Repeated notes and leaps

[1piano4joe]

The piece is "Chicken Talk" by Mike Schoenmehl. This is an Etude from RCM Level 5.

I was thinking it best to play all the right hand repeated notes with only the thumb. I have several reasons:

1. The Leaps
2. It's not that fast
3. It's not that long
4. The notes are disconnected

This is why I think changing fingers in this case is bad:

1. The leaps in combination with changing fingers cause hand contraction and expansion.
2. While I could go faster than necessary changing fingers, I think that that technique could give too much legato effect.
3. This piece is only 15 bars long that lasts only 20.5 seconds, so tension shouldn't occur.
4. I want to keep the notes detached.

Does this sound correct?


Nobody on YouTube changes fingers.

So, what is the best way to do fast repeated notes with the thumb?

The thumb moves laterally, not so well vertically and tends to be heavy.
I was thinking of using a forearm rotation. Keeping my hand in a relaxed but expanded position and sort of doing a one note tremolo seems to work fine. I pretend I'm doing an octave tremolo except the pinky does not play anything. Also, it's a quick shake of the wrist and the thumb does not come up very high at all. My thumb does not even move.

Is this a "correct" and "appropriate" movement for this piece?

Unrelated to this piece but related to this topic would be "repeated pinkie notes with forearm rotation" which I observed in some YouTube performances of other pieces.

My conclusion is that repeating the same finger of either 1 or 5 is often done with a forearm rotation and not a finger snap. Is this a common movement in advanced repertoire?

Thanking all in advance for taking the time to respond, Joe.