Customer Reviews

The Complete Flute Player

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This is a terrific instruction book on how to play the flute. I am relearning how to play the flute after a hiatus of about 12 years. I used a few different flute manuals, but quickly became bored with the same scales and uninteresting tunes. This book gives step-by-step instruction by using popular songs from modern artists including The Beatles, John Denver, etc. It's fun and exciting to quickly find yourself playing a recognizable tune. While scales and drills are always important when learning how to play a musical instrument, it's refreshing to have a book that can help you learn to play using modern music instead of waltzes and polkas.

I bought this book a couple years ago when I decided that I wanted to teach myself the flute. A couple quick notes: A teacher (or at least a friend who plays flute) will make life much easier for you.

The book is reasonably well illustrated and the musical samples provide enough interest to keep a motivated learner going. I can't speak to whether the instruction on reading music is useful as I came at the book already reading music. I just needed to know how to make notes out of the flute.

I do wish that a comprehensive fingering chart of all 3 octaves were included (there's a 2-octave chart with the 3rd octave scattered through the last two "volumes"), and I think that dynamics are addressed later in the book than they should, but overall it's a great read. my own experiences with the book are documented at don.dream-in-color.net/flute

This flute method introduces all the notes, scales and keys and uses popular pieces to teach most of the material. That makes it fun for students. This is especially true as compared to the very dry and ubiquitous Rubank series. It covers a wide range of rhythms, including even triplets and is great for learning dexterity and playing fast. The notes are introduced with nice pictures.

However, as a flute player who has taught a number of students over the years, I noticed that it lacks some of the fundamentals. It doesn't introduce dynamics until the end of Vol 3 and hardly uses them after that. Dynamics are so important to learning to play musically. It also doesn't contain any duets, so the student doesn't get the opportunity to play with their teacher or anyone else. Advanced materials, such as thirty-second notes grace notes, trills and double-tonguing are not taught and even staccatos are only introduced at the end of the series.
The beginning series by Trevor Wye is more thorough (and is also enjoyable), but some students might do better in this book, especially if it is supplemented with other material.