Harlem Stride Piano,
stride piano, commonly abbreviated to
stride, is a
jazz piano style that was developed in the large cities of the East Coast, mainly
New York, during the 1920s and 1930s. The left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, seventh or tenth interval on the first and third beats, and a
chord on the second and fourth beats. Occasionally this pattern is reversed by placing the chord on the downbeat and bass note(s) on the upbeat. Unlike performers of the
ragtime popularized by
Scott Joplin and unlike much early jazz, stride players' left hands often leapt greater distances on the keyboard, and they played in a wider range of tempos and with a greater emphasis on improvisation.