Fuck this very idea from the bottom of my heart. I'm a grown-ass man, fully functional in all aspects of life, who can't reach an octave comfortably, just like most female players and a lot of Asian males. The piano keyboard is objectively too big for most players in the world, period.
As a piano player from young age, for a while recently I thought there was something unfair about piano key sizes: if keyboards were narrower, wouldn’t it be objectively easier for more people? Besides, my fingers are thin, why do I need all that area?
Lately, I’m tending to think otherwise.
If narrower keyboards were to start being manufactured, people with longer fingers would just write arrangements with wider chords for these keys—and people with shorter fingers would be none the better. We cannot demand progressively smaller and smaller keyboards forever.
Furthermore, upon reflection I realized that for some techniques, especially those involving wide staccato jumps, larger keys are actually beneficial even for people with shorter fingers—as you throw hands around, larger keys provide more forgiving “landing pads”, allowing for higher speed than if you had to be precise so as not to accidentally trigger a neighbouring key. In fact, I suspect smaller keys would benefit one or two specific scenarios (e.g., a wide one-hand chord), while being detrimental to other techniques.
All in all, I do not believe it is a handicap. Pick arrangements that work for you. Adapt arrangements to your physique. Narrower range chords do not even remotely imply unimpressive arrangements! Yes, if there is something you want to but cannot physically play, that sucks—but we all have to pick our battles; I have seen pianists with less reach than me demonstrate mind-blowing technique that is beyond my capabilities, and by now I guess will be so forever.
I would assume that the vast majority of piano playing happens with older repertoire. Narrower keyboards can maybe make pieces by the likes Rachmaninoff accessible to more people.
Right there with you. I have relatively large hands, and I still prefer playing my 7/8ths-scale electric guitar for the easier reach. It's a noticeably lesser amount of strain on my wrists and joints.
By playing a shorter scale guitar you sacrifice some of the tone and the ability to play on the highest frets.
Unlike size, stretching can be improved by exercise by A LOT. I use size S (male) gloves myself, yet I can reach C-E on the piano and the 11th fret from a 5th fret barre on a 25.5 scale guitar.
For me, I don't care about ultimate tone, or better access to the highest notes.
I simply want to enjoy playing as much as possible, and make my friends smile while we share the experience. Shorter-scaled guitars are, for me, part of what lets that happen.
A lifetime of practice on the wrong size leads to injury and the disappointment that maybe you as a pianist just will never get to play more technical pieces.
Both are wrong.
Fuck this very idea from the bottom of my heart. I'm a grown-ass man, fully functional in all aspects of life, who can't reach an octave comfortably, just like most female players and a lot of Asian males. The piano keyboard is objectively too big for most players in the world, period.