Hand size importance

[cabbynum]

I've recently started teaching, I've got a group of 10 students, ranging from 6 -15. 3 of them really seem to enjoy it. The rest are obviously forced by their parents. One little girl that I teach who really enjoys it is 8 years old. She is movig along very quickly in the lesson books and is very excited each lesson! That makes me happy. But, the thing that is amazing is the size of her hands. 8 year old girl, barely as tall as my chest and I'm about 6'. She can reach a 9th with a little bit of stretching and an octave with ease. Her mom who is not a tall woman can reach an 11th easily.
I'm 6ft I can reach a 10th with a little aggravation and an 11th if I try really hard and on a good day.

out of curiosity what can you all reach? What about in between individual fingers?
What are your thoughts on having big hands vs. small hands.

What's the importance of hand size?

[_________]

Reach
1-5: p. 11
1-4: maj. 10 (white to white or black to black, min. 10 white to black)
1-3: min. 10
1-2: min. 9
2-3: min. 6
2-4: maj. 7
2-5: min. 9
3-4: p. 5
3-5: maj. 7
4-5: p. 5

I think larger hands have an advantage to a point; Michael Jordan could probably hit a clean 13th, but I wonder if chromatic scales and the like might not be a bit more cramp-prone.

[indianajo]

I can do a tenth on white keys (the edge) but not with one black key.
Some repretoire I just have to cheat with a different inversion or leaving out notes.  I think rolled chords sound stupid unless the author wrote it that way.  Looking at the videos now, I think a lot of proffessional concert pianists have long fingers.  I know most famous guitar players have longer fingers than me, I've tried it.  One famous one that does not, Charlotte Caffee, appears to favor a guitar with a narrowed fingerboard:  a feature that is not available on a quality piano.   
Another hand dimension is thickness of fingers.  On the thread about JS Bach Inv #7 on students, some of us can easily fit our fingers in between the black notes.  Some of us can't.  With my skinny little fingers I can play five notes with three in between the black ones.  Besides JS Bach being an early favorite, I found in my twenties I really enjoyed playing Elton John songs in B or C# or some key that is really sweet due to the vagueries of equal tempering.  Other people may want to try to transpose those to  F or C.     

[roncesvalles]

I can easily take any 11th with my left hand, but my right hand can only easily do 10ths.  By easily, I mean I can play chords and play that interval.  I find that in most pieces, it's the left hand that takes the larger chords.  The only exception I can think of offhand is Feinberg's Humoresque, which requires a bit of contortionism for me.

[shabbatshalom]

The piano is a machine, thus unnatural for none. Every hand has its strengths and weakness. Cliburn struggled for dexterity, whilst some said Godowsky's hands were to small to play effectively. I think they did fine regardless.

[g_s_223]

My impression is that what really counts in practice is flexibility and fluidity in the hand/wrist ensemble: for example, in Chopin Op.10 No.1, there are many examples of pianists with even very small hands playing this perfectly successfully, by rotating the hand/wrist to access all the notes as needed. Here, a rigid hand position, dependent on hand extension and size, is sure to fail over the whole etude.

[steinway43]

I reach a tenth but I met a phd once who had the tiniest hands and still played flawlessly.

[seanhmoss]

I can easily reach an 11th, and a 12th if I stretch a bit.