Increasing your hand span

[pytheamateur]

This piano yoga specialist, Genia, claims to be able to increase your hand span organically and safely.

https://www.piano-yoga.com/videos.php

Anyone has any experience?  She does seem to have credentials so I suppose it is not the piano equivalent of enlargement pills for men.

How much would you like to enlarge?  I'd love to increase my hand span from a 10th to a 12th.

[hfmadopter]

I think it better to find another work around. My teacher had small hands and arthritic hands and could get all over the keyboard using various broken techniques such as pivoting off the middle finger to move your hand up to the second half of the hand spread. I think it better to learn something like that than risk injury to your hands. But then I don't know a whole lot about this new idea you landed on either. I just think I wouldn't even go there !

[robson]

here is the finger stretcher...

[p2u_]

here is the finger stretcher...

Is that Victorian torture device (which is also for sale on ebay) part of her hmm... enlightning method? I'd say: steer clear of it.

Paul

[rachmaninoff_forever]

A non-pianist friend of mine said that pianists cut the skin that attaches the fingers together to make their hand spand larger.

I don't know how credible that is though.

[p2u_]

A non-pianist friend of mine said that pianists cut the skin that attaches the fingers together to make their hand spand larger.

I don't know how credible that is though.

I've heard the same, especially about female pianists in Asian countries. I am in no position to judge, of course. I am lucky to have the "right" hands for the big concert repertoire. I stretch my fingers only to give them a cat-like flexibility. Lazar Berman also used stretching a lot for the same reason.

Paul

[sphince]

this idea doesnt exactly appeal to me.I dont have big hands(can barely reach an 11th)but one good thing that i have is a BIG stretch between the thumb and the index(the 2nd) so I can play with ease big leaps without using just the pinky(say the la campanella skips for ex.).After all I believe that medium sized hands are easier to control(at least for amateurs).

[jmanpno]

No need for these exercises.  Simply realize how the hand opens, etc. and you'll be set!

[paladin86]

I use the hand-stretcher. (you can find it with google:increase handspan) I was skeptic but my friend tried it. She played in her childhood and now she started the practicing again. She was wearing it for about two weeks and she could reaches one more note. She gained 9th to 10th.  I didn't produced that kind of gain but I can feel the difference. I never would have thought of that. I have understand many things. I thought that my technical problems was only coming from my bad or not enough practice and my bad teacher etc. But I need less energy to make something since I have stretched my hand with that device.
So In my point of view every pianist needs stretching, because everything comes to easier.

[visitor]

i use photoshop.

[iansinclair]

Your hand span is determined by two things -- the length of your fingers, which is set by bones and there isn't much you can do about it -- and the length of the ligaments and tendons and muscles for the intrinsic hand muscles -- the ones which wiggle your fingers left and right.  Those can, with time and a great deal of care, gradually become slightly longer.  They can also become shorter, such as by some injuries (particularly if the hand winds up in a cast for any length of time -- ask me how I know).  The best exercise, other than playing the piano, is to consciously stretch your fingers apart.

There is a great deal of risk in forcing them apart, however; this is one of those areas where pain is no gain.

[michael_sayers]

Your hand span is determined by two things -- the length of your fingers, which is set by bones and there isn't much you can do about it -- and the length of the ligaments and tendons and muscles for the intrinsic hand muscles -- the ones which wiggle your fingers left and right.  Those can, with time and a great deal of care, gradually become slightly longer.  They can also become shorter, such as by some injuries (particularly if the hand winds up in a cast for any length of time -- ask me how I know).  The best exercise, other than playing the piano, is to consciously stretch your fingers apart.

There is a great deal of risk in forcing them apart, however; this is one of those areas where pain is no gain.

Easier and safer may be to approach it from the other angle by getting one of these:

https://www.carolleone.com/78-size-keyboard/


Mvh,
Michael

[louispodesta]

This piano yoga specialist, Genia, claims to be able to increase your hand span organically and safely.

https://www.piano-yoga.com/videos.php

Anyone has any experience?  She does seem to have credentials so I suppose it is not the piano equivalent of enlargement pills for men.

How much would you like to enlarge?  I'd love to increase my hand span from a 10th to a 12th.

Thank you very much for broaching the subject because you have been taught like millions of others before you that being able to expand your hand beyond a tenth is a necessary part of being an accomplished pianist.  It is not, and that is not just my opinion, it is a historical fact!

What my research has shown me is the following:

1)  the pianists of the 19th century, especially the female students (which comprised a majority of those taught) had very small hands that could barely reach an octave.  The only private student of Anton Rubinstein, Josef Hoffmann, had a hand so small that the Steinway factory made a special piano for him with narrower width white keys.

2)  As stated in my thesis, all of the pianists of the 19th century regularly rolled/arpeggiated their chords, regardless of the size of their hand.  And, that includes Sergei Rachmaninoff!

3)  Yes, many pianists, especially in Europe, have had the webbing between their fingers surgically altered.  Alicia de Larrocha is the most famous example.  There are photographs of her sitting at the piano which confirms this.  God help you, if you are ever stupid enough to travel down this road.

Finally, the late Earl Wild, who had huge hands, stressed in his memoir that it was commonplace for pianists to adjust the score written harmony of any section of a piece in order to accommodate their given morphology.

[louispodesta]

My apologies for not fully delineating my earlier post.  Accordingly, here are two very important points:

1)  Dorothy Taubman spent the better part of her life teaching students that they should not play with an outstretched hand.  This includes "twisting" it from side to side.  That means that you move the arm laterally in order to place a finger or fingers over a particular note or set of notes.

2)  My coach  is Thomas Mark, who is a former Taubman practice coach.  He has taken the Taubman techinique to the next level by incorporating the Alexander Technique into the mix.

That means that I thin spindly fingers, and I wear a women's wrist watch, and I can barely reach a tenth.  It also means (Thomas Mark, www.pianopmap.com) that I no longer play with an outstretched hand, and I now  incorporate/choreograph an entire whole body approach to playing the piano.

Please contact me by private message if you want to discuss the subject further.

[outin]

Thank you very much for broaching the subject because you have been taught like millions of others before you that being able to expand your hand beyond a tenth is a necessary part of being an accomplished pianist. 

I don't know who teaches the idea of a pianist needing anything beyond a tenth?

Of course not, but hand span is still a big issue, because without a proper octave reach it is practically impossible to become really comfortable with much of the piano literature. So while the OP may be wasting his time with this, hand span is a real problem for many people.

What my research has shown me is the following:

1)  the pianists of the 19th century, especially the female students (which comprised a majority of those taught) had very small hands that could barely reach an octave.  The only private student of Anton Rubinstein, Josef Hoffmann, had a hand so small that the Steinway factory made a special piano for him with narrower width white keys.

Which just proves that even Hoffman had trouble succeeding because of his small hands. And in the 19th century the female students were mainly amateurs, not required to play literature which favored larger hands and so span wasn't such a big issue for them.

3)  Yes, many pianists, especially in Europe, have had the webbing between their fingers surgically altered.  Alicia de Larrocha is the most famous example.  There are photographs of her sitting at the piano which confirms this.  God help you, if you are ever stupid enough to travel down this road.

Don't know if that's even true, but if her professional career was greatly benefited from artificially improving what nature had given her, then why would it be stupid?

There are studies that show how much more difficult it is to make it in the piano world with really small hands and a significant correlation between small hands and injury.

A fitting quote from Christopher Donison:
"There are two great secrets in the world of piano playing. The first is how much easier the instrument is to play with larger hands and the second is how impossible it can be with smaller hands. If one can divide the world into roughly two constituencies; half with smaller hands and half with larger hands, one can see that the larger half never really knows what the difficulties of their smaller-handed counterparts are, and the smaller half never really finds out how diminished all the difficulties are with larger hands..… [The larger-handed pianists'] hands were already big enough long before they were attempting repertoire that was challenging enough to betray the secret."

The secret was revealed to me quite early because of the difference in the span of my right and left hand... I can easily imagine how much more comfortable my playing would be if my right could manage what my left can.

[louispodesta]

Thanks for your reply, and therefore I would like to make the following points:

1)  Josef Hofmann was drunk for the last 27 years of his life.  It cost him his job at Curtis (where he founded the piano department), and it subsequently cost him his career.

2)  Earl Wild, who had huge hands, states unequivocally in his memoir that it is much more difficult to play the piano with a large hand.  He would know.

3)  The Taubman people teach that you do not play with an outstretched hand, which I do not.  One gets from one note to the next by choreographing the entire body per a particular piece.  It only takes a very small lateral movement of the entire arm to get from one section to the next.

My coach is Thomas Mark, who is a Certified Alexander Coach and former Taubman practice coach, does not play with an outstretched hand at all (www.pianomap.com).

[michael_sayers]

Thanks for your reply, and therefore I would like to make the following points:

1)  Josef Hofmann was drunk for the last 27 years of his life.  It cost him his job at Curtis (where he founded the piano department), and it subsequently cost him his career.

2)  Earl Wild, who had huge hands, states unequivocally in his memoir that it is much more difficult to play the piano with a large hand.  He would know.

3)  The Taubman people teach that you do not play with an outstretched hand, which I do not.  One gets from one note to the next by choreographing the entire body per a particular piece.  It only takes a very small lateral movement of the entire arm to get from one section to the next.

My coach is Thomas Mark, who is a Certified Alexander Coach and former Taubman practice coach, does not play with an outstretched hand at all (www.pianomap.com).

Hi Louis,

All three of these points are exactly on target.

I tend to think of outstretched fingers being an issue - maybe this is what you described by outstretched hand?

Pianists, stretching out their fingers to reach keys, get some of the same injuries that way as typists who stretch out the fingers - I read this somewhere.


Mvh,
Michael

[outin]

Thanks for your reply, and therefore I would like to make the following points:

1)  Josef Hofmann was drunk for the last 27 years of his life.  It cost him his job at Curtis (where he founded the piano department), and it subsequently cost him his career.

2)  Earl Wild, who had huge hands, states unequivocally in his memoir that it is much more difficult to play the piano with a large hand.  He would know.

3)  The Taubman people teach that you do not play with an outstretched hand, which I do not.  One gets from one note to the next by choreographing the entire body per a particular piece.  It only takes a very small lateral movement of the entire arm to get from one section to the next.

My coach is Thomas Mark, who is a Certified Alexander Coach and former Taubman practice coach, does not play with an outstretched hand at all (www.pianomap.com).

Why would he, if he has normal size male hands? You obviously belong to the part of the population whose hands are large enough to allow comfort in playing and have no idea what I am talking about. The fact that you don't know about something not mean it doesn't exists.

I don't know why I need to spell something this simple out to you, but obviously there's such a thing as too large as well. So there's the optimum size area, too small and too large for best comfort.

And it's not only about the maximum span at all. It's about general comfort in playing. If you can play a simple 5 finger pattern without streching apart the fingers and flattening the hand, it's quite different feeling to play than for someone who cannot. For someone with small hands there's a lot more moving of the whole hand than for someone with a larger hand to avoid streching (and it's not so much about finger length but palm width). This increases the movements one has to make and makes learning passages more complicated. Not impossible but more difficult.

[louispodesta]

My apologies for not being clearer before.  Once again:

1)  I have thin spindly fingers, wear a women's wrist watch band, and I can barely reach a ninth (not a tenth as I wrote before).

2)  Accordingly, I have to make very sure that I do not twist or pronate my hand from side to side.  If I do, I end up with ulnar nerve pain in my left wrist.  Further, I have to constantly remind myself to use the "walking hand" technique taught by the Taubman folks.

3)  As accurately stated by Michael Sayers, who has somewhat the same hand morphology that I do, you can really mess yourself up by trying to constantly stretch out for notes.  With the Taubman approach, it is not necessary.

4)  And, the greatest benefit of all is that after spending decades keeping my fingers pliable by playing pointless exercises, scales, and arpeggios every day, I no longer have to do that.

[outin]

My apologies for not being clearer before.  Once again:

1)  I have thin spindly fingers, wear a women's wrist watch band, and I can barely reach a ninth (not a tenth as I wrote before).

You must be aware that some people have hands much smaller than yours... That cannot even reach an octave? And if you read my last post at all, it's not just about how much you can reach...

With small or otherwise unusual hands one needs to develope an individual efficient technique. Most of piano technique, much of piano literature and the instruments have been developed with an average hand in mind. So obviously it just is easier if one fits into that category.

I have seen some of the Taubman videos and I have Mark's book. I found no tools in either for solving my problems in adjusting my hand to the piano keyboard, although they do have a point in promoting more healthy, holistic and relaxed approach to playing.

Actually I'm not quite sure what is the point you are trying to make? Streching and twisting is unhealthy and should be avoided? Isn't that quite obvious?