Two Up, Two Down in Three Places (PD 01-07-15) is a catchy, memorable riff which will help you find five pentatonic scale tones – two above the tonic and two below – in three keys.

The left hand copies the right hand, but doesn’t always play all of the notes. How many notes it plays varies as part of the pattern.

First version

This version uses only the A minor pentatonic scale-tones. The MidiPiano video performance repeats the A minor section only (first two lines of the music in your Workbook) then goes on to the ending.

Start with fingers RH2 and LH4 if you're learning from the video or MIDI.

Second version

The second MidiPiano video performance includes the ‘B section’ instead of repeating the A minor section.

The B section plays the first part of the riff material in D minor and the second part in C minor.

(A ‘B section’, as you will know by now, has nothing to do with the note or key ‘B’, but refers to a different, contrasting section of music in a short piece.)

D minor pentatonic is another all-white-key scale like A minor, but C minor pentatonic has two black keys – E flat and B flat.

Here's the C minor pentatonic keyboard, for reference.

Tranposing

Musicarta has a maxim:

“If you want to really understand something, transpose it!”

As an exercise, transpose the riff into E minor and D minor. (See videos on-page.)

Your B sections will be in the keys shown here.

Here are MidiPiano performances in E minor and D minor

 In E minor

B section in A minor and G minor (one black key).

In D minor

B section in G minor (one black key) and F minor (three black keys).

Visualisation

Practice visualising the riff away from the keyboard.

Listen to just the audio, and say to yourself, "If my first note was C, what would the rest be?"

How many keys can you ‘see it’ in?

Pentatonics – so much music, and so easy to get into!

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