Abigail Terrill has been playing piano since she was 5 years old. The performer and piano instructor, who earned a master’s degree from CU Boulder, is no stranger to the piano’s timeless charm — or to the immense strain that hours of practice can place on dedicated musicians like her.
“I first started showing these signs of tendonitis in my undergrad. It hit me right out the gate,” she said.
As it turns out, many female pianists like Terrill have had to deal with playing-related injuries at some point in their lives. Even with major overhauls in their technique, their injuries can persist.
“I was playing stuff that I knew I could do, I just physically couldn't do it without damaging myself,” said Terrill.
Frustrated with her pain, yet determined to push forward, she set about researching solutions.
“So, I was reading all these articles about how the problem might actually be that keyboards are too big. I was like, that's ridiculous!”
But Terrill says she realized that some piano pieces are physically more difficult for people with smaller hands.
“If you can't play an octave at all without extending your whole hand, you just have to work way harder,” she said.
“When you get into what I'm going to call competition rep, like everything is an octave. And the people that are winning are playing these beast pieces, like these masterworks that are by men with huge hands. So it's like you don't stand a chance.”
Terrill requested an alternative-sized keyboard for CU Boulder’s College of Music to study how effectively piano students can learn on it and transition between it and a standard keyboard.
She was accommodated, but she says she faced some pushback.
“I was talking about it with a lot of my colleagues and was getting this weird reaction —nobody said it to my face, but it was kind of like, ‘That would be cheating. If you used a smaller keyboard, that would be kind of like cheating,’” she said.
However, Terrill had the support of Jennifer Hayghe, an associate professor of piano and chair of the Roser Piano + Keyboard Program at the College of Music at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
“All the other instruments come in half sizes and quarter sizes, little kids don't play full size,” said Hayghe.
Professor Hayghe helped bring the smaller piano to campus, where it has been a welcome addition to the school of music.
" I think a lot of students who have had injuries much prefer playing the smaller piano because they don't have to stretch, which is usually the source of most of the injuries that we're talking about," said Hayghe.
Terrill says her students have greatly benefited from the opportunity to practice on an instrument that fits them, and they are now able to showcase the full extent of their skills without a physical barrier impeding their progress.
“One of them is trying to play Rondo Alla Turca, but he can't play these octaves. He just can't do it on a regular size and then I bring him in here he's like, ‘wow, that's like easy.’”
“It just seems so obvious. It’s another instance of women trying to compete in a field that was literally not made for them — it was made for men — and being told you're not good enough, or you're not practicing enough, or your technique is bad, fix it. That’s just so frustrating to me,” Terrill said.
Through her research and teaching, Terrill is advocating for greater accessibility for piano students of all sizes through the widespread adoption of alternatively sized keyboards. For musicians like her, it’s invaluable to finally play on an instrument that properly fits the body.
“I feel like I’m starting to love music again, solely because I know and have experience with it. I can do things I didn’t think I could on this keyboard,” she said.
Copyright 2024 RMCR.
This story was shared with KSUT via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including KSUT.
