what to do if your hands are too small for piano..exercizes

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Piano is past far the most finger dependent of all instruments. Each manus needs to work in concert with one another to brand beautiful music. Most pianos take a standard key width and length, so if yous're hands are small sometimes tough to play the instrument. Younger students struggle with this particularly; trying to reach chords and perform octave passages.

It does help to have large easily so that you can reach certain octaves and form big chords easily.With some creativity, there are enough of ways to play the piano with smaller sized easily. Here are 12 Tips For Playing Piano With Small Hands.

1. Stretch Your Fingers
2. Breaking Up Chords
3. Omitting Notes
4. Using A Custom Sized Keyboard
5. Playing On The Sides Of Your Fingers
6. Playing Higher On the Keys
7. Flattening Out Your Fingers
8. Choosing More Suitable Repertoire
9. Strengthening The Fingers
10. Varying Articulations
11. Redistributing The Notes
12. Never Forcing It

That list of tips is basically what I share with my students, and the results seem to be pretty effective. Adjacent we'll go over all of these in more detail and so you tin can become a better understanding of how to apply each footstep.

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1. Stretch Your Fingers

Whether you accept big or small hands, it's of import to stretch them out. Stretching your fingers gives you the fullest extension of the hands, gets the blood flowing and allows for more fluent playing. Too often I see students come into lessons with tight fingers, and if the hands are smaller it really hinders their playing ability.

My stretch protocol is pretty basic yet it'due south effective. I begin with the pollex and pull it back slowly until it's fully stretched out. Next motion on to the index finger and then forth until you reach the pinkie.

After this I'll go back to the thumb, fully extend it and elevate straight up with the index and middle fingers of my other manus. Lastly I give my fingers a wiggle and shake. Repeat this method for both hands and they'll be as stretched out as possible. If you desire you can fifty-fifty stretch out the palms of your hands too.

2. Breaking Up Chords

Chords are probably going to be the most challenging thing for pianist to play if they have pocket-sized hands. The style I teach my students to go about playing them is to break them upwardly. This involves splitting the chords upward and so that 1 group of notes is played earlier the other.

Here's an instance. Let'south say you have a chord in the left manus and it'due south congenital as C E G and B. The logical fingers would be 5, iii, 2, and 1. For a smaller hands that's quite the stretch. This chord would have to be rolled in club to play it and land the timing of it on the downbeat (or wherever the music tells y'all to).

The other matter pianists could do is redistribute the fingering. Perhaps yous tin can play the chord without rolling if you lot used 5, 4, ii and i or even playing two notes with one finger likewise. Those are just some of the possibilities, merely it really depends on the mitt size.

3. Omitting Notes

Exterior of breaking up chords, pianists also have the choice of omitting notes. Don't just omit everything you see considering it could potential ruin the harmonic construction of the piece. Using the case above we basically accept a C7 chord.

The notes you absolutely need in that location are the root which is C and so the B. If I were to omit a note at that place it would likely exist the G as that is the dominant.

Across chords there's certain passagework that might have hard to reach areas. Octaves in particular are good spots to omit notes because it'southward only a doubling of the pitch. Heed to the character of the piece and that'll help y'all determine whether the little finger or the pollex needs to be left out. Often times it'll exist the thumb that you lot'll leave out, but sometimes it'll flip.

If yous're a piano student I wouldn't omit notes until a chordal analysis has been done on the sections you're because doing this. Working with a good teacher volition assistance you make up one's mind when and when non to do this. The good thing for younger students is that as the easily grow they can start adding those omitted notes back in.

4. Using A Custom Sized Keyboard

Pianos come built in a standard size, especially with concert grands. In the past it used to be a huge issue, and unless you had a ton of money you lot couldn't become a custom built size. These days pianos are available in all shapes and sizes. Some accept narrower keys, others have wider keys and then forth. Some fifty-fifty take less octaves on them just for kids.

I would just get a pianoforte like this if you have really young students under the age of 6. At that indicate their probably in preschool and not really able to play a normal size piano anyway. If they are 6 or older then I suggest just waiting and letting them grow into the instrument over time.

5. Playing On The Sides Of Your Fingers

The actual technique of playing with pocket-sized hands is different than what most of usa are taught. Every method volume will tell y'all to take hold of a lawn tennis ball, and use that every bit a course for curved fingers and then forth. The fact is that information technology won't work sometimes if you tin can't reach the keys correct?

What I've establish near effective sometimes is to play on the sides of your fingers. Particularly when it comes to reaching those octaves pianists can lean into notes and into chords too. This might non always sound the prettiest of grade, but it'due south a way to become through some pieces that just aren't catered to smaller hands.

6. Playing Higher On The Keys

The other matter small handed pianists can do is play college on the keys. I don't mean a higher register, only literally closer to the fall board. This is mostly useful for chord clusters, but besides constructive in scalar passages as well.

As you run up and down the instrument you can move higher and lower along the way. This takes some serious choreography to pull off though or else the playing will audio quite jumbled.

The drawbacks of this too are the loss of speed considering you're somewhat shifting positions on the keyboard. This isn't my favorite suggestion to make, but information technology does work when used right!

seven. Flattening Out Your Fingers

This is almost similar stretching and playing at the same time. If you ever take a look on YouTube at some of the greats playing the piano you lot'll notice that they flatten their fingers considerably. This is a technical skill specific to some, only if you lot have small fingers it's one of your only real options.

I even so recommend playing with some curvature to the fingers. However, don't be agape to flatten and lower the hand for the sake of your technique looking proficient. With octaves flattening the paw is actually helpful and information technology also frees you upwards to move around too. For some chords you can also splat them down if the notes are close enough.

8. Choosing More Suitable Repertoire

I'm sure yous've heard the phrase about Rachmaninoff having large easily. And then naturally his music caters to artists who also accept large hands besides equally he was a pianist himself. On the flip side, there's plenty of composers who had minor hands and created music more suitable for those players.

Fifty-fifty with hand size out of the equation, some music is merely better for smaller easily. Choose your repertoire to accommodate your hands and not the other manner around. Baroque works are actually groovy, and anything along the Mozart and Haydn lines are great too.

In full general more Romantic genre music is going to pose some real difficulties. That's where more harmonic chords were nowadays and more tonal liberties were taken likewise. For beginners the genre isn't going to thing too much.

Piano method books are particularly good at composing music that is appropriate for all mitt sizes. Even equally yous become to the higher levels of those method books it's still all pretty accessible. Equally piano students grow and develop they can brainstorm working with broader repertoire.

If you're an adult pianist this works the same way too. Continue sorting through method books and standard repertoire and encounter what fits your fingers.

nine. Strengthening The Fingers

Stronger fingers accept the ability to play the piano faster and with more than accuracy. There'due south all kinds of means to go almost strengthening the hands as well. You tin use hand grips similar this ane, utilize stress balls and even play with pinch sleeves. I don't actually recommend those options though because there is such a thing every bit too strong.

If a pianist overdoes it strengthening their fingers they might end up actually hindering their playing ability. Using manus grips also much can result in lack of mobility and the finesse needed to play quick passages and brand sudden dynamic transitions.

Instead, I would strengthen the fingers naturally through technique exercises, playing more repertoire and drilling certain passages. But running through all of your scales and rolling chords is a great example.

For students with small hands, I recommend trying interval stretches with your thumb existence the base of operations. You can perform this exercise at the beginning before hopping into your practice routine.

• First find a simple tonic chord (C Major is fine)
• Play the chord (C,East,K,) equally normal
• Adjacent stretch the little finger from Thou To A and play this chord (C, East, A)
• Stretch the pinkie out an boosted note and play B (C, E, B)
• Continue that design until your pinkie cannot travel any farther
• Repeat this procedure with the band finger, middle finger, and index fingers

What I similar about this process is that y'all can easily play this in reverse (starting with the pinkie and stretch the thumb). Whatsoever chord the pianist is studying with can be cleaved this way and stretching this way strengthens the fingers considerably.

10. Varying Articulations

Trying out unlike articulations tin help a pianist with small easily figure out what works and what doesn't. Some passages may have elaborate phrases that have a smashing altitude between them.

Sometimes those might actually be staccato phrases which allows a pianist to bounce their fingers to achieve notes. Certain notes in the passage might take accents on them too to help outline specific harmonies and inflections.

Pianists should analyze the music and figure out how to best convey the sound the composer intended. Possibly they can fifty-fifty brand slight edits in order to pull off some of those passages. I like this method well-nigh considering it doesn't involve omitting whatever notes, but rather getting creative with the musical graphic symbol of those passages.

11. Redistributing The Notes

Redistributing the notes is similar to broken chords, merely information technology'southward but achievable in certain sections. An instance is where y'all have a huge chord written in ane hand but don't have the hands large enough to achieve it. If the other hand has a brief interruption in the music, it tin cross over to play that note.

An case would exist a chord like E G B D F. Peradventure you lot tin can play those first four notes in the correct mitt, but not the fifth. In this example if I have a short rest in the left hand it'll come up across the superlative, play that note and and then revert back to my normal playing position.

An example of a slice where this happens a ton is Liszt's "Un Sospiro". The melody is begun in the right hand just rapidly the left paw will alternate to keep the phrase going. Have a look at this video of it being played to get an idea of what I mean.

Oft times you won't employ this method in beginner to intermediate playing, but certainly anything in the Romantic repertoire is fair game.

12. Never Forcing It

My last bit of communication to pianists is to absolutely positively never force it. Forcing your hands to do something they tin't naturally do is unsafe. There are potential injuries that can happen. Fifty-fifty with the stretching exercises pianists demand to do it slowly for the best results.

If the pianist is immature then you must understand the fingers are going to grow over time. There's going to be some stuff that they can't play right now, and that'southward totally fine. Even if you're an adult, working on your hands little by picayune will brand them more flexible and able to reach further up and down the keyboard.

Remember that choreography in your playing is key to executing certain passagework, peculiarly if the hands can't quite reach their destination on their ain.

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Source: https://joshuarosspiano.com/playing-piano-with-small-hands/

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