Eliana Yi dreamed of pursuing piano performance in college, never mind that her fingers could barely reach the length of an octave (八度音阶). Unable to fully play many works by Romantic-era composers, including Beethoven and Brahms, she tried anyway—and in her determination to spend hours practicing one of Chopin's compositions which is known for being "stretchy", wound up injuring herself.
"I would just go to pieces," the Southern Methodist University junior recalled. "There were just too many octaves. I wondered whether I was just going to play Bach and Mozart for the rest of my life."
The efforts of SMU keyboard studies chair Carol Leone are changing all that. Twenty years ago, the school became the first major university in the U.S. to incorporate smaller keyboards into its music program, leveling the playing field for Yi and other piano majors.
Yi reflected on the first time she tried one of the smaller keyboards: "I remember being really excited because my hands could actually reach and play all the right notes," she said. Ever since, "I haven't had a single injury, and I can practice as long as I want."
For decades, few questioned the size of the conventional piano. If someone's hand span was less than 8.5 inches—the distance considered ideal to comfortably play an octave—well, that's just how it was.
Those who attempt "stretchy" passages either get used to omitting notes or risk tendon (腱) injury with repeated play. Leone is familiar with such challenges. Born into a family of jazz musicians, she instead favored classical music and pursued piano despite her small hand span and earned a doctorate in musical arts.
A few years after joining SMU's music faculty in 1996, the decorated pianist read an article in Piano and Keyboard magazine about the smaller keyboards. As Leone would later write, the discovery would completely renew her life and career.
In 2000, she received a grant to retrofit a department Steinway to accommodate a smaller keyboard, and the benefits were immediate. In addition to relieving injury caused by overextended fingers, she said, it gave those with smaller spans the ability to play classic compositions taken for granted by larger-handed counterparts.
Smaller keyboards instill many with new confidence. It's not their own limitations that have held them back, they realize; it's the limitations of the instruments themselves. For those devoted to a life of making music, it's as if a cloud has suddenly lifted.
