More pianomakers experimenting with narrower keyboards

Gombessa · 2026-06-03T15:30:30+00:00

Saw this a few days ago, to my great joy: And I know Steingraeber also demo'd a narrow-key action: As has Hailun: https://www.hailun-pianos.com/my-size-keys And I'm sure some others as well. I hope we see continued development and adoption on this front, the "one size fits all" mentality with piano really boggles my mind.

WieWaldi

MRC Interesting. Didn't expect that. My hands are big enough for a standard keyboard, octaves are easy, ninths well doable, but I struggle a lot with tens. I am curious how a 6" keyboard feels. I think a 5.5" could be too narrow because of my sausage shaped fingers; even now I feel somtimes to get stuck between 2 black keys when I play the whites near the fallboard.
Would be nice if a 5.5 and 6 inch standard etablishes and most important: The big companies would start to make bread and butter products with those narrower keyboards. Actually, this makes totally sense, because this way they can lure kids into their brand, offering a $1000 digital that is cheap enough for parents to try out but doesn't feel like a toy. Basically make narrow variants of their best seller lines.

ShiroKuro

MRC I've read something that basically describes that as well. It was one of the things that really caught my attention, because it makes it seem more "do-able" or realistic to have a narrow-key keyboard at home and still play regular keyboards elsewhere.

TLH21

ShiroKuro I occasionally play on an old Willis. Finding notes felt somewhat different so I measured the keyboard. It is only about 8 mm (5/16") shorter/less wide than a 'standard' keyboard, but the difference is noticeable. Not unplayable, just noticeable.

thepianoplayer416

People suggested having interchangeable sets of piano keys at a concert stage or competition. People like myself can request to have the narrow set. Otherwise I can barely reach a 9th, forget about a 10th.

So far I've played some pieces with wide stretches. Playing these without narrow keys have to accommodate. To get all the notes of a big chord would be to play the first note like a grace note then play the rest of the notes or drop the bottom note altogether. People with small hands shouldn't try to reach further by doing stretching exercises.

thepianoplayer416

Gombessa

The video linked to the research articles used by the creator, and while the site is in German, there are EN translations that have some pretty insightful info:

German Sirius 6.0 site

Research Paper in English (PDF) - discusses research on hand spans, comparisons of competition finishes between pianists, historical piano/fortepiano keyboard sizes, narrower keyboards used by concert pianists such as Barenboim's custom 6.2, and the development and experiences with the Sirius 6.0 keyboard.

Some interesting tidbits:
I love this photo of a direct comparsion of 6.5 and 6.0 keyboards for a Steinway D:

"At international piano competitions, men win first prizes about four times more often than women. In Bach and Mozart competitions, it’s roughly the other way around (Boyle, 2024c)."

"Boyle et al. concluded that the standard keyboard is too large for 87 % of
women and 24 % of men, considering the breadth of the repertoire (Boyle;
Boyle; Booker, p. 57)."

This CAD rendering of the dimensions of the Sirius keyboard (similar to @iternabe's diagram further up in this thread):

Echoing @ShiroKuro's experience that black keys differ a lot, the article mentions "Since black keys on standard keyboards offer an astonishing variety, the deviations fluctuate" (when describing how much narrower the black keys are versus standard 6.5 keyboards.

The article mentions the Sirius keyboard was inspired by the Donison-Steinbuhler DS Standard keyboards. Interestingly, the two 6.0 keyboards differ slightly, with the D-S keyboard being marginally wider and with narrower black keys than the Sirius.

There is also a ₃₀ page slide deck in English (PDF) that includes a lot of photos and diagrams, including the fact that Steingraeber & Sohne's "Respectful Piano" mentioned somewhere above uses a Sirius keyboard as well.

Last thing I'll say, I really like how this research was published in Germany, which is arguably at the heart of the piano manufacturing world. If there's a chance for this to be adopted more than just with one-off keyboards here and there, there definitely needs to be more buy-in with European piano makers.

ShiroKuro

Gombessa thanks! I’ll check out that article!

« Previous Page