The Challenge of Smaller Hands

I still remember as if it were yesterday, the day the doctor told me I had stopped growing due to the ravages of avascular necrosis on my bone structure. All my hopes and dreams of being a concert pianist were immediately dashed, and I went into a period of depression and quit the piano altogether.

That was a mistake. Though I could never hope to get the hands I needed to play many of the pieces I wanted to, continuing to play would have made my hands grow more.

But I had another problem, one that I don’t talk about much, and one that would have affected my ability to be a concert pianist, even if my hands had grown to average adult size. If you look carefully at the opening video on my homepage you will see it. Notice that my little finger, the “pinky” as they call it, is not proportional to the rest of my hand. It is very weak and cannot play a note by itself. Even when I do use it you can see that I have to lean the whole hand over the note for support. Usually, I have to use the fourth finger where most people would use the fifth.

So, should I play at all? Well, I didn’t want to play if I could not play the music I wanted to. My father tried when I was young (he died when I was thirteen) to get me into popular music. That was his genre, and he could play songs for six hours straight without repeating any. But that was not for me. Once Dr. Brian Ciach introduced me to music software, I realized that I could transcribe much of the classical repertoire to fit my hands. I can now play what I love to play. There are many examples throughout history of the indomitable human spirit. My story is only one, but I hope it will inspire others to play as well.

I would love to know of your experiences, even if they don’t involve piano playing per se. Let’s get a dialogue going, but really, my message is to all those who want to — let’s play.