difference.