He discovered and employed the tenth or "broken tenth" interval. One of Johnson's contributions was to recast the "straight" feeling of ragtime with a more modern, swinging beat, sophisticated harmonies and dynamics. Johnson (1894–1955), known as the "Father of Stride", created this style of jazz piano along with fellow pianists Willie "The Lion" Smith (1893–1973), Thomas "Fats" Waller (1904–1943) and Luckey Roberts (1887–1968). However, this practice only illustrates a small part of stride jazz musical adventures. Some younger pianists have transcribed display pieces note for note from early recordings. On occasion a good stride jazz pianist might have the left hand shift into double time. ![]() Stride can be played at all tempos, slow or fast depending on the underlying composition and treatment the pianist is performing. Stride used tension and release and dynamics. Ragtime was composed, but many stride pianists improvised. ![]() Unlike ragtime pianists, stride pianists were not concerned with ragtime form and played pop songs of the day in the stride style. Proper playing of stride jazz involves a subtle rhythmic tension between the left hand which is close to the established tempo, and the right hand, which is often slightly anticipatory. In the left hand, the pianist usually plays a single bass note, or a bass octave or tenth, followed by a chord triad toward the center of the keyboard, while the right hand plays syncopated melody lines with harmonic and riff embellishments and fill patterns. Stride piano is highly rhythmic because of the alternating bass note and chord action of the left hand. Unlike performers of the ragtime popularized by Scott Joplin, stride players' left hands span greater distances on the keyboard. Occasionally this pattern is reversed by placing the chord on the downbeat and bass notes on the upbeat. ![]() The left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, major seventh or major tenth interval on the first and third beats, and a chord on the second and fourth beats. The term "stride" comes from the idea of the pianist's left hand leaping, or "striding", across the piano. Compositions were written but were also intended to be improvised. Stride employed left hand techniques from ragtime, wider use of the piano's range, and quick tempos.
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