The piano is a percussion instrument not because one strikes a key to produce the sound, but because a hammer strikes strings to produce the sound. Contrast this with the accordian, which also has keys, but which is technically a free-reed instrument because the sound is produced by forcing air past a reed.
Thank you, Allthegood.
I know that it is a precussion instrument, and, I suppose, will remain so. I also know that those of us percussionists who can master reading the staff no matter where the notes are, will be total musicians, indeed.
Unfortunately, I am not one of those and never will be.
I learned to read “beats and time” on the staff and never received piano lessons. Maybe if I had…
But, the fact remains I didn’t, so I will remain a drummer only.
I just regret that not being able to play a piano makes me less of a percussionist, even though I am considered a very good drummer.
Quatsch! It isn’t worth quibbling about! To use an already overused phrase, “it is what it is”, and damit basta.
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There’s a Beethoven forum here: http://www.forum-lvbeethoven.com/Forum//index.php if anyone may be interested. I’m afraid it concerns itself mainly with the Maestro’s life and not so much his music, but you might want to check it out just the same.
Thanks
Q
I don’t think so. I don’t have really big hands, but I could hit a tenth, and even an eleventh (as long as it’s white note to white note, like C-to-F, although the 11th I can only play in isolation–not as part of a musical piece. No prob on the 10th in a piece, though.) However, the 10th is at about the limit of what I would consider reasonable in a piano score.
To put it into context, it is said that Liszt, for instance, could stretch a 13th on the piano. A tenth is nowhere near “extraordinary.” Here’s a thread on Piano World with similar thoughts.
Interesting about the Bach “revival” (?) having occurred earlier. I was almost 100% sure that I recalled Beethoven using Bach as a teaching technique throughout his career, but chalked it up to erroneous memory on my part.
I’ve had quite a few students – either regular students or peers of mine who paid me in beer to show them some things – who couldn’t make tenths at all, but I don’t think of it as a disadvantage. One just has to be a bit clever. For such a critical sound, especially for solo or small combo work, I really think it makes a huge difference, and I can’t think of a legitimate pop/blues/jazz style that doesn’t include LH tenths as a major feature. Diminishing returns when working with higher tempos, though – octaves will do just fine when the rocking begins, and sounds more idiomatic to me going from experience and memory of what I’d do.
I think part of any confusion is the popular notion that one needs big hands to play piano – or that it’s a major advantage. It’s not as important to piano work as it is, say, for playing double bass, I believe. You just have to be good, is all, and a good player can make do just fine with whatever they have physically to work with, in my experience.
“Gradually from the 1790s onward.” I stand by my assertion these piano composers were more influenced by CPE Bach (and even J.C.) than they were J.S. Bach. The fact that Mendellsohn wasn’t the first to revive Bach doesn’t mean this isn’t how it happened. He still fell out of the repertoire from 1750 on, and was pretty damn obscure for the last few decades of his life. We think of him as the quintessential “Baroque” style, but he was writing big, thick, dense fugues at a time when style Galant and the works of Telemann and CPE Bach were in vogue. So he probably wasn’t even largely played near the end of his life, either.
My old music teacher, who was a bit of a scholar, said that Bach was able to
stretch an octave and a fifth.
Good example, although not for classical buffs: Teddy Wilson, Goodman’s
piano player. His left hand was amazingly large, and he could essentially
use it alone.
Finally, Perfect Pitch does exist. The same old music teacher had it, and said
that when the powers that be changed A from 437 to 440, it drove him nuts
for 2 years. Must have known 30 people who had it, in the music school.
But I have small hands, and can’t even tell you which octave I’m in!
My hands are large - I can hold (but couldn’t play) a thirteenth.
Russian-American musician **Regina Spektor **was just profiled for her newly-released CD in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine. The title of the profile was “The Gift of Small Hands” - she was training for classical, couldn’t cut the technical requirements because her hands were too small, so she found a new direction musically by focusing on songwriting…
Just wanted to say that I love this thread, despite being on the newb end of even the appreciation scale. <3
I have never heard of or seen that bit - very funny and clever!
I saw these guys live just two days ago. This bit was amusing, but unfortunately it was mixed in with a lot of Muppet-level mugging and tomfoolery that got annoying.
Aside: In the Discworld books, the Librarian has a full two-octave spread.
You have the same span I have (5’4" woman with proportionately sized hands, wear a M in women’s gloves, an XS in men’s gloves), so I hate to break this to you, but your hands aren’t large. 
You missed the point of the part where I said I wasn’t a pianist. I have never cultivated the ability to span a larger interval. My hands are much larger than yours, I assure you.
I just eat this shit UP, boys and girls, even though I’m just a lowly drummer (screwed up The Eroica with a misbeat on the bass drum in high school) and part time rythm guitarist. I have pretty much all the Beethoven “appreciation” CD’s where the music is taken apart and explained movement by movement. (Andre’ Previn and that guy from the San Francisco Orchestra). I don’t have the GREAT LECTURES, yet. Too damn expensive!
I have copies of all of Beethoven’s “scribbles” and I hope the musicologists will soon interpret the newly found sheet music and regale us with the finished product.
I can just hear him now: Nein y’all! This is not what I meant, you Mutter-Frickers!!
Play it again with that glissando I marked out! 
Q
Thank you,** Le Ministre de l’au-dela’, doobie, doobie doo. (Sorry, one day I’ll get it right, my friend)
**
I bet ol’ “Rock” died a second death with laughter in his coffin!
Qusi
Whoa! I just tried and was barely able to stretch to a tenth…13 is wicked stretchy.
I am so glad to know y’all, and please remember us if you take a trip to Vienna!
Q