Grade 1: small hand span (ABRSM)

[Pianofish]

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.

I would think an examiner will expect many children to have small hands for Grade 1. Have you seen the marking criteria for Grade 1? It's pretty basic stuff at that stage!

https://www.abrsm.org/en-gb/practical-grades/about-practical-grades (the marking schedule is in the syllabus for each exam)

My piano teacher only had a hand span of 6 notes - she was an absolutely tiny woman. Played to a phenomenal standard. She spread chords where she'd no hope of reaching and her hands bounced around the keys like nothing I've seen since! She took me to Grade 7 before I became a lazy teenager and packed it in but many of her students went on beyond Grade 8 to university studies and concert roles so it certainly didn't affect her ability to play or teach.

Thank you, that's great.

Definitely spread the chord, it will be fine.

(pedant alert: D to C is 5 tones not 7).

You are quite right - I meant to type "notes" rather than "tones".

Good to know that spreading the chord should be fine though.

DD11 is doing Grade 3 and she has a piece where she's to hold a left hand bottom C whilst playing a run of quavers stretching an octave. She's also struggling to hold the sustained note and pedal wouldn't work because of the quavers. Any suggestions for this?

@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.

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).

Wow I can't believe you went to the trouble of identifying the piece! Thank you.

Sadly I'm her teacher for the foreseeable future (long and boring story), and whilst I got my grade 8 many years ago, I've no experience as a teacher so don't really know what to suggest.

I have a Clavinova (yes, yes not a "proper" piano but I love it!). It does have that pedal so perhaps we might give that a go for the grade 3. I'm assuming the exam room pianos will all have this pedal too?

I would not assume the exam piano will have a middle pedal.

The syllabus says it’s ok to spread if done sensitively (p14):

Yes, I wouldn’t assume a middle pedal in the exam room either.

Well done for teaching them. You’re a braver person than me! What she refuses to accept is correct advice from me, she’ll happily believe her teacher about!

Ah! Amazing! That's exactly what I was looking for (though perhaps we should have chosen a piece without a stretch? I've always previously been an advocate of choosing the piece you like the most, as you'll be playing it for long enough!