Second, one of the greatest pianists of all time, Anton Rubinstein, had small hands, as well as his most famous student, Josef Hoffman.
Show and tell! Scroll down and look for yourself. They were actually smaller than mine are.https://handfacts.wordpress.com/tag/chopin/
You are not the first person to visit this forum with this situation. Notice, I did not say problem because you, personally, do not have a problem.First, most of Chopin's students were female aristocracy, and most of them were no taller than five feet and had tiny hands.Second, one of the greatest pianists of all time, Anton Rubinstein, had small hands, as well as his most famous student, Josef Hoffman.Third, Sergei Rachmaninoff, according to the late Earl Wild (a personal friend) had a span of a fourteenth, yet he played most of his octaves in a broken fashion.Finally, my initial post on this website spoke to the fact that pianists in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries regularly rolled/arpeggiated their chords. Enclosed is my video link illustrating this.Like I said, you, personally, do not have a problem. However, your new teacher, who barely knows how to teach someone how to pump gas, does.Get a new teacher, and explain the information in my video, which by the way is based on voluminous historical performance practice research. Then, forge ahead and learn the great music associated with this great instrument.Good luck to you.
Well I watched the link, I had read somewhere about rolling chords but I didn't really know how to do them so i'll definitely give them a go and get myself practicing some broken chords. I do see nyiregyhazi's point, I imagine it's not always going to work, particularly as a beginner as yet to achieve such fine control and speed I have seen displayed on youtube and suchlike.I'm not sure my hand does have much stretch left, I have noticed an increase in reach of certain fingers in particular my index and middle but not much in overall stretch. I would be intrigued if you could give me some pointers as how to improve my hand positioning for such stretches. I have (hopefully) enclosed a picture so you can judge for yourselves and possibly give a few pointers or just marvel at how small my hands actually are for a fully grown adult!
You'll likely have no problem developing from what I see there. First thing is to get get the thumb totally out out sideways and only just on the key at all. Once you're there, practise reaching out forwards with the fingers, so the adjacent key pushes the thumb open. Be gentle but gradually coax the space between 1 and 2.
You'll likely have no problem developing from what I see there. First thing is to get get the thumb totally out out sideways and only just on the key at all. Once you're there, practise reaching out forwards with the fingers, so the adjacent key pushes the thumb open. Be gentle but gradually coax the space between 1 and 2. Most people find more more flexibility the very first time they do this. To play an an octave, aim for a thumb that goes out to the side in exactly the same way way and keep it back at the edge of keys. Although my reach is an 11th your octave should become far more more comfortable than my 11th. Spread chords will be useful to learn, but it's out of the question that you can do it for all octaves. Start opening your thumb and you'll be fine.