Your fingers

Stub

My little finger is a good inch shorter than finger 4. Finger 4 is slightly longer than my index finger. I find in many cases finger 4 feels stronger than finger 5. Independent motion of 4 is more difficult than 5, but I find myself using finger 4 with a fair amount of comfort. A couple of years ago I had a problem with finger 5 on my right hand and got in the habit of using 4 rather than 5.

I have fairly long, skinny fingers but poor reach/stretch. I can do a simple octave easily enough, but if I have to add more notes between the octave things can get dicey.

What are you fingers like and how is your reach?

Rob

Stub To visualise my fingers, think Elton John, minus the talent!

I can play a 9th, no problem, but a 10th is a challenge, so I normally don't go there unless rolling notes.

iternabe

@Stub mine seems to be almost exactly like what you described. But I can only reach an octave on the edge of keys 🙁

TC3

Hard to say, not exactly how best to measure them: if I turn my hand one way the other, or tilt my wrist a bit, it can change the apparent lengths. If I had to guess, I'd say 2 and 4 are about the same length. 5 comes right up to the inside crease of the last knuckle of 4. Length-wise, I think I'm pretty average (not differentiating for gender, ethnicity, or anything else) and thickness a bit on the slender side, at least last time I remember reading about those things. My 1-5 spread is fine, I can play octaves and ninths just fine, but I can only hit the easiest 10ths on the edge of the keys. I think my 2-5 spread is a bit limited and notice it with some jazzier chord when I have some trouble placing 2 cleanly.

WieWaldi

Same hand shape than yours.
An octave I can reach comfortably.
A ninth is also possible.
For a tenth, I need the trick with the end of the keysticks.

ranjit

I can reach a tenth. I can barely eke out an eleventh from the edge of the keys.

But more than the total reach is the stretch and flexibility of the fingers that is unusual. It comes in really handy.

1 and 2: a ninth
2 and 5: a ninth
2 and 3: a sixth, seventh from the edge of the keys
3 and 4: a sixth
4 and 5: a sixth, seventh from the edge of the keys

TC3

ranjit That is "handy"! 😃

keystring

I have a smaller (female) hand and not the long thin finger type. But I do have a fair stretchiness, so that thumb to pinky can form a straight line. That gives me a 10th staying on the outside white keys, otherwise more realistically a 9th. (I did yoga starting at age 12 or so).

Animisha

I have fairly long and thin fingers but I can only reach an octave.

Stub

Wow, ranjit, you did hit the jackpot with reach and flexibility!

I can reach a bare 9th on the outside of the keys. As I mentioned, my stretch isn't good. I hit about 90 deg when I stretch out my fingers. If I were to try to increase that, I'd have to be very careful not to do more harm than good. My hands are kind of beat up most of the time anyway from gardening and other activities. When I mention some of the things I do to my piano teacher, her eyes roll back in her head. 😲

twocats

Wow @ranjit, while (as a small woman) I don't really want disproportionately large hands, it would be really nice to have more reach. I had to abandon plans to work on a piece that was filled with tenths chords in the left hand.

I shared in another thread that I can achieve my maximum hand span (octaves are easy and I can also play slow 1-4 and 1-3 octaves and some ninths) because of hand stretching exercises prescribed by my high school teacher.

There's a section in my piece that is very challenging for me with what's supposed to be relatively quick legato octave chords (could manage if it was straight octaves, but the extra note in the middle makes it really tense and tiring), and if my hands were slightly bigger I don't think it would be a problem. Well, I've gotta live with what I've got! At least octaves are easy for me. Some of my friends have absolutely tiny hands and I think they'd manage an octave but it wouldn't be with ease.

TLH21

A tenth in my left, a ninth in my right. Less when the weather's wet 😉