Hi

Some 15yrs ago I gave birth to a delicate wee fellow - suddenly (the dreaded puberty) my dainty babe is now 6ft 1 inch tall .. the proverbial beanpole and looks to be going to get even taller.

At some pianos he is finding it hard to get his knees under the piano. Grand pianos in particular seem to be a fraction lower than uprights.

His height is most long legs so to sit correctly with a straight back and the line of his elbow to hand level with the white keys he needs to have the piano stool high. Moving it out for his knees to fit under tends to put him a bit far away from the keys.

We attended an interesting master class by David Guerin a classical pianist who is 6ft 4" and he said for recitals he actually has to have the piano put onto small blocks - that correspondingly raises the pedals which takes a bit of getting used to. For practical day to day playing on a variety of pianos (school, music comps etc) that solution isn't really viable for my beanpole son.

What do other tall pianists do? We would welcome advice from other pianists over 6ft

Thanks

Would an obvious solution be to have the lowest possible stool? I teach an adult man who is a similar height to your son, and he simply puts my stool down to its lowest setting, sits a little further back from the piano, and he's away.

Sorry for going off-topic, but wow, musicman - you gave birth?!

I'm 6'2" but I have (relatively) short legs and a long body so; no problems once I get the stool to the right height. If I get the stool height wrong I find that it's my back rather than my legs that gets stiff and sore.

However, a quick check shows that even for me there is less than 1/2" clearance between my knees and the bottom of the keyboard when my knees are together. Keeping the foot on or in the area of the pedal and separating the knees a little gives a lot more space for the knees (even if it is less elegant and may conceivably compromise ones pedaling technique slightly).

N.B. Stool height is likely to make little or no difference anyway - its the distance from the floor to the top of the knee and/or thigh with a bent knee that counts (so no thick soled shoes!).

Yes, a difficult problem, and we do not all have the clout to insist on having a piano raised for a recital - and less so for playing background music in a pub! I am only just over 6'0" tall and it bothers me too. I have no idea how really big people cope. (I don't know how they manage to fly either - I only just fit in a typical seat in Economy class.)

Grand pianos that have had outsize wheels fitted in place of normal castors raise the keyboard just about an inch and a half, and that is enough to make it quite comfortable for me. A low stool is a compromise solution. I find that uprights vary even more than grand pianos, from very comfortable with a high stool to impossibly low - even from one manufacturer (Yamaha).

The root of the problem is that the basic piano designs were settled on in an age when people were on average a few inches shorter than today. Adjustable height on a Grand, Variable keyboard height on an upright? They cannot be beyond the ingenuity of modern manufacturers.

But Rachmaninoff and Richter managed OK and they were big men. (Some of the videos of Richter at the keyboard make the piano look almost as small as Schroeder's in the Peanuts cartoons). Do we have any information about their coping strategies? There is nothing about how they coped in any of my books or videos. Any experts out there to enlighten us on these and other tall pianists of the past?

No Hannah74

lowering the stool doesn't help at all. If he sits on a low stool his entire playing posture is wrong as then with his feet on the pedals his thigh isn't even in contact with the stool, let alone at a nice right angle hip to knee and then knee to pedal. With a low stool the elbow falls below the line of the white keys meaning that instead of getting a good depth of sound from the body all the playing comes from the forearms moving up and down which is quite different in tone.

It might work for your pupil but I suspect he is long in the body rather than long in the legs (his inside leg is
35" ) that's a lot of leg to fit under a piano!!

keep the advice coming

Musicman's MUM (OK Czerny!)

Quite - it's not the overall height that counts but (the lower half of) the inside leg measurement. The height of the stool makes no difference to this problem.

This makes sense. I am about half an inch over six feet tall, and have a 34" inside leg, and I think I am right on the limit of the height/leg length that can comfortably sit at most pianos.

So what did Richter (Giant of a man) and Rachmaninov (at least 6'4"so inside leg must have been 36"+) do?

I think he needs to take the Glenn Gould approach and use a very low-slung stool/chair and "reach up" to the keyboard. Just because most (non-6ft+ people) don't do it, doesn't make it wrong necessarily...

You cannot be serious?

Have you seen the videos of Glenn Gould playing .. or the terrible things he did with his shoulders to overcome the low position? He was nuts. He played well despite the strange position, the swaying body, and the annoying singing and humming - becaus eof his brilliant musical mind. Some experts (Peter Feuchtwanger) have suggested that the strain of his unnatural posture might have contributed to the stroke that caused his premature death. Well, plasterers are known to be susceptible to early heart attacks - from all that trowelling above head height - so it is not a ridiculous proposition.

Have some castors put on the piano. Also useful when you want to move it. I eprsonally like to sit high up, and at 5ft 11, I only just get my knees under my keyboard. I find my dughters Kemble rather high as it has castors, so I have to wind up the stool.

I'm 6'3" and find some grands almost impossible to sit comfortably at, never had a problem with an upright though. I usually wind the stool to it's lowest setting (if available) and sit slightly further back which works most of the time!

If it's an upright piano adding castors will raise the keyboard but will also raise the pedals - huge stress on my ankle after playing such a piano in an exam centre for a day.

High pedals? A thick book placed in front of them will deal with that one. I'm not so very tall - 5'9'' - but do have rather long legs and find they also get jammed under some keyboards - so also tend to sit a bit further back on the rare occasions I still play the piano.

I'm just over 6' 4" and have some, but not insurmountable, difficulty with getting my long legs under the keyboard frame. I tried skewing them to the left/right but that just makes it awkward to play. I lowered the stool and get by this way. I can honestly say that being tall has not affected my ability to play the piano. One has to learn to adapt; the alternative is to cut your legs off. I love the piano but not that much. Let's not forget also that Rach was 6'6" tall and it certainly did not affect his playing or composition abilities. I love being tall and would hate to be a short. There are not many people that can look down on me (in a physical sense I mean), and it's certainly a big plus factor when trying to get served at the bar. It can be a bit intimidating for my patients though.

I laughed when I read that since it is what I get called A LOT (especially by my piano teacher!!!) I am 6 foot 1 and have 36" inside leg measurement, (since I'm female it is honestly a nightmare!!! )!!! I sit quite far away from the piano actually, because I have really ridiculously long arms (it was always really difficult when I was growing as I had to keep changing my posture in order to adapt, and I was quite clumsy!). Lowering the stool helps me a lot if the piano keyboard is particularly low, but I would not ever say that being tall has affected how I play the piano, it just sometimes takes a little time to adapt. I love being tall though!

Oh Roger, you're just not dedicated enough

I bet you mean it in the other sense as well really...

I find i have to lower the stools when playing most uprights, but i dont usually have a problem with grand pianos. I'm 6ft 1", and have a 33" inside leg (i think?). I usually sit very awkwardly at upright pianos, and have to sit back further than i would usually, and i have to lower the seat. I find pianos on casters very irratating, because the pedals are very high up then, and it's very uncomfortable, and takes some getting used to.

Jacob.

That makes sense. I'd not really thought about relative size of body and legs - being at the (ahem, how can I say this without sounding heightist?) other extreme, it's not really something I think about that much! The pupil I was talking about is a beginner, so we've not had to deal with pedals yet. Of course, if I have the stool too high for me my feet dangle - not a good look ...

Oh Carol, I am but a fool............ Neil Sedaka I think!! Do you prefer tall men or short men?; be honest now

tall - seeing as I am 5' 10''

Interestingly, I was looking at a You Tube performance of Angela Hewitt, and I was quite surprised at how high she sat at the keyboard. Her arms looked as though they were at about a 45 degree angle with the keys.

OH .. Clarino

6ft 1 " , playing piano and clarinet .... you sound PERFECT

Please reserve yourself for my son - I'll send him over in ...let's see ... 8 years

Your future Mother-in-law... musicman's Mum

Haha!!!

Well, I don't know whether I fit in your category as i'm only 5'10 (I guess still quite tall for a girl!) but I have a 34" inside leg. I generally find myself sitting extremely far away from the piano in the situations where my knees won't fit underneath the piano (especially a certain horrible upright at my school ). Fortunately, like Clariano, I have pretty long arms, so I can usually reach fine, just it starts to hurt the back after a while ....