The 7/8 and 15/16 Piano Keyboards

[passthesalt]

As a small-handed (7.5” span) pianist, I’ve become interested in the smaller keyboards developed by the Steinbuhler Company in Pennsylvania. There are two versions available: one whose individual keys are 7/8 the width of the standard keyboard and another whose keys are 15/16 as wide. You can either swap out the standard keyboard on your existing grand piano with one of the smaller keyboards or buy a Steinbuhler upright that features the 7/8 or 15/16.

Here’s a link to Steinbuhler that has an illustration of the keyboards (and a standard one) in actual size. Just put your hand up on the screen and try it out:

http://www.steinbuhler.com/index.html

My first thought after reading about these keyboards was that I had probably spent thousands of hours refingering and tinkering with scores to make it possible for my cigar fingers to navigate the notes. One 7/8 user commented that “editors’ fingerings suddenly made sense on the smaller keyboard.” I also thought about all the music I never attempted because it demanded too large a stretch for me.

The music departments at two universities in my area (Southern Methodist Univ. in Dallas and University of North Texas in Denton) offer these keyboards in practice rooms and also allow students to play them for juries and recitals in their concert halls. They’re conducting research on the incidence of performance injuries associated with standard versus smaller keyboards as well.

Carol Leone (head of the Piano Dept at SMU) who’s been an enthusiastic promoter of the smaller keyboards, hauls a 7/8 with her (about the size of a cello) and has it installed in the grand pianos she plays on the road. It takes a technician about an hour to perform the keyboard switch. Here are 2 videos of her demonstrating the 7/8:

http://mariocast.blip.tv/file/338200

http://mariocast.blip.tv/file/359739

Carol Leone's article below gives a nice summary of the issues surrounding the 7/8:

http://www.steinbuhler.com/GoldilocksFeature.pdf

Here’s a link to more info about the 7/8 piano at the University of Nebraska where they’re also experimenting with it:

http://www.engineering.unl.edu/movies/S ... ndex.shtml

Most pianists say they adapt to the smaller keyboard in about 30-40 minutes and that switching back to a standard keyboard is no problem. I’m going to be trying these pianos out in the near future and hope I can also talk to pianists who use them frequently to get their ideas about them. When I brought up this subject with my stern Russian piano teacher, she called it a “cheat” and a “crutch,” but backed down a little when I reminded her that her idol, Josef Hofmann, had small hands and only played on a specially-built Steinway that had narrow keys.

Keyboard width has varied widely over time and only arbitrarily was set at the length it is today. (Steinway, in fact, is still dickering with keyboard length and actually increased it a decade ago .) The majority of piano majors in university music schools now are women who usually have smaller hands than men. It’s high time someone developed a keyboard suited to the multitudes of pianists who don’t have Rachmaninov’s hands.

Has anybody else seen or tried out these pianos?

[davida march]

As a small-handed (7.5” span) pianist, I’ve become interested in the smaller keyboards developed by the Steinbuhler Company in Pennsylvania. There are two versions available: one whose individual keys are 7/8 the width of the standard keyboard and another whose keys are 15/16 as wide. You can either swap out the standard keyboard on your existing grand piano with one of the smaller keyboards or buy a Steinbuhler upright that features the 7/8 or 15/16.

Here’s a link to Steinbuhler that has an illustration of the keyboards (and a standard one) in actual size. Just put your hand up on the screen and try it out:

http://www.steinbuhler.com/index.html

My first thought after reading about these keyboards was that I had probably spent thousands of hours refingering and tinkering with scores to make it possible for my cigar fingers to navigate the notes. One 7/8 user commented that “editors’ fingerings suddenly made sense on the smaller keyboard.” I also thought about all the music I never attempted because it demanded too large a stretch for me.

The music departments at two universities in my area (Southern Methodist Univ. in Dallas and University of North Texas in Denton) offer these keyboards in practice rooms and also allow students to play them for juries and recitals in their concert halls. They’re conducting research on the incidence of performance injuries associated with standard versus smaller keyboards as well.

Carol Leone (head of the Piano Dept at SMU) who’s been an enthusiastic promoter of the smaller keyboards, hauls a 7/8 with her (about the size of a cello) and has it installed in the grand pianos she plays on the road. It takes a technician about an hour to perform the keyboard switch. Here are 2 videos of her demonstrating the 7/8:

http://mariocast.blip.tv/file/338200

http://mariocast.blip.tv/file/359739

Carol Leone's article below gives a nice summary of the issues surrounding the 7/8:

http://www.steinbuhler.com/GoldilocksFeature.pdf

Here’s a link to more info about the 7/8 piano at the University of Nebraska where they’re also experimenting with it:

http://www.engineering.unl.edu/movies/S ... ndex.shtml

Most pianists say they adapt to the smaller keyboard in about 30-40 minutes and that switching back to a standard keyboard is no problem. I’m going to be trying these pianos out in the near future and hope I can also talk to pianists who use them frequently to get their ideas about them. When I brought up this subject with my stern Russian piano teacher, she called it a “cheat” and a “crutch,” but backed down a little when I reminded her that her idol, Josef Hofmann, had small hands and only played on a specially-built Steinway that had narrow keys.

Keyboard width has varied widely over time and only arbitrarily was set at the length it is today. (Steinway, in fact, is still dickering with keyboard length and actually increased it a decade ago .) The majority of piano majors in university music schools now are women who usually have smaller hands than men. It’s high time someone developed a keyboard suited to the multitudes of pianists who don’t have Rachmaninov’s hands.

Has anybody else seen or tried out these pianos?

Someone in Australia has just done an academic article on the 7/8 piano which will be published in part in the UK. Some of it will be appearing in the Journal I edit in Oz and all will eventually be found in the Proceedings of the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference 2009.
She has compiled all sorts of tables regarding test use from various critical technical points of view.
When it's published I'll hopefully remember to put some citations up,
Helen

[passthesalt]

Someone in Australia has just done an academic article on the 7/8 piano which will be published in part in the UK. Some of it will be appearing in the Journal I edit in Oz and all will eventually be found in the Proceedings of the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference 2009.
She has compiled all sorts of tables regarding test use from various critical technical points of view.
When it's published I'll hopefully remember to put some citations up,
Helen

Thanks, Helen. Am glad to see others are checking out the 7/8. I emailed the Steinbuhler company to see if they had an electric keyboard version of the 7/8 - a portable 7/8 might speed its acceptance. They wrote back that Steinbuhler doesn't have one but they're hoping an electronic keyboard maker will show interest in this soon.

[kingarthur]

Very interesting. At first, I thought the same thing as that teacher, that it is like a cheat. I have been the kind of person who has complained about fingerings that teachers gave who had small hands because I felt it did not make use of what the hand can do and it was more comfortable for me to spread my hand out. However, the possibility of these keyboards to reach even greater spreads won me over. I looked at the website and found with their smaller keys I could easily reach twelfths; how fun!

[passthesalt]

kingarthur, it was that keyboard simulation on the Steinbuhler site that roped me in, too. Finally to be able to hit a 10th or play octaves with curved little fingers - what a concept!

When I finally rouse myself from my winter torpor here, I'm going to try these things out at Univ of N. Texas and will report on how long it takes me to adapt to the smaller keyboard size.