I am beginning to learn the piano on a full 88 key Yamaha digital piano I've got at home but my routine has just changed and I am travelling very often, limiting my time at home to, say, one week in a month. I need to buy some very small portable keyboard, in order to get at least some practice while travelling.
I know there is a huge compromise when talking about 2 octave instruments for learning the piano/music in general, but that's life and for sure there are ways to get value even from a 25 key keyboard, I just have to know where to focus my practice.
I mean, there are so many things to learn.... There must be a subset of exercises or core areas to practice that could be done even with this constraint, right? So, the question is: what are these core areas that I could develop using some really portable devices (e.g. Novation Launchkey Mini, Korg Microkey 25 or CME Xkey 25).
I can think of a few things, like experimenting with different timbres and tones, learning scales, chords and inversions, practicing melodic lines or walking bass lines, getting the basics of layering tracks in music production software, but I would like to hear from the community, perhaps from people that have a more structured understanding of the abilities involved in learning the piano.
I have seen a question about Using keyboard/MIDI controller to learn piano but my question is broader, I am aware of the physical limitations and I want to find a way to get value even with this limitation.
Note: I would be very happy already if I could play along with some groovy/funky stuff like Mothership Connection, reggae classics such as Bob Marley, or create mellow jazz moods like Bill Evans'. Can someone help me to go in this direction?