Ana Kavĉiĉ Pucihar and Blaž Pucihar Fluting Stars Book 1
In my humble opinion, this is the book I wish I had started flute on. I love the color pictures, the games, puzzles, and activities. The original music with accompaniment would have made me feel like a rock star! This is a great book for younger kids starting to learn flute.
This book is composed in two large sections: Part one with introduction to the parts of the flute, practicing, breathing, embouchure exercises, articulation exercises, vibrato, intro to fingering chart, first notes, and intro to reading and writing music. Part two is the Key leaps with music theory, music history, review, long tone exercises, aural skills exercises, finger exercises and other exercises like puzzles and crosswords to reinforce musical symbols. There are many colorful pictures throughout the book to demonstrate posture and position by model students, as well as cartoon flutists and pictures of students holding flutes in different sizes. The first 20 pages are mainly simple reading and fun exercises for breathing, embouchure, tone, high/low notes, articulation, vibrato and first notes D1, G1 and 2, A1 and 2, and B1 and 2. The portion on “How We Write Music” provides an abundance of drawing exercises for drawing treble clefs, whole/half/quarter notes and rests, bar lines and compositions. All new material presented in Part 2 is placed at the very beginning of the Key Leap in the “Fluting Stars Magazine.” Here new notes, rhythms, musical concepts, review, and bits of music history are placed. Each Key Leap has exercises including concepts from the magazine pages, as well as ear training exercises (from a source you can download online), puzzles, and composition projects to reinforce what was learned and new concepts. Many pieces throughout the book are encouraged to be played in both the low octave and the high octave, however the second octave isn’t displayed in written form until the final chapter of the book.
· Range of notes: D1-B2
· Order of notes: D1, G1, G2, A1, A2, B1, B2, G1, A1
· Rhythm: whole notes/rests; half notes/rests; quarter notes/rests; dotted half notes
· Other: multiple bar rests; 1st and 2nd endings; staccato; octave sign
For more on these books from other teachers, check out fluteplay and the littleflutes community. #littleflutelearner #allthingslittleflutes Also, special thanks to Stéphanie Superle for the graphics included in this post.