If you’re beginning to take up the piano, you might despair about the size of your hands. It seems like all the best musicians have large hands with long, slender fingers – isn’t that what you need to play the piano? What is the difference between average-sized hands and piano players’ hands?
While some professional pianists have a large hand span, the majority are similar to the regular hands of non-musicians. Pianists don’t necessarily have larger hands or longer fingers. Still, their hands will be strong and agile, with their talent attributed to coordination, training, and practice.
Before explaining the differences between the two types of hands, I think it’s necessary to first outline the average hand sizes of regular pianists. From here, you can get an idea of whether your hands fit these parameters.
Average Pianists’ Hand Sizes
In 2015, 3 researchers headed up by Rhona Boyle presented a study on Pianist Hand Spans to the 12th Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference. Here they looked into 473 pianists’ hand spans and categorized them by gender and race. The results can be seen in the table below.
| Piano Players | Sample Size | Min (in/cm) | Max (in/cm) | Ave (in/cm) | Median (in/cm) |
| Caucasian Males | 116 | 7.8/19.8 | 10.8/27.4 | 9.0/22.8 | 8.9/22.6 |
| Asian Males | 37 | 7.8/19.7 | 9.4/24.0 | 8.7/22.0 | 8.7/22.1 |
| Caucasian Females | 216 | 6.4/16.3 | 9.5/24.1 | 8.0/20.2 | 8.0/20.3 |
| Asian Females | 87 | 5.2/13.2 | 7.5/19.1 | 6.2/15.8 | 6.2/15.7 |
The piano players had recognition on either the international (12), national (51), or regional stage/amateurs (410). The handspan is related to the spread between the thumb and 5th finger (1-5 span) of the right hand.
Naturally, there are some gender differences where female pianists have a smaller range. There are also some ethnic differences, especially with the ladies.
Now that’s out the way, read on to learn about how hand shape and size affect piano playing. Most songs fall within a specific span of notes that various hand sizes can play. Also, there are many ways to strengthen your fingers and train your hands to play intricate pieces, even with smaller hands.
Playing Piano Involves Extensive Coordination
Contrary to popular belief, no specific shape or size of hands is required to play the piano. If you have short or stocky fingers, you can be just as skilled as someone with long slender fingers. However, while hand shape doesn’t affect piano playing, some aspects do help performance improve.
The time you devote to practice and your eye-hand coordination is essential to learning to play the piano. You are more than just a pair of hands – your ears, brain, eyes, and feet also come into play. While your hands play the piano, the rest of your body is part of the performance process. Your hands are simply the most visible part of piano playing.
Does Piano Playing Change Your Hands?
Playing the piano doesn’t change the shape or size of your hands. The only way playing the piano can change your hands is to make them stronger and more agile, especially the more you play it.
Thicker fingers don’t have an inherent disadvantage in playing the piano. Nor do shorter fingers. Overall, hand health can affect piano playing, however. People with arthritis in their hands or joint issues will have a more challenging time playing the piano. If your hands are healthy, it doesn’t matter what shape they are.
Does Piano Playing Make Your Hands Veiny?
There’s no noticeable difference between a pianist’s and a typical hand’s vein structure. Even the most well-practiced pianists will not have excessively veiny hands. While a piano player’s hand might be stronger than an average hand, the veins will not be much more pronounced.
Does Piano Playing Make Your Hands Longer?
Piano playing might strengthen your hands, but it won’t make your fingers any longer than they already are. Some pianists have tried to change this, including composer Robert Schumann, who tried to make his fingers longer and ended up permanently injuring themselves. Your hand size will remain the same, and you’ll still be able to play well.
Specific Skills Can Boost Piano Playing Ability
The strength, flexibility, and agility of hands are aspects that affect piano playing skills. These skills don’t have anything to do with the shape of the hands – you can train your hands to play faster and more complex pieces with scales and exercises. Playing the piano isn’t about hand shape – it’s about how much work you put into it.
There are also ways to work around hands that are extra small or large. Different composers or genres work with varying strengths of hand. Like a vocalist choosing songs to fit their range, you can build a repertoire of piano pieces that work with your particular hand strength, size, and skill levels.
Hands of Any Size Can Learn to Play Piano
Hand size also won’t make it notably harder or easier to play. Hand spans vary even in hands of the same size. Think of child pianist prodigies – some start playing complicated classical pieces before they’re ten years old. If such small hands can play composers like Chopin and Bach without adaptation, any adult pianist can play them.
Some composers, such as Rachmaninoff, create music with larger intervals (the space between notes). Some players with stronger hands can’t hit these chords without skipping a passage, picking a different interval, or stacking the chord differently. However, most composers write music that can be played unadjusted by any pianist.
All Pianists Need Finger Strength
Strength is essential for piano players and might be the only way pianists’ hands differ from average hands. Well-trained pianists with an average hand span who practice daily will most likely have stronger fingers and hands than non-musicians. Especially their third and fourth fingers.
If your hands aren’t strong, they won’t control dynamics or intricate musical movements. Strength leads to control, especially over softer notes, or to bring out a melodic line in one hand while playing bass notes with the other. Hand strength is one of the most vital aspects of musicianship.
Dexterity Is Required to Improve Your Piano Skills
If your hands are strong and flexible but clumsy and slow, you won’t make it past the beginning chords and songs. Hand speed doesn’t just affect themes at high levels of difficulty. The tempo varies per song (and sometimes within a piece), and it’s vital to follow along without slowing down the quicker parts.
Dexterity and strength work together on the piano. A pianist who often practices, no matter how much training they have, will grow in strength and agility and play more complicated pieces. Speed and accuracy in the piano can only come from improvement in skill and finger strength.
More Flexibility Allows You to Play Complex Songs
While early piano players don’t need a lot of finger flexibility, this need quickly grows as you progress. More complicated classical songs have specific fingering. Each note in the song is supposed to be played by a particular finger for the best performance. It could be challenging to learn these pieces correctly if you didn’t train finger flexibility early on.
Finger flexibility will also help with speed and agility. Of course, there’s no need to train your fingers to bend completely backward or out of alignment, and if you have stiff fingers for health reasons, you’ll still be able to play the piano. Flexibility is an ideal quality for pianists but can be worked around.
How To Make Your Fingers Stronger
Pianists have strong hands because they practice daily and cover a wide range of routines. They can increase finger flexibility and reach with specific exercises. The most common way to increase strength and skill is to practice scales, but there are other finger exercises on and off the piano.
Solid and flexible hands are only a part of being a successful pianist. There is theory to learn and music to practice. The connection between your brain and your hands is the most important part, no matter how strong or large your hands are. However, these exercises can work to train your mind and hands.
Review Scales to Increase Playing Speed
Scales are the most common exercise for pianists. Practicing scales doesn’t only help finger strength and speed – it’s also a great way to learn the theory behind the music. You’ll play any song more quickly if you know your scales because you’ll be able to recognize the key you’re playing in.
Suppose you have already mastered the basics of scales and are looking for more hand stamina and theory. In that case, I recommend the Russian Technical Regimen of scales by Alexander Peskanov. He takes each scale up and down the piano several times and separates the hands for ultimate scale mastery.
Practice Finger Exercises To Enhance Flexibility
In addition to scales, there are other ways to improve your ability to transition between fingers with strength and control. There are many exercises for working on trills, more complicated scales, and difficult fingering transitions. Several composers have written musical books on how to improve and which exercises to use.
Hanon’s sixty exercises are the most commonly used finger exercises for improving general piano skills. If you want more robust and nimble fingers, I highly recommend his The Virtuoso Pianist. It will improve your piano playing, no matter your current skill level.
Final Thoughts
Whether you have large or small, slender or stocky hands with fat fingers, you will be able to play any piano song. The hands of a pianist are no different from average hands in size or shape – the difference comes in strength and agility. With practice and training, any type of hands can be excellent piano hands!
