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A Pianist's Story
A personal journey through decades of struggle, a chance encounter, and the piano that changed everything.
My hands are not large, especially for a man. In a world where there is only one "conventional" piano size, I spent 3 decades of my life playing on pianos that were simply too big for my hands.
Even though I became a professional pianist late in my life, at age 30, I found myself frequently straining to reach certain notes, and excluded from playing some of my favorite composers like Liszt and Rachmaninoff, both of whom famously had large hands.
The modern piano only reached its current size during the time of superstars like Liszt and Anton Rubinstein, with earlier versions of the piano having narrower keys.
3 years ago, I met a man named David Steinbuhler, who owns a textile factory in northern Pennsylvania. In the small corner of his factory, he had a small operation going, where he made narrower keyboards for pianists all around the world since 1992.
Focusing on grand pianos, he would create the keybed plus the entire action (which includes the felt hammers and pivots), for pianists and universities to swap out from their existing grand pianos.
David took my Kawai MP11SE, replacing the existing DS6.5 keys for a narrower, reduced DS6.0 size. To this day, my Kawai MP11SE keyboard is the only DS6.0-sized keyboard with the same wood is used for premium, grand pianos.
During the first few weeks of practicing, I didn't notice much difference. The main thought I had during this time was, wow, the black keys feel so narrow. Whereas on the conventional pianos, the black keys had enough surface area that you could kind of "approximate" the distance, and still hit the note, with the narrower keys, finger accuracy was paramount.
But this feeling of unease gradually went away. As time went on, the feeling that profoundly affected me as I played on this keyboard, was the feeling of complete relaxation.
For the first time in my life, I didn't have to strain to play the #1 most common interval, the octave. Pieces by Romantic composers, especially by Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff, began opening up to me, like old friends who moved back into town.
"For the first time in my life, I didn't have to strain."
After my worldwide concert tour in 2023, I decided to become a piano teacher. My students were fans of mine from my Youtube channel, many of whom had attended my concerts.
As a new teacher, I learned on the spot—how to demonstrate hand position, posture, and technique. But as I learned more about teaching, I started running into a very common issue amongst my students.
Almost universally, students under 13 faced hand size issues. I constantly had to remind them, “don’t worry, your hands will grow.”
Those with smaller hands struggled. I felt bad demonstrating on my DS6.0, knowing they couldn't replicate the technique on their standard keys.
Most female students complained about large intervals. While many men could play 9ths and 10ths, those with similar hands to mine, had trouble playing Romantic repertoire.
The Realization
Nearly all of my female students, and a quarter of my male students. I desperately wanted them to just play once on my DS6.0 keyboard, to feel how easy it was.
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