small hands

[BoliverAllmon]

True the pianos that Bach had were quite useless. I haven't heard the sound of a clavichord, but I think harpsichords definately have there place. I believe the harpsichordists have a harder time playing a piece beautifully than pianists.

boliver

[eddie92099]

I think harpsichords definately have there place

Hell perhaps?
Ed

[BoliverAllmon]

NO WAY IN HELL!!!! lol

actually some of the best versions of bach's inventions and other pieces like that have been on the harpsichord. See the problem is that you have pianists who decide that they want to play a piece on the harpsichord and they end up destroying the piece. They way you bring life to a piece on the harpsichord is through slight hesitations at certain places in the piece. You do this in the same way you do it in jazz, just not so dramatic. You can't alter the volume very easily so you have to learn to bring life through other means.

boliver

[TwinkleFingers]

i thought you cant alter the volume at all on a harpsichord

[BoliverAllmon]

you can by adding more strings. you do that by pulling this knob. kinda like you do on an organ.

boliver

[BoliverAllmon]

Also, you can pull a knob on some that brings up strings that are an octave or two higher or lower than the original strings. Therefore causing you to have more density to your sound. You can pull the knob slowly and get a somewhat crescendo effect and reverse is also possible. There is alot that can be done on a harpsichord, it just takes skill.

boliver

[cziffra]

i'm always amused by the tendency for harpsichord's to be unpopular and disliked.  the reason most often cited is: "they sound nothing like a piano," ...which is of course exactly what we were expecting them to sound like, given that...they're the same intstrument?

i find that harpsichords can be enjoyed very easily so long as one thinks, "i am now listening to a harpsichord" rather than "i'm listening to a piano."  it's not the sound that's the problem, it's the wrong expectation that causes the problem.

[eddie92099]

i find that harpsichords can be enjoyed very easily

Only when being burnt,
Ed

[BoliverAllmon]

hey eddie here is a neat fact. When pianos first came out very few people liked them. When one family would buy one and just utterly hated it they would do some remodeling and turn it into a harpsichord. In fact, they liked the different sounds that were now coming from the different shaped harpsichords. People would buy pianos just to remodel them into harpsichords.

Kinda the opposite for you.

boliver

[eddie92099]

hey eddie here is a neat fact. When pianos first came out very few people liked them. When one family would buy one and just utterly hated it they would do some remodeling and turn it into a harpsichord. In fact, they liked the different sounds that were now coming from the different shaped harpsichords. People would buy pianos just to remodel them into harpsichords.

That may be so, but 9ft Steinways were not available in the 1700s!
Ed

[BoliverAllmon]

true, but harpsichords to have a place and that place is not in hell.

boliver

[eddie92099]

true, but harpsichords to have a place and that place is not in hell.

Wherever a harpsichord resides is my hell,
Ed

[comme_le_vent]

me likey harpycords, dey sound goodas good

Ed

[comme_le_vent]

someone who bought mmm bop by hanson doesnt deserve to have an opinion on weather things sound good or not
Ed

[eddie92099]

How vicious! I was ten years old for god's sake,
Ed

P.s. someone who spells "whether" "weather" doesn't deserve to have an opinion on anything.  

[cziffra]

dear oh dear...you bought a hanson cd? age is irrelevant in these things, the fact is you bought a hanson cd.  

tsk tsk tsk

well, at least with hanson i can UNDERSTAND their popularity- things like "the untied states of whatever" are simply unfathomable to me.

[comme_le_vent]

united states of whatever, that song has a catchy simple guitar riff, shout-along chorus, and the parts where ppl say stuff to him and he replys by saying 'whatever' are hilarious, and think about the meaning of the lyrics, they are deep and spiritual.

weather or not is is good has yet to be seen, because if it is good then people will listen to it in 10 years, like baby got back, thats good

i wonder weather ed likes big butts, cos he sure talks like one

knock knock
whos there?
the man you slept with , but you forgot because it was so unmemorable, thank you

Ed

[comme_le_vent]

i bought a steps cd too, and the song blue da ba dee da ba doo. im a proud man

Ed

[eddie92099]

Quit it, nobody's laughing,
Ed

P.s. You have Maksim on your PC.

[rvPianist]

Before this thread descended into the nether regions of Hanson and Harpsichords (chalk that one up for Ed!  ), it WAS about small hands...and may I offer a suggestion, one that is perhaps contreversial...

Webbing b/w fingers seem to be one the great delimiters of span and stretch over the keys; so what about - SURGERY - to remove the webbing, or at least, clip enough to increase the spread b/w fingers...

Or, does the underlying bone structure determine span before webbing plays a part?

Earlier on in the thread, it was mentioned that Liszt had little or no webbing - maybe we can emulate that w/ scalpels and healthy doses of anaesthetic?  

[BoliverAllmon]

If webbing was the only problem, then we could just stretch our fingers and the webbing. Skin stretches quite easily. also, if the skin isn't allowing you to stretch to a certain point. Surgery won't help. They are taking away skin and thus reducing the span you can reach. Now a skin graph might help, but it would make your hands look real funny. I just recommend stretching.

P.s. I enjoyed the harpsichord talk, but the Hanson talk is just crazy.

boliver

[Hmoll]

Interesting article on small hands.

https://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m2493/6_52/102521600/p1/article.jhtml?term=

[Ktari]

This topic seems a bit both over-replied-to and digressing, but I have one more thought that has been neglected. In recap: Small hands:

Obvious disad: not reaching chords => limited repertoire, easier injury
Of course we can always roll/stretch(to an extent - I started with less than an octave have gotten to an octave)/improve
Advantages: smaller chords/faster runs

Of course these are only making certain pieces harder or easier, but does not really limit the pieces.

I think one thing people don't think about then considering small hands is not just the span, but other things:
1. fingering: for example, in bach, i have to adjust the fingering because my hand is too small to reach the most convenient fingering the book/myteacher would agree with (i.e. problem isn't 1st and 5th finger, but 3rd and 5th, etc.)
2. broken chords: I'm thinking La Campanella, that part that goes (in the right hand) d# d#an-octave-higher e d# and repeats for the melody.. so I can technically reach that (hey, its not even a chord!) but I have to jump and move around a large bit more than if my hand were just a BIT bigger (no jumping!!)
3. dynamics: I can reach the octave, but how well can I channel strength into it?
4. here's a funny one: I can reach certain chords after a certain period of stretching, like, a fraction of a second. so, playing some little run somewhere and then having to play a large chord, that fraction of a second to stretch that last tiny distance is rather annoying

But in any case, small hands are just a different way of doing things.  

[Chitch]

A 13th's my max, did 14 once....that was the prime of my music career.

Seriously, one peice I could never truly master was the Fantasie-Impromptu, its first cramatic semitones in the right hand was even a struggle to overcome. My hands aren't fat or stubby, so I can only imagine the trouble most people whos hands are like that would have in playing a piece.

[meiting]

hehe. time for another long reply?

I personally have a hand (makes that a pair of hands) that stretches to a tenth, max. I can keep stretch and kind of hold on to an eleventh if the notes are already down (white notes only) but I can't press them down. So, I find that large(r) hands are really unnecessary for most pieces of music. Don't forget that one of the pieces that really requires a big hand is the Schumann Symphonic Etudes, and Myra Hess plays the opening thema as beautifully as anyone's ever done it with a hand that barely gets an octave.

Regarding harpsichords.. I actually like them quite a bit, but let me qualify that. I like GOOD harpsichords. They are very hard to come by. In fact, while I've studied harpsichord for 3 1/2 years, and performed/played the harpsichord for another 2 years after that, I've played on exactly 2 good harpsichords (and i've played at least 2 dozen). A good harpsichord will sound mellow and very sensuous, but will still allow for sharp attacks in a good players hands. I've been able to do dynamics on a harpsichord without registration changes, and on a good harpsichord you can get somewhere between mezzo piano and forte on the main manual.

Bach did not hate the sound of the piano, but rather decided that they needed more work before they can be used. The silbermann pianos that Bach had played and listened to before his death at the court of Frederic the Great are actually rather nice instruments, but were also very soft. He did play them and told Frederick that he liked them, and then of course sat down and improvised some stuff based on the "musical offering" theme, which is a famous story now. I've always believed that the best instruments for Bach are early pianos, and not harpsichords, but there's nothing like the harpsichord for Handel, Couperin, or Rameau.

[bardolph]

No one's posted about this topic for a while I see but I want to add a couple comments:  First, everyone look at this page:

https://www.steinbuhler.com/

They manufacture a 7/8 size keyboard that can be retrofitted to any existing piano.  And then read here for the comprehensive defense of smaller keyboards:

https://www.musicbythesea.ca/keyboard.html

One of the most interesting observations is this:

"I have surveyed universities and found that female students out-number male students by 8 to 1. The January/February issue of Piano and Keyboard Magazine had a Steinway advertisement on the back page which listed past prize winners of the Van Cliburn competitions. Only one in 10 were female. One has to multiply those two numbers together to realize that a female is eighty times less likely as a man to win a competition that will launch a career. Is this because all the judges are biased? I submit that the answer is very simple and staring us in the face---that the piano keyboard is too big for most women, period. The type of hand that is necessary to compete on the instrument at this level is 80 times less common in women than men. This should not surprise anyone. Think of the Horowitz's and Rubenstein's of the world and try imagining what percentage of female students have hands like that."


Second, consider modern jazz and popular piano.  The left-hand 10th is ubiquitous.  Read any text on how to play jazz or read from fake books or so on, and they all say the same thing:  "Break the 10ths if you cannot span them."  It is simply unfair to the majority of pianists who cannot comfortably span 10ths that the standard piano keyboard is the overly-large size it has been for a century or more.

Stride piano is a major American contribution to the development of music in the New World.  ALL the essential founders and developers of this style played 10ths with ease, and the music requires them to be played in the LH accompaniment at very high speeds.  Think very very fast ragtime with many 10ths in the left hand, all majors and minors, broken or solid, with solid being the fundamental bedrock of the sound and broken a frequent variation; often the 10ths are played on every single beat, even.  There are modern interpreters of this style who cannot do 10ths, so they break them or substitute octaves or inverted 10ths, but they do not have the 100% authentic sound of Fats Waller, Art Tatum, or the others.

The solid 10th is a wonderful sound; it is an ideal 2-in-1 combination of bass and harmony note and sounds fabulous on the piano.  It is simply unacceptable that the dimensions of the modern piano make the solid 10th available to many men and most women.

I can't afford the Steinbuhler keyboard and I would sure love to see digital pianos made in the 7/8 size.... (or even 15/16 like Hoffman, I could probably get a 10th even with that)

There is also a New York pianist named Hannah Reimann who invented (and later succeeded in patenting) a keyboard like the Steinbuhler that can be popped onto a suitably modfiied piano:

Article - https://www.s-t.com/daily/11-97/11-05-97/c05ae166.htm
Her website - https://www.hannahreimann.com/invention/invention.html

Mei-Ting, can you use your influence in the piano world to get the digital manufacturers to make smaller pianos for us poor small-handed folks?   We want to play 10ths like you *sob*  Go visit Hannah Reimann in NYC, I phoned her once, she's very nice and she will let you try her piano.

[Daniel_piano]

Small handed pianists envy big handed pianists and big handed pianist anvy small handed pianists
That's because both sizes have its pros and cons

Small hands and fingers are more agile, they don't get stuck between black keys and they're less likely to injury the cons is that you can play full big chords

Large hands and fingers are less agile, they get stuck between black keys and don't move in between keys, they have problem when playing consecutive near note and they're more likely to get injured

Two things people forgot about Rachmaninov huge hands is that: 1) he didn't like them and consider them a disavantage 2) he had chronic tendonitic and play so unnatural technique 2) he had to roll chords himself, the same chords he used in his pieces

Liszt on the other hand, had not big hands
He had to strectch and prepare to reach a tenths so his only really confortable reach was a ninth

Scriabin could barely reach an octave but he learned to use roll and pedal so well that it was not possible to tell the difference between a full chord and a rolled chord

So, there's not a real advantage or disavantage in both size and you can eventually play anything when your hands are small or when your hands are large
The number of small handed famous pianists and large handed famous pianist is almost the same 50% and 50%
Lot of small handed pianists manage to perform the whole reportory

The important things are good pedallings, speed, accuracy and relaxation

There though people who have problems with piano playing
These people solved their problems by aquiring a 7/8 piano where a standard
It was a Christoper Donison idea
If you read his web page you'll see there are lot of talking about how impossible is to play the piano with small hands, how it is 1000 times easier to play the piano with large hands, how small handed pianists progressed and improved when switching to 7/8 piano and so on

But mind you, they're talking about people with really small hands
They are talking of people, like Donison, that streatching a lot could reach a eigth on the edge of the keys, or women that can only reach a seventh
We forget about them but the world is full of people with really underaverage hand size
We're talking about people who can't stretch a fifth between their index and pinky

The bottom lines are:

1) You just need a tenth to play 100% of the repertory
2) Small-handed pianists have problems that large handed pianists are unaware of
3) Large-handed pianists have problems that small handed pianists are unaware of
4) The important factor in playing with ease and naturality is not hand size but relaxation and natural movements
5) People who really could have problems with piano playing because of their hand size are those who can't reach an eigth
6) Lot of chords are supposed to be rolled and the composers who wrote them rolled them too 

Daniel

[sirpazhan]

its not how big your hands are, but how flexible and fast they move,, my piano teachers hands where like a baby hands,, but flexibility and speed made up for the size.  Like anything,, pros and cons are present,, like a big man is strong and powerful,, but slow and less flexible compared to a small man ..

-as

[Daniel_piano]

There was a  famous French jazz pianist who died a few years ago( whose name eludes me)  who was a dwarf  and Steinway and  Sons had to make a special lyre for him to reach the pedals of the piano.  His hands were very small and yet his playing was loved by so many.
Enjoy your playing...

The great Michel Petrucciani of course
He was great and his playing was technically flawless (he never suffered tendonitis or CTS) and his hands were smaller than a 10 years old boy

Daniel

[Daniel_piano]

correct me if im wrong but you still are growing after you hit puberty. how old are you?? Im 22 and people still think I grew a little since the last time they saw me. Im almost 6'4" and have average sized hands.

For the rest of the body it depends on grow plated
There is no a specific time when grow plates get fused, it could 12, it could be 17 or it could be 26
It depends on factors like your nutrition, your physical activity level, your habits like alcohol or smoking
People who reach puberty at 10 are less likely to grow taller than those reaching puberty at 15 or 16
Also, if lower amount of GH is in your blood you will grow taller but in less time while if you have more GH on your blood during your puberty you will have a growth spurt and will stop growing thereafter
Those who don't have a growth spurt keep growing and grow taller usually
It also depends on how much your puberty lasts
It can last till 28 sometimes or just till 12 it depends on your lifestyle and your genetics
There was a study in which they tried to correlate the amount of protein consumed with growth
It resulted that at the same age children that consumed less proteins (resulting in less GH especially from animal proteins) were shorter than the standard percentile of those that consumed more proteins and had more GH, but when the children grew on their 20 those consuming less proteins keep growing and became taller then those consuming more proteins whose plates fused earlier
The point is: when you growth plates are going to fuse?
No one knows, not even orthopedic so they can fuse at 14 or at 26, my father kept growing till he was 24 and had his growth spurt at 21

But this is not important to hands growth
Hands don't grow according to growth plates fusion
They grow with osteoblast action other than cartilage turning into bone tissue
That's is your hands keep growing at 40 as well to a cerftain limit according to the amount of physical stimulus resulting in bone tissue damages that is eventually filled with bone material by osteoblasts
The more you use them the more they grow
Of course since the stimulus is proportionated to the amount of physical effort your body can bear the thickening and elongations of hands and fingers is limited by your maximum physical effort
That like with muscles: they can't grow forever, because they could impose  too much weight on the supporting joints of the body the limits buy wich they can grow is correlated with the amount of physical effort your whole body structure can bear

The truth in this world is that we live surrounded by fallacious and simplistic beliefs believing in myths based on arbitrary conceptions
But the world is never arbitrary, the nature is never arbitrary, there ano fixed periods or fixed rules and anything is more complex and less conformist than we use to believe

There's such a thing as a fixed maturity age, an adult age, a puberty age, a stop-growing age but there are not alsto abitrary fixed ages as: driving age, drinking age or voting age
You can be read to vote at 18 or a 12 or you can't be ready even at 43, such things should not be based on age but on personal interests, abilities, maturity and knowledge
The same with growing and puberty: they're not based on age but individual lifestyle and genetics (to a lesser extent)


Daniel

[tocca]

One thing i've seen mentioned a couple of times in this thread is stretching. I can understand the need to stretch to be able to reach better between fingers 1 and 2, 2 and 3, 2 and 4 and so on... but the 1 - 5 reach?

I don't know if i'm unusually built or something, i have never streched my fingers (apart from what comes natural while playing) and i have for as long as i can remember always been able to "shape" fingers 1 and 5 to a near perfect line. Meaning, the only thing i would get out of stretching them would be the ability to go beyond 180 degrees separation.
For me to be able to reach more with 1 - 5 i need to have longer fingers, there's no other way!

Is this unusual or?

I can reach a 10th btw, my teacher from when i was young could only reach an octave and she played absolutely wonderful. I'd switch hands with her right away if that'd make me play half as good as she did!

[Daniel_piano]

One thing i've seen mentioned a couple of times in this thread is stretching. I can understand the need to stretch to be able to reach better between fingers 1 and 2, 2 and 3, 2 and 4 and so on... but the 1 - 5 reach?

I don't know if i'm unusually built or something, i have never streched my fingers (apart from what comes natural while playing) and i have for as long as i can remember always been able to "shape" fingers 1 and 5 to a near perfect line. Meaning, the only thing i would get out of stretching them would be the ability to go beyond 180 degrees separation.
For me to be able to reach more with 1 - 5 i need to have longer fingers, there's no other way!

It means you did something that already stretched your fingers on the first place
Many pianists need to stretch their span because they had a sedentary childhood on the first place
But if you were an active child doing sports and outdoor activities like climbing trees (and falling from them) your span reached its maximum reach in your childhood

This is a common trend
If you notice pianist with thin fingers and a not completely stretched span have been sedentary all their life
You could also be born with more flexibile joints, for example I've a very fixed thumb that can move very little while my teacher can turn his finger down to 180 degrees, it's kind of creepy as a matter of fact

Why don't you scan your hand for us to see?
So we can tell you if you're stretching them or not or if you're born with more flexibility

I can reach a 10th btw, my teacher from when i was young could only reach an octave and she played absolutely wonderful. I'd switch hands with her right away if that'd make me play half as good as she did!

I too have meet people with very small hands who played wonderfully
They jump a lot and use their wrist a lot and you can't tell the difference between a rolled chords and a full chords
I like to see talented children recitals where they play piece like Beethoven sonatas or Tchaikovsky concerto or Chopin impromptus
It's absolutely wonderful to see a hand that can barely reach a sixth play those pieces
Of course I'm jelous too ...



Daniel

[bardolph]

Yes Daniel, I think you are right in everything you say.  I guess I have "10ths envy."  'If only I could instantly reach all the 10ths life would be wonderful!'  But I am going to do my best to keep your comments in mind, as well as all the examples of wonderful pianists, famous and obscure, who could not play 10ths.  Especially Scriabin and Petrucianni!  Everyone who wishes they could play 10ths should remember those two.

Still, if someone manufactured a 15/16 digital piano, I'd buy one in a heartbeat!  I think 7/8 would be too small for me, I have rather fat fingers and they get stuck between the black keys on some pianos.  Right now I have a new digital, Yamaha YDP-123, and the space between the black keys is just right.  Perhaps I'd get stuck in the keys on a 15/16 keyboard.

There must be a few fine pianists whose fingers are so fat they absolutely will not go between the keys.  How do they handle things?  I read once that Rudolf Serkin had that problem, so before concerts he used to carefully practice scales and other things, always working around the problem.

[noelle]

I'd always regarded my hands as fairly small - but I guess not.  Although female (thus with smaller hands than I'd probably have if I were male), I can stretch any 10th comfortably, and reach white-key 11th (left hand only) with some strain.
I'd say they're more flexible and "spacey" than large, because size has never gotten remotely in the way, and I definitely have a gap greater than 3 inches between my middle and ring finger in Star Trek form.
No complaints.

[piano88]

This is a very bitchy forum isn't it. Sounds like some of you need to walk away from the computer........
On the matter of hand size, I can stretch an 11th and if there is one thing I could change, it would be to reduce my hands. Larger than large hands are a bloody nightmare.
AD

[quixoticcafe]

Remember what the VIolent Femmes said in their song...

When I'm out walking I strut my stuff yeah I'm so strung out
I'm high as a kite I just might stop to check you out
let me go on like I blister in the sun
let me go on big hands I know your the one...

big hands equal big _____? lol

Quixoticcafe

[anda]

i used to envy those with big hands too. but then i realized that with small hands, you can do some exercises (stretching) and increase the span (which is actually the only problem with small hands). but with big hands, if there is a problem, it's harder to solve. 

[gyzzzmo]

I'm proud to say i can reach 11th quite easily. that really has a big advantage with etudes like no 10 op25 chopin.
But people with small hands can potentially play close notes quicker, because they need less muscle then someone with big hands.

Gyzzzmo

[bardolph]

Don't worry, Idil Biret has small hands too, she can barely play an octave.

Are you sure?  Some accounts of Alicia Della Rocha say the same thing, but in fact (according to a completely reliable authority, pianist Dean Elder who interviewed her for his book "Pianists at Play") the stretching exercises she started doing as a child worked so well she can easily do 10ths.

I have trouble imagining anyone playing the repetoire Biret does if they can't even do 9ths.  Could Hoffmann do 9ths at least?

[Daniel_piano]

Are you sure?  Some accounts of Alicia Della Rocha say the same thing, but in fact (according to a completely reliable authority, pianist Dean Elder who interviewed her for his book "Pianists at Play") the stretching exercises she started doing as a child worked so well she can easily do 10ths.

I have trouble imagining anyone playing the repetoire Biret does if they can't even do 9ths.  Could Hoffmann do 9ths at least?

Wait a moment
What Alicia said in the book is that in her 20s playing thenth was a real struggle while now after doing lot of exercises they're not a problem anymore
It doesn't specify though is she can know play full tenths or if finding a way to roll chord tenth is not a problem any more
In her 20s she could barely reach a an octave but stretching exercise can't add up three tones to your reach, because despite stretching how the length of your fingers remains the limiting factor in your reach
After all she is 4.9 feet tall and her hands are clearly small and under average size

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are few really large concert pianists but a certain physical size is essential to guarantee hands large enough for the wide stretches and huge chords of the international concert repertoire. De Larrocha has had to work relentlessly to compensate.

"I do stretching exercises all the time," she said in a 1969 interview. "They're a mania with me. I play stretches, for example, between the second and fifth fingers, stretching my fingers apart with my other hand. I do these exercises mechanically, on the piano. And then I play chords with the biggest possible stretches, but never until the hand is tired. That's dangerous." Those stretches have stood her in good stead to this day.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Laurence Libin, curator of musical instruments at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, says pianists such as Alicia de Larrocha, who is under 5 feet tall, have overcome the apparent limits of hand size by stretching their muscles and adapting their fingering of wide chords. Some performers, he says, simply don't attempt works by such big-handed composers as Sergei Rachmaninoff. Reimann's problem, Libin says, "is an imaginary problem."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Tinka Knopf de Esteban, a pianist with expertise in working with small-handed pianists, was interviewed and videotaped demonstrating stretching exercises learned from her teacher, the renowned pianist, Alicia de Larrocha.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 De Larrocha performs frequently in the United States, having established her place as one of the world's most formidable pianists when she made her debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1965.

Regarded by many as the most important of Spanish pianists, she is an expert on the composers of her native country. The master-class performances are heavy on those names.

"It's extraordinary insight into this repertoire," Mazzoni said.

De Larrocha also is well known for her classical playing, as well as for overcoming a physical limitation — unusually small hands.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm sure other variables come into play but what is the true objective of playing the keyboard? Is it to match the way Horowitz used to play in his later performances - wrists very low? Or match the way someone with small hands like Alicia de Larrocha plays - wrists high in stretching big chords?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was some discussion about choosing an instrument that suited the physique of the students, although it was admitted that several artists had succeeded in spite of physical limitations, Alicia de Larocha, Murray Perahia, Andras Schiff and Mozart having small hands, for example.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Daniel_piano]

Don't worry, Idil Biret has small hands too, she can barely play an octave. Look at her repertory:

https://www.idilbiret.org/ENG/IBe09frame.htm

Where did you read that Idil Beret can barely reach an octave?
I tried to find information about her hands reach and size but I found nothing

Daniel

[anda]

In her 20s she could barely reach a an octave but stretching exercise can't add up three tones to your reach, because despite stretching how the length of your fingers remains the limiting factor in your reach
After all she is 4.9 feet tall and her hands are clearly small and under average size

i don't know how she solved "the 10th problem". however, you can get from hardly-reaching-an-octave to reaching-certain-10th by stretching exercises. the ones i know are different from the ones you mentioned, but i guess this is irrelevent to the topic. anyway, different situations require different approaches.

[Daniel_piano]

i don't know how she solved "the 10th problem". however, you can get from hardly-reaching-an-octave to reaching-certain-10th by stretching exercises.

This is a good thing to know and I'm always opened to new information and theories even when they sound a bit peculiar
This would be like adding two tones and half to your reach
But I wonder if this workd only when your hands are very small
I mean: if with stretch exercises you can get from an uncomfortable octave to a comfortable tenth, does that mean that someone who can reach a tenth can get from reaching a comfortable tenth to reaching a comfortable major twelfth?

And someone already reaching a 12th could get from reaching a 12th to reaching a minor 15th with stretch exericises?
The bigger the hand the stranger it seem the possibility to elanrge your reach so much

Do you know of pianists who got from reaching an octave to reaching a tenth using stretching exercises?
Did you use the exercises yourself?
Can you share the exercises with us?

What I found, just by chance, to be working in enlarging my span is weight training
The more my hands become stronger the more my span stretch and I measured it and now it's wider
But I just got from an unconfortable 9th to a confortable minor 10th

the ones i know are different from the ones you mentioned, but i guess this is irrelevent to the topic.

No, this is totally relevant to the topic and very interesting

Daniel

[anda]

But I wonder if this workd only when your hands are very small
I mean: if with stretch exercises you can get from an uncomfortable octave to a comfortable tenth, does that mean that someone who can reach a tenth can get from reaching a comfortable tenth to reaching a comfortable major twelfth?
And someone already reaching a 12th could get from reaching a 12th to reaching a minor 15th with stretch exericises?
The bigger the hand the stranger it seem the possibility to elanrge your reach so much

good point... no, i don't think you could get to  minor 15th (but then again, maybe i'm so horrified by the abnormality of this that i can't think straight:) )

Do you know of pianists who got from reaching an octave to reaching a tenth using stretching exercises?

yes, me but:
1. when i actually started working on these exercises, i had already stretched my hand because i was playing works that required the octave.
2. i can't reach any 10th - only on white keys, and only on the margin of the keys.
3. my hand is very atipical: very small palm and comparatively long fingers (quite the opposite of the "ideal" pianistic hand (short fingers large palm). my exercises worked for me, but i've never experimented on my students (cause none of them needed), so i don't know if they work for anybody else.
4. what i consider to be the most important thing i have gained from these exercises: i can play a 9th and even with the 4th or 5th in the middle; i can play the octave not just with fingers 1-5, but also with 1-4, and thant helps me a lot when having to play 8ves legato.

Did you use the exercises yourself?
Can you share the exercises with us?

i'll try, but i'm afraid you won't understand much with my english...

one exercise i used to do (and i still use it as warm-up exercise in winter time): look here: https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5794.0.html

another one: place you finger #1 on c (you can use any key, this is just an example) and let your whole arm rest on the tip of this finger (you should feel in your #1 tip the pressure of the weight of your arm, it's ok, as long as you let the weight be supported by the finger and you don't retain it in your forearm; a tall position of the wrist helps). let all your fingers do nothing, just hang relaxed from your palm. start working with #2: in one very short very fast motion play cis AND return immediately in resting position, then play h (short pass over finger #1) using the same motion. same way, play d and b. gradually extend the distance up to a 7th or even octave. then repeat with fingers #3, #4 and #5, forcing them to intervals as large as possible. you can use your wrist to help you (especially with passing over finger #1), but never use the elbow! it's very important that the move should be fast and precise, this way your forearm will be tighed for a very short while. between moves, leave the arm rest on the tip of #1 (very pleasant feeling). increasing gradually the intervals between #1 and the working finger (starting with a 2nd and going as far as your arm allows it) will make it easier on the hand to extend its span without getting in problems such as tendonitis.

What I found, just by chance, to be working in enlarging my span is weight training
The more my hands become stronger the more my span stretch and I measured it and now it's wider
But I just got from an unconfortable 9th to a confortable minor 10th

i never thought of that. honestly, i can't realize why these two should be corelated, but perhaps you're right. anyway, i wouldn't know (i don't use strength)

i hope you can understand something out of this.
best luck