Klarinet Archive - Posting 000651.txt from 2000/05

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Finger lengths
Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 07:22:54 -0400

Mark Thiel wrote:
>probably people with eefer-sized hands that insist on playing bass
> are just doing so in denial of their sexual/machismo inadequacies.

Uh-oh, wonder what that says about me...?

Claudia Zornow wrote,
>>On both hands, my little fingers' length is only up to the midpoint
>>between the first and second knuckles on my ring fingers. Most
>>people whose hands I've looked at have little fingers with length
>>up to the first knuckle on their ring fingers.

>>This would seem to be a disadvantage for me on clarinet and bass
>>clarinet and baritone sax, but I manage, more or less.

FWIW, my pinkie fingers are 1-7/8" long and almost pencil-thin, and my ring
fingers are 2-1/4" long, but the shape of my hand is so tapered that the
pinkie fingers only reach to halfway between middle and end joints of my ring
fingers. I can only reach an octave of all white keys on a piano by cocking
my wrist and sneaking in from the front, but with some stretching, I can
reach all the keys on my bass sax. Pianists consider the shape of the hand
more important than the length of the fingers. A square hand with thick
fingers, where the tips of the fingers (regardless of length) all line up
fairly evenly, is a "good" piano hand. A tapered, thin hand, like mine, is a
"bad" piano hand.

However, flexibility makes up for a lot. Mine's average. My husband plays
chamber music with a pianist whose hands are exactly the same size as mine,
but her joints are so flexible that her hands open up like serpents' mouths.
I've never seen anything like it. She can reach tenths! She doesn't hurt
herself, either. She can play Liszt and Rachmaninoff, go booming up and down
the keyboard in double octaves, all she likes. I'd cripple myself if I
played some of the stuff she plays. I'd suggest that the "square" hand is
probably the best clarinet hand, too.

While finger size and shape clearly has a lot to do with whether or not
playing particular instruments is comfortable (or possible), I'll just bet
this whole business of relating finger length to masculinity will turn out to
be a lot of flapdoodle cooked up by some eggspurt bent on justifying a
research grant. Later some other eggspurt will justify another research
grant by writing that the first eggspurt is as dumb as a doorknob, or
highfalutin' words to that effect.

Lelia

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