How to play piano with small hands
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- How to play piano with small hands
• How to play piano with...
In today's quick lesson, Scott covers the myth that you have to have long, skinny fingers to play the piano well. Not true! Even if you have small fingers, Scott provides some simple but effective ways to play smoothly on the piano.
Most students begin to have trouble when they are trying to add a fourth note to a chord. A common habit and misconception Scott's seen in students is that they believe they have to play the notes towards the edge of the keys. All you have to do is simply move your hands up the notes, closer to the piano. You should never have to have your hands twisted or wrenched around to play a chord!
This problem also occurs when you are trying to split a chord over two measures. That can sometimes be a very long stretch. If you are ever stretching longer than you can reach, you can "rock" up to them from the bottom. This is called "to arpeggiate."
Finally, if you are still really struggling, you can invert a chord. For example, Scott uses a c7 chord to show that you can move the lowest note and move it up an octave and put it on top. That is typically a much easier way for students to play because it is a closer hand position.
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How to play piano with small hands
• How to play piano with...
“I promise you don’t have excessively short hands”
My dude, I literally stretch my thumb and pinky to the absolute limit when doing an octave.
Heathen Potato that’s how mine is!!! when i’m learning songs there are some chords that are physically impossible no matter where i place it and i have to drop out notes in the chord to play
Exact same here, my playing hands and my 180° stretched hands look 2mm different. That's because this is a video for beginners who haven't reached some level of flexibility yet and because we are a minority. Keep up practicing! 😊 I'm sure a lot of beautiful, inspiring and technically difficult pieces are waiting for us out there without sequences of octaves and without 10ths!
Same here I literally taught myself a piece that was absolutely beautiful, but I couldn't finish it because the final page was nothing but rapid octaves and my hand cannot stretch that far quick enough to play it correctly (I've been playing for 11 years 😒) even spoke with my teacher at the time, looking for some way to make it work and she too was like "well that sucks" then I think about all those 7 year old prodigy's and wonder how there tiny hands do what they do 🤷🏾♀️
Same here... I feel so frustrated, I've been playing the piano for more than 13 years and some sequences are just impossible for my hands....
I quit playing piano because of same reason, i couldn't reach same note octave higher. Then my brother tried and did without problem like 9 or 10, and when we compared our hands, both were same. So i realized that it is about tendons and you can stretch them. I found amazing hand stretch exercises, anod after doing it regularly i can do 8 easily. Most usefull exercise for me was to put hands to desk, hook my thumbs by the edge, and then try to "climb" desk, with all fingers at once while thumb is still hooked. It hurts a little, you do it for only like minute or two and don't add any force to thumbs by pushing all hand forward, just climb with fingers. Like every tendons stretching, if you overdo it, you can damage tendons, so be careful.
Reaching the octave isn't the hard part. It's playing the notes in between that's the challenge.
I can relate to this so hard😭
Trueeeeeeeee
3:50 "I dont care how little your hands are you can always do that" No, I *literally* cannot.
damn the problem isnt my hands being too low down it's just i cant physically reach it lmao
As a 27 year old learning piano seriously for the first time , this just light speeded my progress to playing jazz and composition. Thank you very much :)
I've been playing piano for 45 years and still needed this advice!!
My hands are literally tiny boi I can’t even reach certain chord with my hands up lol
I can barely even reach a 6th
The average person reaches a 10th comfortably
@@TitaniumTronic That's not true. The average man can probably do that. I am male. I can reach a ninth comfortably and a tenth (c to e) uncomfortably. No big black to white tenths for me :(
I've never seen a person who has smaller hands than me.. so interested in this kind of helpful videos
Lol I was teaching myself piano this past week and started doing these 4 days in, but having no reference, I worried it was improper technique. So happy you confirmed the stuff I thought I was doing wrong.
Thanks for the helpful video. Plenty of practice certainly stretches the fingers over time. I'm finally able to play octaves! but I still need to practice. I've got short thumbs too. I felt really unfortunate in the beginning but I'm able to play the 1-4-5 chords in all 12 keys. That's quite something for an oldie like me.
shut up wilbur
I can't reach an octave :(
Thank you for this tip. I do have very small hands and have always had a reach issue. Genius tip.
I cant reach an octave and strongly dislike the rolled sound too much. Like for the odd chord its okay but too much and it loses the clean sound it should have. So I just leave the note out.
Or get a smaller keyboard :)
I can't do a rolled over effect half the time cuz I feel it needs extra attention especially with a very demanding challenging piece. I usually just take out a note (or two *gasp*)
Great video!! Thank you I struggle with playing with small hands. I think this will help.
I'm a 'n00b'/beginner and I'll say from my brief experience, I instantly go for the tips of the keys too. I do this because I think I'm less likely to smush a black/minor key, or hit the other white/major key in between the narrow part up the top.
It's like learning to drive in an empty car-park rather than going on a Saturday afternoon to the nearest IKEA and playing around with the traffic.
That said, my biggest issue atm is my pinkies bending and sticking out when playing a note with my ring finger on both hands. Feels like my pinkies want to tear away from my hand.
The video helps me play with small hands thanks
IT JUST DOESN'T FEEL RIGHT DOING THAT. AHHHHHHHHH!
The hard part for me is switching between octaves like from 6th to 3rd while maintaining same sit position thus hurting my wrist since the chords/notes is a bit slow. Should I also move my sitting position whenever I switched between far octaves so I won't hurt my wrist? I don't know if this is a good technique especially for fast notes/chords.
I can JUST reach the distance of one octave.. but then they add in black keys in between. Thanks guys for making music so hard 😑
I was going through the levels of Merry Go Round of Life on Flowkey and it showed me exactly how the hand was resting on the keys. I physically couldn't stretch my hand out enough to play the notes. I was still a key short.
My right pinky is always killing me when I have to play spread out chords in quick succession. I was really trying to learn a piece that required that I played 3 four-note chords back to back. None of the chords were too difficult to play individually, but when I had to move my hands from each chord, it really stretched out my pinky and it was difficult to play. It’s always my right hand pinky that gets into pain. I’ve tried playing the bottom three notes with my thumb, pointer, and ring, I’ve tried doing my thumb, pointer, and middle, and I’ve tried every combo I can think up to give myself the most comfortable transition of notes, but it’s not working. It’s probably a problem that I’m teaching myself piano, but I’m not paying for lessons lol I find myself not enjoying some beautiful pieces because my hands just really hurt afterwards.
Thks, great advice
Um have you looked at hallelujah From panic at the disco because I have it doesn’t work
I had to reach c4 G and c5 E minor, at the same time, and I'm like 1 key short to reach it and makes me so frustrated
People will compose music based on what feels comfortable to play with their hands.
Some people have stupidly long fingers, it therefore stands to reason that some part of sheet music one encounters will be impossible to play for people with even average length fingers.
I have stupidly short pinkies and thumbs to where my hand span is larger using thumb + ring finger and hitting anything over an octave isn't possible. I also have a preference for playing music which happens to have a lot of over octave span chords and sometimes whatever way of fixing it one tries just doesn't work.
Please don't make a generalized statement telling people their fingers aren't excessively small. Of course some people only think their fingers are small due to technique and having done like no stretch exercises in their life, but it is a really annoying thing to say to anyone who has an actual issue with their hand size
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. 😊 You are really good to explain things in a kind of easy to follow way. This video has been published for some years ago, are you still active? (Maybe I didnt follow you that much if you are).
Thanks again for great explanations.
1) Thanks for the nice words. Glad you like the vids. 😃 2) Yes - I (we, including my team) are VERY much active continuing to run our online piano method at pianoinaflash.com for students worldwide.
I think the manufactures of piano should invent some kind of pianos with narrow keypads , so it gives a chance for those people with small hands to enjoy playing piano
RIP. This video is useless for people who actually have small hands :(
I wish some who actually has small hands (like octave span) talks about this. Because we have entirely different challenges that cannot simply be solved by arpeggiating, because even those movements are massive.
I suggest playing a chord that spans two octaves for your hand size to demonstrate if your technique works.
@@menglin7432 i feel you and once i found out about PASK and possibility to have narrower keyboard like Chopin and Beethoven had back in the days i want people to know that that there actually is other option than struggle or quitting!
Thanks for this video, some great tips! The intro made me laugh (0:25) - it's like something from an 80s VHS tape
What if all white notes got to play n press together ..ex middle C and octave E together on RHand
The third chord in Hammerklavier seriously can't be rolled, and it's a filled ninth. How on earth do you manage that.
I am trying to do the sweet home Alabama solo and can’t play the first part which is G sharp A F sharp. My index finger keeps hitting other black keys when on the G sharp
The chord G D B flat (dont really know what its called) is killing me rn
What about trying to reach from a c# to a d#? Like in moonlight sonata. I can just barely do it and sometimes I'll still hit the c# next to the d# my pinky is trying to hit
Thank you very helpful
I cant reach an octave
No because some of us literally have small hands like my hands are about 7 inches and the hand size that it is perfect for the piano is about 8'4inches im sure so..
I remember when my hands were smaller in order to play an octave the only way I could reach was by playing the side of the note
when i have to play both high B and lower B at the same time, I cannot reach it far enough and this video doesn't address this problem. i wish my hands were bigger
My hands are medium sized but my thumbs are shorter(smaller joints) than most people's that I couldn't even play an octova even when fingers are fully stretched. How do I solve this problem?
and how about the piano/keyboard makers adapting to small-handed people (the majority actually) and making a few key size standards?
I'm still a beginner but I face a lot of problems with my short hands I'm 17 but my left hand span is barely 16 while my right one is only 17 ... Even though I tried those tricks it's still hard for me to play my favorite songs. Do you think exercising my fingers flexibility is the best solution to improve myself ? And if so, which exercises would you recommend? And here's my last question : can I hope that my hand would extend thanks to practising given that I'm only 17 ?
Once you get to adult age...
Me: waits 5 years
As a beginner myself, who genuinely doesn't realise you play further up the keys when playing the black keys?
The problem for me is hitting chords larger than an octave :(. I'm better learning music theory so I know how/when to swap out notes to counter those though.
THANK YOU!
my right hand is not as flexible as my left hand, how can i improve it?
Strech it
Thank you!!
Why can I not upvote this 10 times??!!!
helpful tips thanks a lot
this kind of made it harder for me since I literally couldn't reach an octave without putting my fingers on the innermost part of the keys :( moving my fingers up puts the black keys in the way
I would love to say this helped but I literally can't reach from one c to another, this is a problem I don't know how to fix. I tried the moving the hand up the keyboard thing but the black keys jutting up make reaching it far worse, and the rolling thing doesn't sound right because I have an electric keyboard with no pedals.
if you are still around..i had exactly same problem, see my reply to top comment.
@@sedygrizly Did you get any progress with a reach recently? I mean beyond the one you described in the top comment
I’m so stupid... why didn’t I think about pushing my hands up there
Make jumps is what make me sad i can't do with my smol hands
Man..I have been looking for someone to address this! And yes I do have carpal tunnel! lol
You can't understand man... I can barely do an octave with two hands
You're so funny and helpful. Wow
I don't know who started the myth but it prevented me at first.
I ended up impulse buying a keyboard. Taught myself moonlight Sonata and fur Elise. Still don't know how to read music but I'll get it eventually.
I'm an adult but my hands are the size of 10 years old kid or sth XD Gotta try this trick when I can
No logic reason for only one standard keyboard size!
I’m trying to play snoop dog’s piano part forgot the song and thanks !
my hands are tiny like jimin and im struggling
jødié right? Trying to learn Filter and I have to use my thumb & pinky and it just won’t reach {sad face}
Bruh you don't have a freakin 17cm handspan
I have JIMIN FINGERS.
Hanaan Noorani 😂😂😂😂😂
Thank you this made me more confident that I can still play well despite my tiny short fingers :')
I just cant reach b
My child hands are tiny but this helped
I have wide hands but short fingers
O my god thank you for give me this tip because my hands are tiny ;-;
he looks like if god rushed to make steve jobs
i wanna play liebestraum and the 13ths on the left hand are laughing at me so hard
Help. I cried about this. Because of my hands
Genius
Ok tiger, just tell us how is possible develop a technique like Jordan Rudess with small hands... I believe that if you show us this, you will passed away how the best pianist of the humanity history, and TH-cam will bankrupt.
my hands r litterally 5 inches tall, my fingers, 2 inches tall on the middle finger which is supposed to be the longest :(
Yes, but when your hands are smallers, when you slide the hand forward and try to stretch the left hand pinky you will find that pinky pressing other keys as your trying to stretch and reach over the other black notes.
Sorry, but your hands in the video are still bigger and can reach easier.
Get someone with smaller hands to sit at the piano and do what you are saying. Lets see if they can do it easier following your tutorial. Would be interesting to see.
Short (like my fingers :( ) but very good
Trust me, it doesn't work when the extremities of the chord I'm trying to reach are 12 whites apart. Max I can give you is 9 of those.
Scott, you have the biggest hands though! It's alright for you 😂✌
I love you.
You can reach 10ths and you're preaching about playing with small hands?
Yeah I mean just look at how easily he's playing a 10th! 😤 This is just a video for beginners, not for really small-handed pianists...
i have short thumbs ;-;
so these tips are helpful xD
1:17
2:31
lol
This is steve jobs
Who else has a pinkie that is abnormally tiny?
Ah, I see we’re all here because we can’t play an octave
😂
Bruh im obviously doing this. Im here because i still cant reach🙄
This is not very helpful
*zoop*
I can reach a 9th however my fingers are not very long. :(
lol true xD
Bruh I'm 11, and I can't play cause my hands hurt when I TRY to stretch them.