I was wondering whether any other piano teachers found difficulty in choosing exam pieces for younger children, because of the size of their hands? For instance, I have 2 pupils about to sit grade III, and they have both just turned 9, but there is a difficulty in them playing chords/doing repeated ocatave jumps/etc with several of the pieces.

I'm not a piano teacher but I know that candidates with small hands are allowed to spread chords or ommit notes. Don't know if that makes anything easier

I am a piano teacher and sometimes I have this problem with the younger children and lower grades. With octaves we omit one of the notes and I try not to pick pieces with chords they cannot stretch.

My son is 8 and he sat grade 4 at Easter and he fell in love with the Heller Prelude but couldnt reach the pedal. However he managed to do all the pedalling marked on tiptoes a few days before the exam(slight growth spurt). He managed to get 28/30 and a distinction overall. He is sitting grade 5 this term and has chosen pieces that have no pedal but some have octaves which he can just about reach.

It can be avoided if you try some of the alternative pieces.... luckily he has started growing a bit now so the higher grades will hopefully be physically easier for him

as a pianist who got through all 8 grades with tiny hands, i can tell you that i dont believe that it ever affected my marks for any of my pieces! Examiners are told that they have to take into account physical difficulties such as having small hands and when i went into my grade 8 exam i made a point of telling the examiner i had had to omit some notes from chords as my hands couldnt stretch to them! She told me it was fine and she'd take it into account and i ended up with pretty decent marks for my pieces (think it was 24, 25 and 28) so i cant complain!

As I understand the situation (from an examiner I once asked about this) they will be sympathetic towards small children in the early grades who omit notes from chords, octaves etc where hands are too small. It's understood that it's sometimes necessary to do so though I must say I try my best to choose pieces with my pupils that they can physically play if at all possible.

However, my understanding is the performance is still assessed and marked the same - ie you don't get an allowance of extra marks because your hands are small.

For myself, I've always had small/short fingers and a small hand-span. So, they just fit onto my oboe beautifully but, to this day, I have to admit defeat on quite a bit of piano music, especially from the romantic era onwards. That's why I became, by first study, an oboist and not a pianist.

Hi Frumpybabes,

Just read your post and thought I'd let you know about a pedal 'extender' whcih allows pupils to pedal and connects directly to the existing pedal, it's adjustable so as the child grows, you can lower it over time until the can dispence with it altogether. PM Steve Hopwood, he's ordered one I think!

cheers for that pedal extender. Didnt know about that. Have to PM Steve then. He never mentioned them before when we were discussing on another thread Heller Prelude cant reach pedal....

do you know how much it is? and where from?

Hi Frumpybabes and Jazzywench.

I have just seen this. The Allegro-ped is an adjustable foot rest for small pianists with can also connect to the sustaining pedal to allow comfortable pedalling for them.

At £135, it is not cheap but it is absolutely superb and works wonders for posture. You can read about it here.

Steve

Have you actually got one? I saw the advert in EPTA magazine once (not that I'm a member any longer!)

Yes, I have. It works brilliantly and I think is a 'must have' for anybody with pupils whose feet do not touch the floor. I had been looking for something like this for years. Indy_exp put me onto it after he bought one for his six year old daughter.

Steve

I've got one on order for my tiny pupils - hope to have it by the start of the autumn term. Didn't know it existed until I read about it here.

Three cheers for the forums and all the information you can find out from each other.

Second that. Nice to be not so much on our own as we were.

One last comment about the Allegro-ped. It is well built in steel and will last a lifetime.

Steve biggrin.gif