How big were the great pianists' hand-spans?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

15. I know that now. I didn't know that then.

This was in the early 1960s, long before anyone I knew had heard of Suzuki method or different fiddle sizes.

The only thing my teacher told me about sizes was that you could string up a violin a fifth lower and get yourself a 3/4 sized viola, but I was not interested in viola. My husband is a guitarist and he was stunned when I got out one of my fiddles (I only have four) and actually played it, because he didn't realize how small it was, especially how tiny the fingerboard is.

My old piano and violin teacher is still alive, amazingly enough. But he's gone to THE DARK SIDE.

He plays accordion. No, really, he does. For money, even!!

He dragged out a huge, heavy 120-button Hohner and tried to get me to play it. He also wrote me a diagram of all the left hand buttons and the chords. It was too big for me to deal with.

I once read about a bunch of accordionists in San Francisco who got together and played "Lady of Spain" in a group on the steps of City Hall. They got tickets for being a public nuisance. I would have been proud.



That's cool about your mother and your aunt having talent. I had friends in orchestra that said "We used to all gather around the piano and sing" and I thought, "What? Other people in your family have talent?"

My parents didn't have any talent but they did enjoy my concerts. My dad was hip. He was into jazz. Loved Bix Beiderbecke, and took us to see Ella Fitzgerald in the 70s before she retired. I came home with an Art Tatum record one day and said, "Dad, do you know who Art Tatum is?" and he did, of course. He and I went to see Stephane Grapelli when he was still around. He finally figured out that there were some people in rock and roll that were talented, but it took him a long time.

Mom was a complete square. She thought that Paul Whiteman's Orchestra (Yes, that was his real name, he was a good buddy of George Gershwin) played proper jazz. I called it "Jazz Sanitized for Southern White Virgins". Grandmother took Hammond organ lessons when she retired, because that is what respectable old ladies did in small towns. Now they call it the music club, named after one of the ladies I knew there when I was a kid, and they get performances imported from the nearest state university which is about an hour away.

I had a first cousin once removed (mom's first cousin) who was a professional trumpet player for the Main Line Symphony in Philadelphia, and my third cousin on mom's side has a heavy metal power trio in San Antonio for fun.

Heavy metal is too obnoxious for me. There's a certain limit on distortion that I just can't cross, and listen to anything that's past a certain point of obnoxiousness. If you want a clue as to rock and roll I like, then I hope you recognize my avatar. Clue: Ph.D. in Astrophysics, Imperial College, London.