I am not a pianist. But I was married to a very fine classical pianist for 30 years.

For the earlier part of that time, she was afraid of her quite small hands. She dealt with that by becoming something of a baroque specialist. Bach, Scarllatti, Corelli, Handel. These were her meat and potatoes. Anything with tight, intricate fingering.

But she is the finest Mozart interpreter I have heard in person, far better, getting more joy and more “music” out of Mozart than some whose technical skills far passed hers. And she discovered a real gift for lyrical work, Chopin, Mendelssohn.

For her, one of the keys for getting over her fear of “limits” caused by her hand size was playing a lot of Scott Joplin. The looseness required for the big leaps in the left hand taught her to relax, and trust that her fingers knew what to do. These fairly simple pieces ate her lunch at first, but once she mastered them, a huge barrier had been removed and she was free to play quite a bit that was unthinkable before.

Sometimes the problem caused by small hands is not actually in the hands, but in the head.