hand size and fingering

[outin]

During my summer break from lessons I have been trying to learn/sight read a lot of easy stuff. But I find some of it very difficult to execute, even more difficult than the grade 4-6 pieces I am learning as well. I don’t seem to be able to get consistent with the fingerings at all and I can't play up to tempo. I try to change them to better suit my hand, but it doesn't always work out. So I began to wonder: Much of this stuff seems to be written with children in mind. I feel my long fingers would need more space to move than what the fingerings suggest and often I feel my hand is very cramped. Am I just lousy or is some music so much easier to play when you have small hands with shorter fingers?

[j_menz]

Notated fingerings are suggestions only and should always be ignored if they don't work for you.  For these pieces it may well be that the suggestions are targeted at smaller hands, which would make them even less applicable.

Use your own fingering. I don't believe that the pieces themselves are more difficult because of your hand size.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Like the guy above said.  We don't always agree, but when we do, it's about fingerings.

But yeah, sometimes the people who write the books are idiots and they put down random fingerings because they think they're cool or something. 

[outin]

Normally I make changes to fingerings, but with some of these pieces it seems I would need to completely start from the scratch to make it work. I guess these pieces are just not worth the trouble. Maybe I'm lazy, but to completely refinger the whole piece seems just too much work considering they are not musically interesting...

I might have been a bit unclear, but I think my issue is also that when most of the piece happens on a very small area on the keyboard, it creates tension because my hand needs to stay in one position all the time with flexed fingers. I really would need to strech my longer fingers every now and then.

[j_menz]

Normally I make changes to fingerings, but with some of these pieces it seems I would need to completely start from the scratch to make it work. I guess these pieces are just not worth the trouble. Maybe I'm lazy, but to completely refinger the whole piece seems just too much work considering they are not musically interesting...

Just try ignoring the fingering altogether and only think about it when something goes wrong. You should be starting to develop a reasonable intuition about fingering, at least for these simple pieces, by now without having to manually work it out every time.

I might have been a bit unclear, but I think my issue is also that when most of the piece happens on a very small area on the keyboard, it creates tension because my hand needs to stay in one position all the time with flexed fingers. I really would need to strech my longer fingers every now and then.

You need to discuss this with your teacher asap. That should not be happening and shows a problem with your technique that needs to be fixed.