For agility

Achieving easy commend of wider and wider keyboard span is a key dimension in the maturing of a keyboard player. It's not always easy to do in another octave (or in two octaves) what you can perfectly easily do in the original place.

RPS Diary 24-04-20 takes RPS Pattern Four in six-eighth/D minor and dots the right hand between octaves.

Watch the video a few times first.

The music doesn't have the repeats, but has "8va" brackets to show you where the hand plays an octave higher than the original.

As always, what makes it easy is consciously knowing in advance what you're required to do.

In this case, the trick is that you only ever jump to the second note of the pentatonic scale.

This can be:

• the second note going up = the minor third (usually), or
• The second note coming down = the minor seventh (last time only).

In either case, you can play two bars in one octave, then two bars in the other octave.

You might also find it useful to lean back a bit from the keyboard, to widen your field of view.

Here's the performance again.

When you're ready, transpose into C minor!

Next, go on to RPS Diary 25-04-20 for a start on left hand syncopation.