With 25 Piano Etudes in Idiomatic Styles, Dr. Bruce Dudley (Belmont University and Vanderbilt University) explores a variety of popular styles of music including jazz, rock, pop, gospel, fusion, blues, R&B, New Orleans, Afro-Cuban, samba, and bossa nova. The book addresses the stylistic, technical, and musical breadth required of pianists and keyboardists to succeed as working or touring musicians and/or session players in the 21st century. The level of difficulty ranges from lower intermediate to upper advanced. The ways in which various technical elements are presented and reinforced within the pieces should aid the student in gaining greater facility at the keyboard and exposure to idiomatic styles of music. The pieces can be learned in any order but progressing through the book in relative order of difficulty would prove beneficial to the student wishing for a methodical sequence of learning challenges and stylistic diversity. Each piece is a complete musical entity with developmental features and adherence to specific technical and stylistic devices. Mastery of these etudes will lead to a greater understanding of each of the styles the book explores and strengthen the pianist's technique.
Author Biography:
DR. BRUCE DUDLEY is Associate Professor of Music at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Jazz Studies from the University of Colorado, a Master of Music in Jazz Performance from Eastman, and a Bachelor of Science in Music, Business, and Technology from New York University. He also attended New England Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music. His teachers were Jaki Byard, George Russell, Roland Hanna, Billy Taylor, Rayburn Wright, Bill Dobbins, Sheila Page, Constance Keene, Irma Wolpe, and Art Lande. His recordings as a leader/pianist/composer include DPSW Quartet Live (2019), The Solo Sessions (2012), Mostly Monk (2010) and Semblance (1997). Dudley has performed in jazz festivals throughout Canada and United States and has been heard on National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and commercial jazz radio stations. Dudley has presented papers at Learned Societies of Canada (Laval University), Music Theory Southeast (Orlando), World Piano Pedagogy Conference (Nashville), the Intersection of Jazz and Classical Music and Piano Festival (West Virginia), and at Jazz Education Network (San Diego.) His transcriptions of jazz pianist Phineas Newborn Jr. can be purchased at www.phineasnewbornjr.org and his article, "Reharmonization Lessons from the Masters" was published in the September 2018 issue of Downbeat magazine.Dudley is a Steinway Concert Artist and performs regularly in concert and club settings, both as a solo performer and with ensembles of all sizes. Besides being a much in demand jazz pianist, Dudley has played in the pit of more 35 touring Broadway shows, including Wicked, Jersey Boys, Beautiful, Hairspray, Grease, Evita, The King and I, Guys and Dolls, Annie, Aida, and many others. He has accompanied such artists as Aretha Franklin, Crystal Gayle, Herb Ellis, Randy Brecker, Marvin Stamm, Eric Alexander, Chester Thompson, and others. As a clinician, Dudley has performed and taught jazz in Colombia (South America), across Canada, and across the United States. He is a faculty member of the Belmont Young Artist Piano Invitational, which occurs in June of each year. Dudley was on the faculty of Vanderbilt University from 2006 - 2023, and has taught at the Nashville Jazz Workshop, Middle Tennessee State University, San Jacinto College in Pasadena, TX, and at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada. www.brucedudley.com
