Sirius 6.0 - piano keys that grow your hands

17/06/2026

We feel very honored by your visit and your post. Thank you so much, dear Janny 停看聽音樂培訓中心
It was a great joy to welcome you to HMDK Stuttgart!
May SIRIUS 6.0 shine brighter and brighter around the globe!

07/06/2026

Great news! The English version of our comprehensive SIRIUS 6.0 article has been released! Download the 24-page article for free!

PDF via linktr.ee/sirius6.0

Learn more about
- playing feel and adaptation experiences of professional pianists on SIRIUS 6.0 keyboards,
- the history of narrower keys around the globe,
- the scientific background of the SIRIUS 6.0 Future Initiative at the HMDK Stuttgart (Germany):
> hand span data of female and male pianists,
> correlations between musculoskeletal disorders and small finger spans,
> historical fortepiano key sizes,
> the gender gap in elite piano competitions and in youth competitions when girls grow up.

We feel so honored to publish with EINPP/Brazil. Our heartfelt thanks to Carina Joly and the entire EINPP staff for inviting us to present online about SIRIUS 6.0 and for giving us this wonderful place among the 421 pages of “ANAIS do VII Encontro Internacional sobre Pedagogia do Piano 2024”. Carina, your passion and your tireless commitment to academic excellence and brilliant layout are truly outstanding!

Music: Heitor Villa-Lobos - Impressões Seresteiras (aus: Ciclo Brasileiro)
Pianist: Silvia C. Molan

In "Musikphysiologie & Musikermedizin" ist 2024 ein ähnlicher Artikel auf deutsch erschienen: "SIRIUS 6.0 - Klaviaturen, die Hände wachsen lassen", ebenfalls im im Linktree zu finden.

27/04/2026

Thrilled about the inauguration of the SIRIUS 6.0⭐️ interchangeable hammer mechanics for the Steinway D concert grand at the Chamber Music Hall of the University of Music Nuremberg 🎉 — continuing their engagement for musicians’ health💪, increasing performance potential🎹 and more equal opportunities. The first concert grand with a 6.0 keyboard in Bavaria, the second in Germany and Europe! 🎉

Deeply touched by the transparent, lively and virtuoso performances of professors Aurelia Vișovan, Annette Seiler, and Silvia Molan, as well as students Zihan Chen, Bianca Stanescu, Luchiia Koval, Roman Malich, and Yanan Wang. 😍 Thank you for playing Liszt, Brahms, Ljatoshynsky, Beethoven, Prokofjew, Chopin and Schubert so inspiringly on the narrower 6.0 keys!🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 It was an honour for us - Silvia Molan and Prof. Ulrike Wohlwender (HMDK Stuttgart) - to contribute the keynote.

This is truly a milestone of the SIRIUS 6.0 Future Initiative. Students in Nuremberg now have the choice to play their concerts and exams on SIRIUS 6.0 keyboards or on standardized keyboards, just like in Stuttgart.⭐️

Thank you HfM Nuremberg with President Prof. Rainer Kotzian, Prof. Ulrich Hench, Prof. Dr. Aurelia Vișovan and Prof. Wolfgang Manz, as well as Piano Manufacturer Steingraeber Bayreuth and Kluge Keyboards for making this possible! ❤️

19/04/2026

Check out this 15-min-lecture!
Thank you so much, Dr. Eri Yoshimura, for your wonderful lecture and for more than twenty years of research regarding professional pianism, hand characteristics, keyboard sizes, and PRDM all together!

A piano major tried to solve a personal problem. What she uncovered raises a much bigger question: Why are we training pianists on instruments that don’t fit them?

At the Global Summit on Occupational Health in Music, Dr. Eri Yoshimura exposed one of the most uncomfortable truths in our field:

Pain is not the exception for pianists. It’s the expectation.

Her research shows:
• 86% of college piano majors report pain
• 91% of piano teachers report pain

But this didn’t start as a critique of the field. As a graduate student, Yoshimura set out to understand her own experience and the experiences of those around her. She asked: Why does playing hurt so many of us?

Instead of accepting the answer pianists hear all too often, “you’re doing it wrong,” she followed the evidence. That path led her to something the field has largely ignored:

👉 the instrument itself

The modern piano keyboard was never designed for the diversity of human hands.

Which means:

• We are systematically training students on an instrument that does not fit their bodies
• Then holding them responsible for the consequences

This is not pedagogy. This is structural neglect. And it’s happening at scale:

• 50,000–150,000 piano majors globally
• Millions of trained pianists
• Hundreds of millions of people who play piano

Now ask the harder question:

Where is this in accreditation?

In the USA, the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) sets standards for over 600 institutions. But where is the requirement that:

• instruments fit the human body?
• occupational risks are identified and mitigated?
• students are protected from preventable injury?

It isn’t there.

Instead, we continue to:
• normalize pain
• individualize blame
• ignore design

There is, however, a growing movement pushing back.

PASK (Pianists for Alternatively Sized Keyboards) has been advancing the science and advocacy around ergonomically appropriate keyboards, bringing together researchers, performers, and educators committed to aligning instrument design with human variability.

Their work makes one thing undeniable. This problem is solvable.
What’s missing is not knowledge. It’s accountability.

And Yoshimura’s journey, from graduate student asking uncomfortable questions to a leading voice challenging the status quo, is exactly what this field needs.

If occupational health in music is to be taken seriously, then this must become a standard, not an option. Because the issue is no longer whether pianists are at risk. It’s whether institutions are willing to acknowledge their role in creating that risk.

🎥 Watch Dr. Yoshimura’s presentation:

https://www.occupationalhealthinmusic.org/2025globalsummitvideos/v/eriyoshimura?categoryId=690127a90a462562b9699e87

13/04/2026

What an unforgettable experience at the ÖGfMM‘s symposium, “Beyond the Score“, at the Mozarteum in ✨

The weekend brought together physicians, physical therapists, psychologists, musicians, and researchers - and our Future Initiative SIRIUS 6.0 found the kind of echo we’ve been working toward. Narrower piano keys being seen, discussed, and taken seriously across so many fields of musician health.

We returned to Stuttgart carrying the feeling that the seeds planted in 2020 are growing roots - and also showing some beautiful flowers: the research on neuroscience and music education (exploring adaptation and learning processes between 6.0 and 6.5 keys) blossoming at with Florian Worschech, Tina Davis and Hannah Losch AND the premiere of the brand-new C. Bechstein grand piano with the SIRIUS 6.0 keyboard. ✨🎶

This is what slow, meaningful growth looks like.

A heartfelt thank you to Matthias Bertsch, Hannah Kesseler and the entire team of Österreichische Gesellschaft für Musik und Medizin and Universität Mozarteum Salzburg & Innsbruck for the care and love woven into every detail of this event. 💛

HMDK Stuttgart

29/10/2025

We’re thrilled to have had the pioneer of “narrower keys” at American universities with us at the HMDK Stuttgart!
Dr. Carol Leone (SMU Dallas, USA) presented a very moving and enlightening lecture, “Narrower Keys - A Game Changer for Pianists”. She played Prokofiev and Fauré and highlighted the potential of stretto keys for pianists with small and medium-sized hands from her perspectives not only as a pianist, university professor, competition juror and researcher but also as a very empathetic human being.
The next day, some students had the opportunity to meet with her, going back and forth between the SIRIUS 6.0 prototype and the standard keyboard, working on challenging musical passages. We left full of inspiration for both piano playing and teaching!
Thank you, Carol Leone! Your visit at our University has a profound meaning for the SIRIUS 6.0 Future Initiative!
What are we waiting for, when practice time can be drastically reduced, voicing can be controlled more precisely, and adaptation is so quick and easy? What are we waiting for, when practicing on 6.0 (and 5.5) improves performances on 6.5 standard keyboards, less effort increases endurance, and repertoire that once seemed out of reach becomes playable?

— DE

Was für ein kostbarer und eindringlicher Besuch der Pionierin der „stretto keys“ an amerikanischen Universitäten an der HMDK Stuttgart!
Dr. Carol Leone (SMU Dallas, USA) hielt einen sehr bewegenden und aufschlussreichen Vortrag „Narrower Keys - A Game Changer for Pianists“. Sie spielte Prokofjew und Fauré und hob das Potenzial von schmaleren Tasten für Pianistinnen und Pianisten mit kleinen und mittelgroßen Händen hervor – nicht nur aus ihren Perspektiven als Pianistin, Universitätsprofessorin, Wettbewerbsjurorin und Wissenschaftlerin, sondern auch als äußerst einfühlsamer Mensch.
Am nächsten Tag hatten einige Studierende die Gelegenheit, mit ihr zusammen schwierige pianistische Passagen zu erarbeiten, hin und her zwischen dem SIRIUS 6.0-Prototyp und der Normklaviatur. Wir nahmen eine Fülle von Inspirationen für das Spielen und Unterrichten mit!
Danke, Carol Leone! Dein Besuch an unserer Hochschule ist von tiefgreifender Bedeutung für die Zukunftsinitiative SIRIUS 6.0!

Worauf warten, wenn sich Übezeiten drastisch verkürzen, Klangbalance präziser gesteuert werden kann und Adaptieren so schnell gelingt? Worauf warten, wenn das Üben auf 6.0 (und 5.5) das Performen an 6.5-Normklaviaturen verbessert, geringere Anstrengung die Ausdauer erhöht und Repertoire spielbar wird, das zuvor unerreichbar schien?

10/10/2025

What a day! 🎹✨ The first SIRIUS 6.0 keyboard in Austria was officially inaugurated on October 4th in Innsbruck !
Congratulations to Professor Annette Seiler and the Tyrolean State Conservatory on this milestone! The Yamaha grand, retrofitted by Schoke, was a source of inspiration for the eight pianists (pre-college, concert major, professors) playing Bach-Busoni, Chopin, Haydn, Schubert, Brahms, Ravel, Villa-Lobos, Guarneri, and Beethoven.
Prof. Dr. Carol Leone with “Narrower Keys – A Game Changer for Pianists,” our presentation “SIRIUS 6.0 – Keyboards that Grow Your Hands” and two discussion rounds shed light on pianistic experience, scientific background, and developments to date.
What a wonderful celebration of piano artistry! At the same time, the first summit of the SIRIUS 6.0 Future Initiative (Prof. Ulrike Wohlwender, Silvia Molan, Prof. Annette Seiler, Prof. Ulrich Hench) with Prof. Dr. Carol Leone (SMU Dallas), a pioneer in the USA for 25 years.

“It just makes my life easier!”, Yijun Shen (concert major TLK)
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Was für ein Tag! 🎹✨ Die erste SIRIUS 6.0 Klaviatur in Österreich wurde am 4. Oktober in Innsbruck großartig eingeweiht!
Herzlichen Glückwunsch an Professorin Annette Seiler und das Tiroler Landeskonservatorium zu diesem Meilenstein!
Der von Schoke umgebaute Yamaha-Flügel beflügelte acht Pianist:innen (Precollege, Konzertfach, Profs) bei Bach-Busoni, Chopin, Haydn, Schubert, Brahms, Ravel, Villa-Lobos, Guarneri und Beethoven.
Carol Leone mit „Narrower Keys – A Game Changer for Pianists“, unser Vortrag „SIRIUS 6.0 – Klaviaturen, die Hände wachsen lassen“ und zwei Gesprächsrunden beleuchteten pianistische Erfahrung, wissenschaftliche Hintergründe und die bisherige Entwicklung.
Was für ein Fest der Pianistik! Zugleich das erste Gipfeltreffen der Zukunftsinitiative SIRIUS 6.0 (Prof. Ulrike Wohlwender, Silvia Molan, Prof. Annette Seiler, Prof. Ulrich Hench) mit Prof. Dr. Carol Leone (SMU Dallas), Pionierin in den USA seit 25 Jahren.
„Es macht mein Leben einfach leichter!“, Yijun Shen (Konzertfach TLK)

24/07/2025

SIRIUS 6.0 Klaviatur auf Initiative von Prof. Anna Buchberger und nach Umbau durch Piano Fischer jetzt auch an der HMT München ⭐️🎹🎶

Seit dem 28. April 2025 steht den Klavierstudierenden eine besondere Tastatur für Üben und Unterricht zur Verfügung: in den Steinway B-Flügel in Raum A 013 im Gebäude Arcisstraße 12 hat Piano Fischer München eine SIRIUS 6.0 Klaviatur eingebaut. Damit ist die HMTM europaweit die vierte Hochsch...