How to play notes that are more than one octave apart

[dorothy]

I have small hands, and the farthest I can reach with both hands is exactly one octave.  Lately I've been learning some new pieces, and there are some places where the notes are an octave and a half or more apart.  What is the best way to handle this?

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Roll the chord, similar to how you would play an arpeggiated chord (Chopin - Op. 10 No. 11 is a good example of that).
What pieces/measures are you struggling with?

[lostinidlewonder]

Yes rapid arpeggiation of the chords is a standard practice playing together when you hit the top if there's anything to play in the other hand. Rearranging the notes, reallocating between the hands or omitting is perfectly fine too. There are pianos with thinner keys that's possible to find too, here is just one example.

[dorothy]

Thank you for your help.  I will give these suggestions a try.

[psipsi8]

There are pianos with thinner keys that's possible to find too, here is just one example.

This is just sacrilege. It basically ensures that you'll be unable to ever play again on a normal-sized piano.

[lostinidlewonder]

This is just sacrilege. It basically ensures that you'll be unable to ever play again on a normal-sized piano.

It is a real problem for some people and having more narrow key width is immensely enjoyable and emotional for them, their hand can finally play in a natural position. They'd never be able to play certain pieces on a real piano in any case, so do you just tell them don't bother with these keyboards?

Case in point: the emotions of this pianist with small hands finally being able to get her hands around the piano, she must have struggled for many years. Telling her to don't bother with these small pianos is rather devoid of any emotional sensitivity.

[lelle]

This is just sacrilege. It basically ensures that you'll be unable to ever play again on a normal-sized piano.

To add to what lostinidlewonder said, people with small hands are more susceptible to short term and long term injuries when playing on normal sized keyboards. I think we should normalize smaller keyboards for those who need them.

[lostinidlewonder]

To add to what lostinidlewonder said, people with small hands are more susceptible to short term and long term injuries when playing on normal sized keyboards. I think we should normalize smaller keyboards for those who need them.

Totally. I think the traditional sized keyboards are more for male hands which are generally bigger than females. With technology these days there should be no reason why we have to be stuck with that.

[musiclover04]

I am very fortunate because I now have two wonderful pianos, recently adding a narrow keys upright to my standard keys extraordinary grand piano. I won’t go into my history of injury and long inability to play at all. I will simply say I can now play both pianos. Anyone with small hands having difficulty can benefit from expertise of Penelope Roskell (see her books and videos etc) and others (egFred Karpov who recently introduced a new course) who focus on proper technique and safely playing  with small hands. Certainly those who are struggling should seek out opportunities to listen to and try narrow keys instruments which are finally becoming more available.  It is very possible to go from one to the other and wonderful to be able to learn, practice and play pieces requiring large hands on the narrow keys and with proper technique play the same piece on my or my teacher’s or anyone else’s standard keys.