I'm sure this has come up before, but what should people with small hands do if they can't reach all the notes in a chord for an exam piece:
a) miss out the top or bottom one
as a, but playing the missed note an octave higher or lower
c) fudge it somehow (spreading chord & using pedal?)
d) learn a different piece

It's only one chord, at the end of 'Rumba Tocatta' in the grade 6 book. My son really likes the piece and would like to do it for his exam, but there's no way he can stretch this chord - I think it's a 10th. His teacher will of course have advice, but he's not seeing him for a while.

Could you miss out the bottom note and have his left hand play it (presuming that the big chord is in the right hand). You cant miss the top note out - that would be to obvious to the examiner.

I think in this piece you could end with a flourish and 'spread' the chords...

I'd spread it. A 10th for Grade 6?

The chord should just be spread - I've always taught it (and heard it played by other people's pupils at Festivals etc) like that.

A 10th is a big stretch for anybody, and I can't see too many students managing this. I don't know this particular piece, but different examples call for different approaches. Sometimes it's possible to play the top note of a LH chord with your right hand, sometimes it sounds okay to arpeggiate it, and sometimes it's best just to leave out a note.

I was always told that if a composer wrote a chord that was too big to play then he is implying that it should be spread.

My father's seen a cast of Chopin's hand - it was very small, which is quite amazing when you look at some of his music.!

I have 3 pupils playing this piece at the moment and all of them spread the chord. Only one of them, a 15 year old boy can reach it, but it's only on the edges and therefore too risky at speed.

thanks everyone - nice to have that much consensus. It will be spread!

If the chords are big, I'd use my left hand to play the bottom note and the right to play the top, assuming the left hand isn't too far away from the bottom note.

If it helps, I'm in exactly the same situation. I love the piece and want to play it for my Grade 6 but my hands can reach an octave and no further, so my teacher - like the others here - suggested to spread the chord. It really suits the mood of the piece.

That's what I would normally do, but there are big chords in both hands!!!

I'm playing this piece aswell, and I definatley cant reach that far, so I have just changed it and play and octave C in both hands with a G in the miidle ..

You could always spread the chord, and I'm told examiners have sympathy if they can be made to recognise that you physically can't do it...

I would spread the left hand chord. If you spread it really quickly it will almost sound as if the notes are all played together. It's a staccato chord too so will sound good if spread and with a great flourish.

Different grade... same problem.

My 8yr old daughter (v. tall but v. slender with tiny hands and even tinier 5th fingers) is learning pieces for G5 at the mo...La Chevaleresque, Andante and Jackson St Blues (yet to start).

Almost every grade we've had the span problem. We've tackled it different ways, none successfully. She's distinction level in pieces, sight, scales etc., the lot, bot span always causes problems.

1st told by teacher, in early grades, to drop note closest to other hand to prove you were moving around piano still. Eg. octave span in Get in Step, left top C out of LH.

Also told she wouldn't be penalised by dropping. G3 Passepied piece specifically commented by examiner on dropping notes and only got 25 when other 2 pieces got 28 and 29. For G3 Sunshine, another teacher suggested using RH instead of LH but her own teacher said it would affect the melody too much.

For G4 Danse Orientale used RH for LH notes a lot thru middle section (despite possibly affecting melody emphasis). Although she got 27 for it, she never wanted to play the piece publicly as she always felt it was at risk, unlike other Polonaise 29 and Freeway 29 pieces.

Broken chord idea sound useful for when its possible to make that happen.

Is there an official Assoc Bd view? Would like to know it as obviously this problem won't go away for her for years!

I'm doing my grade 5 in june and it sounds like your daughter and I chose a lot of the same pieces (passepied, sunshine, freeway, polonaise, la chevaleresque and jackson street blues). keep us posted with how it goes and I'll share any knowledge my teacher gives me on these pieces!

Surely in some circumstances maintaining the flow of the music will be more important than getting every note of a large chord in...if I had small hands, I'd be tempted to just miss the odd note out (or shift the offending note up/down an octave) if it didn't dramatically change the sound of the chord.

To be honest it's a little dense and unreasonable for composers to write huge chords spanning in excess of an octave and expect them to played as written. If you want a spread chord, write one; if you don't, don't write impossible spreads.

I think that the problem here is that in the Passepied the held notes really do need to be held.
Because of the style of the piece you can't really get away with missing notes or not holding them.

SNAP! I'm playing that piece! (the Rumba Tacotta)
I thought it was a misprint originally....
My teacher told me to spread the chord - with the top E(?) in the left hand on the beat.