{"id":1616,"date":"2020-07-21T06:35:50","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T13:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/?p=1616"},"modified":"2023-01-13T15:28:28","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T23:28:28","slug":"how-to-play-stride-piano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/how-to-play-stride-piano\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Play Stride Piano"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Stride piano was a style of jazz piano in the early 20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ever heard of Oscar Peterson, Scott Joplin, or Fats Waller?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They\u2019re some of the best jazz pianists in history. And they all played stride piano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s a little taste:<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Fats Waller - Ain&#039;t Misbehavin&#039; - Stormy Weather (1943)\" width=\"200\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PSNPpssruFY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stride piano involves playing the root note of a chord WAY down on the keys with your left hand, and then jumping (or \u201cstriding\u201d) up to play the guide tones (I\u2019ll explain these later) of the chord higher up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stride piano is not easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to be absolutely clear about that. Your left hand will be jumping around a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But even if you have no intention or interest in jazz piano, this stride piano exercise is a fantastic way to develop your piano playing skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:28px\"><strong>The Benefits of Stride Piano<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>You may never want to play a stride piano song, but it\u2019s still a skill worth learning, because by practicing stride piano, you\u2019ll also improve your:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><b>Keyboard familiarity<\/b>, so you have a better understanding of where the notes on the piano are<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Accuracy<\/b>, so you can play those notes (and any others) with more precision<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Understanding of <b>chord shapes, how chords are made, and how to play them<\/b> so you can see chords in a new light<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In short, learning some basic stride piano exercises will improve <i>all<\/i> of the key skills that make a great piano player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So let\u2019s begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:28px\"><strong>We need a chord!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ll use C major 7 for this lesson, but you can apply this stride technique to any <a href=\"\/blog\/understanding-7ths\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">7th chord<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s look at the notes fo the C major 7 chord:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/pianote.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/2020\/How%20To%20Play%20Stride%20Piano\/Cmaj7-Stride.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As you can see, we have our C root note, plus the E-G-B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:28px\"><strong>A Word on Guide Tones<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At the beginning of this post, I mentioned guide tones. Simply, guide tones are the 3rd and 7th notes of the chord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They are called guide tones because they \u201cguide\u201d what type of chord it will be. The 3rd and 7th tell us whether the chord is major, minor, dominant, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So for our C major 7 chord, the 3rd note is the E, and the 7th note is the B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those are the other 2 notes we will play in the left hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:28px\"><strong>Your First Stride Chord<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, enough talking. Let\u2019s stride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Start by playing the root note (C) LOW down on the keys. We want to leave ourselves some room to stride, so it\u2019s important to play the bass quite low on the piano:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/pianote.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/2020\/How%20To%20Play%20Stride%20Piano\/C-root-note-Stride.png\" alt=\"Stride piano root note\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, we need to stride up to play those guide tones. Remember we\u2019ll be playing the 3rd and the 7th, which will be E and B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Play them with your middle finger and thumb, like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/pianote.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/2020\/How%20To%20Play%20Stride%20Piano\/Guide-Tones-Stride.png\" alt=\"Stride piano guide tones\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Notice how big that jump is! Which brings me to the most important point\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Practice this SLOWLY!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I cannot stress that enough. It\u2019s much more important to be accurate than to be fast, Once you are accurate, then you can work on your speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you practice this, your hands will \u201cremember\u201d where they are supposed to be. But you need to be accurate. Otherwise, they\u2019ll remember all the wrong things!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To practice, simply stride back and forth between the root note and guide tones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><video src=\"https:\/\/media.giphy.com\/media\/cnoifMESdlBgYKdNZ6\/giphy.mp4\" autoplay=\"autoplay\" loop=\"loop\" muted=\"\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\"><\/video><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:28px\"><strong>You can swap the note order!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Whaaaaa?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just like you can change the order of notes in a chord to make <a href=\"\/blog\/7th-chord-inversions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">inversions<\/a>, you can swap the order of the guide tones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So instead of playing the 3rd and 7th (E and B) you could play the 7th and 3rd (B and E). This is a bit of a bigger jump, but it creates a different sound and is also super handy when you\u2019re striding between different chords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stride piano can be really beautiful, and it\u2019s certainly impressive!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So try striding today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<span class=\"blue-text-block\"><center><h2 style=\"font-size:22px\"><b>\ud83c\udfb9 Your Go-To Place for All Things Piano<\/b><\/h2><p>Subscribe to <i>The Note<\/i> for exclusive interviews, fascinating articles, and inspiring lessons delivered straight to your inbox. Unsubscribe at any time.<\/p><iframe class=\"email-form-include\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/weeklyemail\" frameborder=\"none\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/span>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn the basics of stride piano to get your left-hand jumping around the keys! Improve keyboard familiarity, accuracy, and chording. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524,509],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-styles","category-technique"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1616"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10973,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions\/10973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}