This evening at dinner Jonathan gave me his extra copy of Hotteterre's L'art de preluder sur la flute transversiere. He thought I would appreciate it because of my interest in the Baroque period of music, because I have some knowledge of French, and because he thought it might be something I could use in my practice routine. Right on all accounts.
L'art de preluder becomes the sixth method book in my collection. I have the four Rubank method books for flute (used in the Darien Public School system 30 years ago and by my second flute teacher; and the first volume of which my mother has, along with my student flute), a method book for C instruments developed for the Norwalk Public Schools (which I used when teaching a beginning student who belongs to my church in preparation for starting lessons at school), the dreaded Taffanel-Gaubert (which my last flute teacher used), and now L'art de preluder. This represents only a small fraction of available method books. I've been considering the Altes vol. 2 based on the suggestion of Linda Chesis during her Open Master Class at the NFA Convention, but at this stage of my flute life, how many method books do I really need?
For a fairly comprehensive list check out Ardal Powell's Bibliography of Flute Method Books on his site flutehistory.com. (Side note: Who puts together a bibliography without alphabetizing it?) Even if one eliminates the more obscure and historical ones, the list still contains more than any one student could possibly use in a lifetime. So unless anyone has any strong recommendations, along with concrete suggestions on how to use them, I'm going to stick with what I've got. At least until my next teacher...
No comments:
Post a Comment