How I'm practicing stride with maj 7 rootless voicing

Hello everyone,

Just thought I’d introduce myself by mentioning how I am practicing the stride pattern with rootless maj 7 voicing, while making it more musical (and fun and inspirational) to my ear.

Basically, I practice them in pairs, alternating back and forth. So I start with alternating (in rhythm) between Cmaj7 and F maj7, then I go between Fmaj7 and Bbmaj7, then Bbmaj7 to Ebmaj7, and so on. These chord pairings are a nice “half cadence”, or “penultimate cadence” (not sure what the correct theory term is for it! :slight_smile: - perhaps one of you could correct me!). Anyway, in all cases the two chords go very nicely together, and yet they don’t quite ever resolve, which lends itself to a nice repetition, which you can even improvise over.

I’m mainly a flute and sax player, with a fair amount of jazz experience on those instruments, and I’ve always messed around on the piano (mostly self-taught with a smattering of real lessons over the years). I’m wanting to improve my keyboard skills and and chord change muscle memory on the keyboard to free up my writing and creativity, and be able to enjoy playing some of my favorite tunes with chords and melody. Playing a wind instrument can get boring after a while, with no chord and rhythm.

Best regards,
David

Hi @david41, welcome to the Forum!

As being a big fan of stride pianism, I’m happy to hear you’re working on it!

Just wanted to send some stuff you might be interested in that’s related to the subject,

here are links (not in any particular order)

Maybe you’re already familiar with these, but anyway!

Let me know if I can help anyhow,

All the best,

-Tuomo

Hi @Tuomo, Great suggestions. Thank you!