pieces for small hands

[made4music]

Hello everyone - I am looking for piano pieces. For SMALL HANDS! An octave is my absolute limit, and it's a big struggle to play octaves in any songs that go relatively fast..... Any ideas for pieces I can try? as far as what level I'm on, I just finished learning Bach's fugue in C# major from the WTC. So, specifically, I'd like to hear of songs that are: 1. Very possible to play with small hands, 2. Difficult, and 3. Short and brilliant 
Thanks!!!! Can't wait to see what you come up with!!

[Alfonso Van Worden]

Hello made4music!

I would advice you to get some Alicia De LaRocha´recordings, remember that she has small hands, and perhaps you will be able to get some useful ideas by hearing this recording and try to get her repertoire, see which sonatas from Mozart she has recorded, or maybe some of the Spanish music...(I  remember she recorded the Khachaturian´s piano concerto...?perhaps that´ll work).

BYE.

[xvimbi]

A lot of Bach, Mozart, Scarlatti comes to mind. Remember, if you can't span a chord you could always roll it (or drop a note - oops, I didn't say that).

[Alfonso Van Worden]

I agree! (you didn´t say it) but is extremely useful in some cases.

[galonia]

I can only reach an octave if I stretch to my utmost, and it's never limited me from playing any repertoire.  xvimbi is right - there are ways to deal with big stretches.  Some do involve a little re-arranging.  And you definitely become heaps good at rolling chords!!!

Oh, a hint with the octaves is to drop your wrists low - if you hold your wrists too high, then your span decreases.  I've found that really helped when my teacher kept pulling me up on that one - I had a tendency to lift my wrists when I had fast octave passages.

[made4music]

 Neat!!! I've never heard that about dropping your wrists on octaves.....but I just tried it out and I think it will help I'm also learning Hungarian by MacDowell, and it has one really tough octave passage near the end - good spot to try the new technique out!

[made4music]

Hello made4music!

I would advice you to get some Alicia De LaRocha´recordings, remember that she has small hands, and perhaps you will be able to get some useful ideas by hearing this recording and try to get her repertoire, see which sonatas from Mozart she has recorded, or maybe some of the Spanish music...(I  remember she recorded the Khachaturian´s piano concerto...?perhaps that´ll work).

BYE.

I'll keep Alicia De LaRocha in mind, Thanks

A lot of Bach, Mozart, Scarlatti comes to mind. Remember, if you can't span a chord you could always roll it (or drop a note - oops, I didn't say that).

Any specific ideas? I love Bach, and would love to hear of any especially good pieces. I havn't learned a lot of Mozart, but would like to....... Nothing I've heard by Scarlatti, I've been real crazy about, though. Maybe I havn't listened to the good stuff?

[xvimbi]

Any specific ideas? I love Bach, and would love to hear of any especially good pieces. I havn't learned a lot of Mozart, but would like to....... Nothing I've heard by Scarlatti, I've been real crazy about, though. Maybe I havn't listened to the good stuff?

You need to decide yourself what the "good stuff" is. The easiest is to listen to a lot of recordings and identify those pieces that you like. I would say, pretty much anything by Bach should be accessible to you (hand-span-wise), from the little preludes to the eight-voice fugues. Go cherry picking and have fun!

[Alfonso Van Worden]

And you have a 550 (more or less) Sacarlatti´s sonatas to choose from!!!

And we all forget about SOLER!!!

Good look

[apion]

Avoid Brahms and Rachmaninov.

Try early Mozart and Ravel.

[galonia]

Avoid Brahms and Rachmaninov.

Try early Mozart and Ravel.

No no no!  Don't do that - I can play Brahms with no problems.  It's lovely and if you like the music, just play it.

As for Ravel - I found the Toccata from Le Tombeau de Couperin hellish for my span, but not impossible.

It think it's hard to say one composer writes better music for small hands than another.  In the end, each person has a different shaped hand, different strengths and weakness with their own hand, and you have to work out for yourself how to deal with it.  I mean, you don't see people with large hand spans avoiding pieces with chromatic scales and only limiting themselves to pieces with big chords, do you?