To start off with, I have very small hands.
I'm 15 years old and my hand span is an octave exactly; I can reach one more note than that if I don't have to hold anything in between. I've always felt excessively frustrated with hands... but sometimes I feel I just use them as an excuse for my only so-so playing... is it harder to play piano if you have smaller hands??

Now, here is my situation. I've been playing the piano for 10 years now. I attempted to play Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata before, but the octave tremolos on the left hand always left my hands FATIGUED, so that the quality of the rest of the piece would be horrible, or that I'd have to actually stop and rest my hands. Now I'm playing Fantasie Impromptu in C Sharp Minor by Chopin (lovely piece :] ) but my hands suffer the same problem when going through the octave part of the piece... where the the right hand jumps from G sharp to the next G sharp, F sharp to the next F sharp, etc. Help me... how can I help solve this problem!?

Hello Alysa.
That's quite a piece to tackle with only small hands. I've been trying to master it for 45 years (since I was about 15, Im 60 now), and never really got it 100%, yet I can stretch a 10th quite easily!
However I recall quite a smallish girl at my daughters school playing it in a concert, and at about that age.
She also played the Eflat Schubert Impromptu if you know it, another great showy sort of piece, but it doesnt have the stretches that the Chopin does.
Id really advise you to leave it for a year or two, as there is plenty of repertoire available that is easier for small hands, but just as spectacular to play. Im sure there are other message posters besides me who can advise. There have been some previous threads on the Fantasie Impromptu if you do a 'search' you may find the comments interesting.
Good luck.

I only play the slow part, but all i can say is if a piece is really difficult for you, don't overdo it . Spend some time on an excerpt, do a differnt part the next day, instead of ages trying to play the whole piece over and over. I am trying to master some of his etudes and preludes, and for me these are very difficult, it's a gradual process, in my case very gradual !

Thank you guys for your replies!

I think I won't give up on the piece just yet but definitely look into some other repotoire for small hands as well...

Any recommendations? The Schubert Impromptu sounds lovely, too.

Good luck!

Hate to be but you have (perhaps accidentally) placed the apostrophe in the wrong place in the 'Je m'apelle' in your sig! Sorry...but I couldn't help it!

As someone who also has small hands, I understand! Right now, I my hands barely reach an octave, and it's not likely they will grow. Clearly, it is much more difficult for me to play parallel octaves than for people who have larger hands. People with small hands are at a disadvantage.

I used to use my hand size as an excuse for now playing some leaps properly, but I've learned that I can't use hand size as a crutch. I have to practice maybe twice as much as people with bigger hands to even get close to the same effect, but because I love playing piano, I can't let that get in the way. If your hands have stopped growing like mine, you can't exactly hope that miracles will cure your hands...but don't let small hands stop you from playing the pieces you want to play! People with small hands might have to work twice as hard but, with the proper technique, can play as beautifully as anyone else.

I haven't played the Fantasie Impromptu specifically, but many Chopin and Liszt pieces use many octaves or greater intervals (often 10ths). In the beginning, I avoided pieces with octaves, but don't let hand size influence your repertoire all the time. At some point, you have to learn what you want to learn. =) Rather than finding pieces that fit my hands, I've been trying to stretch my hands to the pieces. (Chopin Nocturne op48 no1, with a large section of two-hand parallel octaves, is excellent practice for small hands, and I love the piece too.)