The Future of Piano is Here: Exploring Narrower Keyboards

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. You're walking into the future of the piano.

A new digital piano with narrower keys, something that I've always wanted and here it is. And there's a whole history behind this and I want to show you the exciting developments that are going on in the world today for people like myself who can't reach a tenth. Wouldn't it be nice to reach those bigger chords? Well now you can and there's other possibilities for you but first let's have some music. I'm going to play something that I've always broken chords in because I can't reach the tenths at the beginning of Schumann's Carnival and for the first time here I can play it with all the tenths intact. First I'm going to show you what it's like and how I break the chords to make a convincing case for it on a traditional piano. Watch this.

Now, dare I try it to play the tenths for the first time in my life? Let's give it a go.

And that's what it sounds like without having to break the chords. Incidentally, for those of you with smaller hands, I've got a video on how you can successfully break chords and make them sound very good and it's in the description. Now you notice it was still a little bit of a struggle because I can just barely reach the tenths even though this is a smaller keyboard. How much smaller is it? I bet you're asking that question. Well, let me give you a little bit of background about narrow keys. This is the Athena which is based upon what they call the 5 .5 standard, the DS standard. The DS foundation has for pianists for alternatively sized keyboards or PASC.

Christopher Donison and David Steinbuehler are the pioneers and the two basic standards that are most common are the 5 .5 and the 6 .0. And what do these numbers stand for? Well, a traditional piano has six and a half inches per octave. This one has only five and a half inches per octave. The 6 .0 is six inches per octave. This one suits me just fine. Look what tenths are like for me on here.

I can just barely reach them but I can reach them. I can reach them. So it's not a problem for me. Now some pianists with very small reach might have fat stubby fingers that can't get between the black keys. Fortunately on this Athena narrow keys, they have me the black keys narrower as well. So I can get my fingers between here without a problem which is really, really nice.

You're probably wondering does anybody make acoustic pianos with these smaller keyboards? The answer is yes. Hailoon has uprights with a 6 .0 standard that are available in limited numbers. There's also Hannah Ryman makes custom keyboards. Stretto Pianos is the name of the company and there's a 64 and an 88 key 5 .8. Somewhere splitting the difference between the 5 .5 and the 6 .0. Also there are Steinway retrofits. So if you have a seven foot or a nine foot Steinway or another Steinway, you can get a new key set to be able to play it and have real comfort.

Did you know that early in the 20th century, Joseph Hoffman, one of the greatest pianists of the time, Steinway made a special seven foot piano for him with smaller keys.

And of course he couldn't always play on that piano but what a pleasure. So this is not a brand new idea but it's starting to get a little bit of traction. You know, Steingrober and Schoen, the great German piano manufacturer, is offering custom sized keys on their pianos and once again, Steinway conversions.

Right here in Michigan, Rayburn Piano Works, they make, oh they do all kinds of key work and they do custom conversions as well.

Somebody who helped me with my first modular piano system, David Rubenstein in Los Angeles, if you're wanting your piano to have smaller keys, you could talk to these people.

In Europe, there's Caddock Musical Technology. They even have key design software and a lot of innovative pianos.

Now having said all of this, it's interesting how pianists like myself, who can't reach tenths, can really go very far. As a matter of fact, at the research Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Magdalene Ho made a stir with her brilliant musical playing, even though she didn't advance, which really upset a lot of folks. Listen to her performance of the complete Schumann Carnival once again, also in the description.

Now this thing we all face with one size fits all but it really doesn't? There are a lot of reasons for this because once you start making pianos, how do you have different sizes for people? There are parallels. For example, the Quartier keyboards, what we all type on, has the letters QRTY.

You've got some of the letters you use all the time, the extremities. It's not the most ergonomic design keyboard. In fact, did you know there's another design keyboard that has the letters more centrally located, the ones you use all the time, that people could type way faster? It's called the Dvorak system.

But who can relearn how to type? And something even more startling, if you go back to the beginning of the 20th century, there was a janko keyed up with a keyboard that instead of octaves going left and right, they went up in rows. And that was a keyboard that made it possible to jump octaves seamlessly. Some people believe that it was the heroics of Liszt and other concert pianists that made it look so fantastic and flamboyant, jumping octaves that it never really caught on. It might have been back in the 19th century as a matter of fact when janko came up with this keyboard design. Anyway, I am enjoying this and you know what's interesting, even though I just started playing this keyboard, it's been a seamless experience. I started playing Mozart on it.

It's not a hard transition. It's not like it feels really comfortable. It's like finally having a pair of shoes that fits just right. I love it and I enjoy playing it. And I think that what the world needs to do, first of all, needs to decide upon one alternative standard. If we go with 6 .0, 5 .5, these even some people with 5 .1, it's going to be impossible.

My vote is for the 5 .5 because I can reach a solid octave. I can reach ninths on a traditional keyboard. I can't really reach a tenth and yet this keyboard I can barely reach tenths but I can play them. So I think this would be a great alternative. Otherwise, it would be not such a great benefit and think about people who don't have good solid octaves. They really, really need a smaller keyboard. So a 5 .5 I think is the perfect size and what would have to happen is we'd have to have two sets of actions in every major concert hall for all the Steinways for people with smaller hands. It's just no small part why, for example, if you look at the international piano competitions, they're dominated by men who traditionally have larger hands. So for people with smaller hands, it puts a level playing field. Wouldn't it be great if Yamaha made their U1s available with smaller keys and all the concert halls eventually had these alternative sized keyboards and everybody could be comfortable at the piano. It's a dream and I think the beginning, the seeds have been planted and I applaud Athena for making the narrow keys piano available, this digital piano to my knowledge the first of its kind. I'd love to get a conversation going here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube how you feel about this and what you'd like to see with smaller keys.

Once again, I'm Robert Estrin. Thanks again for all you joining me.

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Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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