DD is 8 and is teeny tiny for her age. She's learning her ABRSM grade 1 pieces at the moment. One of them has a chord which has a D and a top C (span of 7 tones). She is genuinely really struggling to even nearly hit both notes at the same time.
I'm encouraging her to continue practising it as obviously flexibility comes with practice, but I genuinely think this is a size issue more than a flexibility issue.
Should she split the chord, or ignore the bottom note, and how heavily is she likely to be penalised?
I'm teaching her for the foreseeable future - and whilst I've got Grade 8 myself, and have experience of getting my other DD through the first couple of grades, I've no experience with exam boards or as a piano teacher.
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Grade 1: small hand span (ABRSM)
Pianofish · 16/02/2024 10:27
puncheur · 16/02/2024 12:46
Definitely spread the chord, it will be fine.
(pedant alert: D to C is 5 tones not 7).
Secnarf · 19/02/2024 18:15
That is a big interval given that you could expect a lot of grade 1 candidates will have small hands.
What does her teacher advise? She can’t be the only one in this position.
I had a sneaky look out of curiosity, and I would spread the chord. I think the dissonance from the D is needed, and the spread won’t sound out of place. (Also can’t ‘give’ it to the other hand as that’s on an E2).
puncheur · 16/02/2024 13:14
@Pianofish what piano do you have? This is exactly what the middle (sostenuto) pedal is for. If you don’t have a middle pedal then I guess hold it as long as she can. I’m more a jazz/rock musician (and not primarily a keys player anyway) and would look at shifting to the C above halfway through the left hand run (or even the G or E/Eb to imply the harmony) but I don’t think you can get away with stuff like that in classical music.
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