Linda Gould has an orchestra in her head and only one way to let it out.

"Piano is an orchestra," Gould says. "It's where Leonard Bernstein composed West Side Story. It's where Lady Gaga sits down to write her tunes."

But for Gould, it was also where she discovered she didn't quite measure up. Literally.

"I was born with small hands," she admits.

For pianists who don't dream big or play big, it's a minor inconvenience. For Gould, it turned major. Years of strain ended in injury, surgery, and three long years off the keys.

So she created the light at the end of the carpal tunnel.

Introducing Athena, the world's first 88-key narrow key digital piano.

The idea? Shorter keys for shorter digits. With one tweak in scale, Gould believes any piece of music is now within reach.

"The length of an octave is 6.5 inches on a traditional piano. On Athena, it's 5.5," she explains.

Athena prototypes have already shipped around the world, but this week marked the official launch -- from her living room in Saanich.

But Gould insists you're not losing anything but the hand cramps.

"We wanted something high quality, that you could actually gig on," she says before casually hammering out the Peanuts theme to prove the point.

The concept is Canadian, but production happens at a factory in Hong Kong.

"After calling and getting a lot of people hanging up, we found the factory. They worked with us, they listened to our designs. They've been absolutely amazing," says Gould.

Gould says 480 pianos have arrived in Canada and have now cleared customs. Due to uncertainties with U.S. tariffs and a possibly lucrative market south of the border, Gould and her partner have had to adapt in order to get Athena off the ground.

"We had to pivot," she says. "We made the decision we're not going to charge tariffs to our U.S. customers."

Three-hundred pianos have already sold to customers all over the world, and UVic business professor Brock Smith says Gould might be onto something.

"She's got an interesting product. It's very niche, which I kinda like," Smith said. "If it was large market, Yamaha and the other big producers would be all over it."

They're not. Not yet.

Other instrument makers have done similar things. Taylor Guitars, for example, produces ¾-scale guitars so smaller-handed Swifties can still strum along.

So after 400 years of rigid sizing, piano keyboards might finally be a little less black and white.

As for what comes next, she's playing it by ear. As an innovator she feels she's on to something special, not unlike a songwriter penning a hit.

"When I first opened the box, the tears flowed," Gould says. "When you see your dream actually in front of you, it's very emotional."